POETRY NOTES
POETRY is...
a type of literature that expresses ideas and
feelings, or tells a story in a specific form
(usually using lines and stanzas)
POINT OF VIEW
POET
the author of the poem, the person who actually wrote it
VS
SPEAKER
the “narrator” of the poem, the voice telling us the thoughts/feelings/story
POETIC FORM
● FORM - the appearance of the words on the page
● LINE - a group of words together on one line of the poem
● STANZA - a group of lines arranged together
● A word is dead ● When it is said, ● Some say.
● I say it just ● Begins to live ● That day.
● - Emily Dickinson
POETIC SOUND EFFECTS
RHYTHM
The beat created by the sounds of the
words in a poem.
METER
➢A pattern of stressed (strong) and unstressed (weak) syllables
➢Each unit or part of the pattern is called a “foot”
➢Types of Feet:
• Iambic - unstressed, stressed
• Trochaic - stressed, unstressed
• Anapestic - unstressed, unstressed, stressed • Dactylic - stressed, unstressed, unstressed
RHYME
Words sound alike because they share the same ending vowel and consonant sounds.
● LAMP ● STAMP
● Share the short “a” vowel sound
● Share the combined “mp” consonant sound
RHYME SCHEME
● a pattern of rhyming words or sounds (usually end rhyme, but not always).
● Use the letters of the alphabet to represent sounds to be able to visually “see” the pattern.
(See next slide for an example.)
SAMPLE RHYME SCHEME
Bid me to weep, and I will weep, While I have eyes to see;
And having none, yet I will keep A heart to weep for thee.
A B A B
END RHYME
● A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line
A B C B
● Hector the Collector
● Collected bits of string.
● Collected dolls with broken heads ● And rusty bells that would not ring.
● -”Hector the Collector” by Shel Silverstein
INTERNAL RHYME
● A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line.
● Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December ● - “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe
NEAR RHYME
● Also known as imperfect or “close enough” rhyme. The words share EITHER the same vowel or consonant sound BUT NOT BOTH
● ROSE ● LOSE
● Different vowel sounds (long “o” and “oo” sound) ● Share the same consonant sound (“s”)
OTHER TYPES OF POETIC DEVICES
REFRAIN
● A sound, word, phrase or line repeated regularly in a poem, usually at the end of each stanza or verse, such as the chorus in a song.
There lived a lady by the North Sea shore,
Lay the bent to the bonny broom
Two daughters were the babes she bore.
Fa la la la la la la la.
As one grew bright as is the sun,
Lay the bent to the bonny broom
So coal black grew the other one.
Fa la la la la la la la.
-”The Cruel Sister” by Francis J. Child
TONE
● Used in poetry to show feeling and emotion, and set the mood for the work.
● Can be established through word choice, the grammatical arrangement of words (syntax), imagery, or details that are included or omitted.
I met a traveler from an antique land. -from "Ozymandias” by Shelley
This line immediately generates a story-telling atmosphere, just as it is with the phrase, "Once
upon a time." An audience is clearly implied.
CONNOTATION vs DENOTATION
● Connotation: an emotional or social association with a word, giving meaning beyond the literal definition
● Denotation: the specific, literal image, idea, concept, or object that a word or phrase refers to
Word
a star
a family a dog
Denotation
ball of light/gas in the sky group of related individuals four legged mammal
Connotation
a wish
love, trust, closeness
friend, protector, pet
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
ALLITERATION
● Consonant sounds repeated at the beginnings of words
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
ALLUSION
● From the verb “allude” which means “to refer to” ● A reference to someone or something famous.
A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave. -from “Snowbound” by John Greenleaf Whittier
ANALOGY
● Comparison of two or more unlike things in order to show a similarity in their characteristics
● Two main types: – Simile
– Metaphor
SIMILE
● Comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as”
Friends are like chocolate cake, you can never have too many.
Chocolate cake is like heaven - always amazing you with each taste or feeling. Chocolate cake is like life
with so many different pieces. Chocolate cake is like happiness,
you can never get enough of it. - “Chocolate Cake” by Anonymous
METAPHOR
● Comparison of two unlike things where one word is used to designate the other (one is the other)
A spider is a black dark midnight sky.
Its web is a Ferris wheel.
It has a fat moon body and legs of dangling string. Its eyes are like little match ends.
- “Spider” by Anonymous
EXTENDED METAPHOR
● Continues for several lines or possibly the entire length of a work
The fog comes on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over the harbor and city
on silent haunches and then, moves on.
- “Fog” by Carl Sandburg
ASSONANCE
● Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line (or lines) of a poem
● Often creates Near Rhyme
● A leal sailor even
● In a stormy sea
● Drinks deep God’s Name ● In ecstasy
● -”Peaceful Assonance” by Sri Chinmoy
ASSONANCE cont.
Slow the low gradual moan came in the snowing.
- From “Dauber: a poem” by John Masefield
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep.
- From Othello by William Shakespeare
CONSONANCE
● Similar to alliteration EXCEPT:
– repeated consonant sounds can be anywhere in
the words, not just at the beginning!
And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day ...How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe
Will, mouthed to flesh-burst, Gush!—
- From “The Wreck of the Deutschland” by Gerald Manley Hopkins
IDIOM
● the literal meaning of the words is not the meaning of the expression. It means something other than what it actually says.
Feeling under the weather
you could have knocked me down with a feather. It was like a bolt out of the blue, when I met you. an English rose, in the flower of youth;...
-from “My Sweet Idiom” by Paul Williams
IMAGERY
● Language that provides a sensory experience using sight, sound, smell, touch, taste
Soft upon my eyelashes Turning my cheeks to pink Softly falling, falling
Not a sound in the air Delicately designed in snow Fading away at my touch Leaving only a glistening drop And its memory
- “Crystal Cascades” by Mary Fumento
HYPERBOLE
● An intentional exaggeration or overstatement, often used for emphasis
Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world
-from "The Concord Hymn" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
LITOTE
● Intentional understatement, used for humor or irony (Example- naming a slow moving person “Speedy”)
ONOMATOPOEIA
●
Words that imitate the sound that they are naming
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear; Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
- from “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes
OXYMORON
● Combines two usually contradictory terms in a compressed paradox, as in the word bittersweet or the phrase living death
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true...
-from Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I do here make humbly bold to present them with a short account of themselves...
-from A Tale of a Tub by the poet and author Jonathan Swift
Work entitled "She's All My Fancy Painted Him" by the poet and author Lewis Carroll
PERSONIFICATION
● A nonliving thing given human of life-like qualities
Hey diddle, Diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
-from “The Cat & the Fiddle” by Mother Goose
SYMBOLISM
● The use of a word or object which represents a deeper meaning than the words themselves
●
It can be a material object or a written sign used to represent something invisible.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
-from “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
(Some) Types of Poetry
NARRATIVE POEMS
● Longer and tells a story, with a beginning, middle, and end
● Generally longer than the lyric styles of poetry because the poet needs to establish characters and a plot
Example: “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes
LYRICAL POEMS
● Short poem (only a few lines, 1-2 stanzas)
● Usually written in first person point of view
● Expresses an emotion or an idea, or describes a scene
● Does not tell a story and are often musical
CONCRETE POEMS
● Words are arranged to create a picture that relates to the content of the poem
“Shoes” by Morghan Barnes
ACROSTIC POEMS
● The first letter of each line forms a word or phrase (vertically). An acrostic poem can describe the subject or even tell a brief story about it.
After an extensive winter
Pretty tulips
Rise from the once
Icy ground bringing fresh signs of Life.
-”April” by Anonymous
FREE VERSE POEMS
● DoesNOThaveany repeating patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables
● DoesNOThaverhyme
● Veryconversational- sounds like someone talking with you
BLANK VERSE POEMS
● Does have a regular meter, usually iambic pentameter (five sets of stressed/unstressed)
● Does NOT have rhyme
● Used by classical playwrights, like
Shakespeare
̆/ ̆/ ̆/ ̆/ ̆/ To swell the gourd, and plump the ha-zel shells
-from “Ode to Autumn” by John Keats
COUPLET
● Two lines with end rhyme and the same meter
● Can be its own poem or a part of another poem
● Often found at the end of a sonnet
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
is idle, biologically speaking.
-at the end of a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay
HAIKU
● Japanese style poem written in three lines
● Focuses traditionally on nature
● Lines respectively are 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables
Whitecaps on the bay:
A broken signboard banging In the April wind.
-untitled haiku by Richard Wright
QUATRAIN
● Stanza or short poem containing four lines ● Lines 2 and 4 must rhyme, while lines 1 and
3 may or may not rhyme
● Variations in rhyming patterns (abab, abcb)
A B C B
O, my luve's like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June:
O, my luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune.
-from “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns
CINQUAIN
● Stanza or short poem containing five lines
● Patterns and syllables are changing!
CINQUAIN cont’
Cinquain Pattern #1
Line1: One word Line2: Two words Line 3: Three words Line 4: Four words Line 5: One word
Dinosaurs Lived once, Long ago, but
Only dust and dreams Remain
-by Cindy Barden
CINQUAIN cont’
Cinquain Pattern #2
Line1: A noun
Line2: Two adjectives Line 3: Three -ing words Line 4: A phrase
Line 5: Another word for the noun
Mules Stubborn, unmoving Braying, kicking, resisting Not wanting to listen People
-by Cindy Barden
CINQUAIN cont’
Cinquain Pattern #3
Line1: Two syllables Line2: Four syllables Line 3: Six syllables Line 4: Eight syllables Line 5: Two syllables
Baseball
Bat cracks against
The pitch, sending it out Over the back fence, I did it! Homerun
-by Cindy Barden
LIMERICK
● A five line poem with rhymes in line 1, 2, and 5, and then another rhyme in lines 3 and 4
What is a limerick, Mother? It's a form of verse, said Brother
In which lines one and two
Rhyme with five when it's through B
And three and four rhyme with each other. A - untitled and author unknown
A A B
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET also known as
ENGLISH SONNET
● Fourteen lines with a specific rhyme scheme
● Written in 3 quatrains and ends with a couplet
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee
● Rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg
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