Intro to Poetry
Why Write it?
What does it do?
What’s inside a poem?
• Poetry includes certain things that
make it different from prose.
• Prose is any writing that is not
poetry.
Images
• When a poet tries to capture in
words how something looks, tastes,
smells, feels, or sounds, those
descriptions are called images.
Images
• “The hare limped
trembling through
the frozen grass.”
• John Keats
Imagery Expert
• Meet Sandra
Cisneros
• Most famous for
her book House on
Mango Street and
her Latin American
themes.
Imagery Expert
• Meet John Updike
• Most famous for a
series of books about
a character, Rabbit.
• Two of them won the
Pulitzer Prize, which
honors great American
fiction, usually about
the American life.
Now, Find the Images
• “Good Hot Dogs for
Kiki” by Sandra
Cisneros
• “September” by John
Updike
• What did you find?
• Dash those hot dogs
into buns and splash
on all the good stuff
• What did you find?
• The days are polished
with a morning haze
Word Music
• Good poets pick their words very
carefully. They are concerned as
much about what the word means as
how it sounds. Some word music
imitates sounds, and some word music
repeats them.
Word Music
• “buccaneers of buzz”
(referring to bees)
• Emily Dickinson
• “the silken, sad,
uncertain rustling in
our ears.”
• Edgar Allan Poe
Word Music Expert
• Meet Patricia
Hubbell
• East Coast poet.
• Has written many
poems for kids.
Word Music Expert
• Meet Walt Mason
• Known as “Uncle
Walt.”
• Known as a poet
philosopher
Now, Find the Word
Music
• “Flittermice” by
Patricia Hubbell
• “Football” by Walt
Mason
• What did you find?
• What did you find?
Beats that Repeat
• Poems have rhythms you can see,
hear, and feel ... like a kid swinging on
a swing. Beats in poetry are made up
of silences and whams. We call a
wham a “stress.”
Beats that Repeat
•
•
•
We Real Cool
THE POOL LAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL
•
•
We real cool. We
Left school. We
•
•
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
•
•
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
•
•
•
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Gwendolyn Brooks
Beats that Repeat
Expert
• Meet Robert Louis
Stevenson
• Most famous for
Treasure Island and
The Strange Case of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
• Literary celebrity
during his lifetime.
Beats that Repeat
Expert
• Meet Charles R.
Smith, Jr.
• Went to elementary
school in Compton, CA.
and now lives in
upstate New York.
• Loves his job
combining
photography, poetry,
and sports.
Now, Find the Beats that
Repeat
• “Windy Nights” by
Robert Louis
Stevenson
• “Allow Me to
Introduce Myself”
by Charles Smith,
Jr.
• What did you find?
• What did you find?
Likenesses
• Poets train themselves to see things
in ways others don’t. They are always
putting things together in
unexpected ways.
Likenesses
Thunder threatens
Like a sound that rolls around and
around
In a mean dog’s throat
--Martha Sherwood
Likenesses Expert
• Meet Langston
Hughes
• Most famous for
his innovation of
jazz poetry.
• Active member of
Harlem
Renaissance.
Likenesses Expert
• Meet Christina
Rossetti.
• English poet most
famous for her
long poem, “Goblin
Market.”
Now, Find the Likenesses
• “Dreams” by
Langston Hughes
• What did you find?
• “The Horses of the
Sea” by Christina
Rossetti.
• What did you find?
Word Play
• Poets are word lovers. They love
“rhymes, and chimes, and echoes.”
They also tend to invent new words,
combine words in strange ways, and
use puns and jokes. They play with
words.
Word Play
Sing me a song
of teapots and trumpets:
Trumpots and teapets
And tippets and taps,
Trippers and trappers
and jelly bean wrappers
and pigs in pajamas
with zippers and snaps
--N.M. Bodecker
Word Play Expert
• Meet E.E.
Cummings.
• Wanted to be a
poet as a kid and
wrote poetry daily,
from eight to 22!
• Was once a
prisoner of war!
Word Play Expert
• Meet Jack
Prelutsky.
• Grew up a poor kid
in the Bronx, NY.
• Has written more
than 50 poetry
collections.
Why write poetry?
1. To make someone smile: Some
poems are just for fun!
To Make Someone Smile
Commas
Do commas have mommas
Who teach them to pause,
Who comfort and calm them,
And clean their sharp claws?
Who tell them short stories
Of uncommon commas
And send them to bed
In their comma pajamas?
--Douglas Florian
To Make Someone Smile
Find One:
p
17 A Time to Talk, Robert Frost
37 Oranges, Gary Soto
77 If I Can Stop One Heart From
Breaking, Dickinson
109 Legacy II, Leroy V. Quintana
108 The Courage That My Mother Had,
Edna St. Vincent Millay
112 The Secret Heart, Robert P.
Tristram Coffin
180 The Listeners, Walter de la Mare
Why write poetry?
2. To tell a story: The very first
stories weren’t told in books, they
were sung or spoken in verse . . . from
memory. Some, called ballads, are
long while other recent story poems
are short.
To Tell a Story
The Purist
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist.
Trustees exclaimed, “He never bungles!”
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
“You mean,” he said, “a crocodile.”
--Ogden Nash
Why write poetry?
3. To send a message: Poems often
have a point; they leave us with
something to think about.
To Send a Message
The Golf Links
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
-- Sarah N. Cleghorn
Why write poetry?
4. To share feelings: Poets feel
strongly and want the reader to
experience that “feeling moment”
with them. Poets express happiness,
sadness, anger, fear, loneliness, etc.
To Share Feelings
4. To share feelings: Poets feel
strongly and want the reader to
experience that “feeling moment”
with them. Poets express happiness,
sadness, anger, fear, loneliness, etc.
Why write poetry?
5. To help you understand people:
What makes Jimmy avoid other kids?
How does it feel to be homeless?
Poems can give us insight into why
people make the choices they do.
Why write poetry?
6. To make people wonder: People love
magic and mystery: ghosts, dragons,
creatures. Sometimes, they weave a
more ordinary magic: finding the
wonder in an ordinary magnet, for
example.
Reference
You must determine your own opinions
about what constitutes the best
poetry.
This presentation was developed with
the ideas from Knock at a Star: A
Child’s Introduction to Poetry by X.J.
Kennedy and Dorothy M. Kennedy.