INTRODUCTION TO POETRY
WHAT IS POETRY?
Poetry is the most misunderstood form of
writing. It is also arguably the purest form of
writing.
 Poetry is a sense of the beautiful; characterized
by a love of beauty and expressing this through
words.
 It is art.

WHAT IS POETRY? CONT.
Like art, poetry is very difficult to define
because it is an expression of what the poet
thinks and feels and may take any form the
poet chooses for this expression.
 Often it takes the form of verse, but not all
poetry has this structure.
 Poetry is a creative use of words which, like all
art, is intended to stir an emotion in the
audience.

CONSTRUCTING POETRY
Poetry, though it may seem simple in appearance,
is a very complex art form, which is why it can be
difficult to construct and deconstruct.
 When constructing, or even reading poetry, it is
important to consider the following:
the form or structure,
the meter or beat,
sound devices,
meaning devices,
and linguistic devices.

STRUCTURE OF POETRY
Poetry generally has some structure that
separates it from prose.
 The basic unit of poetry is the line.
 It serves the same function as the sentence in
prose, although most poetry maintains the use
of grammar within the structure of the poem.

STRUCTURE OF POETRY
Most poems have a structure in which each line
contains a set amount of syllables; this is
called meter.
 Lines are also often grouped into stanzas.
 The stanza in poetry is equivalent or equal to
the paragraph in prose.

STRUCTURE OF POETRY


Often the lines in a
stanza will have a
specific rhyme scheme.
Some of the more
common stanzas are:

Couplet: a two line
stanza

Triplet: a three line
stanza

Quatrain: a four line
stanza

Cinquain: a five line
stanza
METER
Meter is the measured arrangement of words in
poetry, the rhythmic pattern of a stanza,
determined by the kind and number of lines.
 This is the “beat” of the poem.
 Meter is an organized way to arrange
stressed/accented syllables and
unstressed/unaccented syllables.
 Whose woods / these are / I think /I know

METER CONT.
The unit of meter is called the foot.
 The length of lines is described by the number of
repeated "meters" in the line.
 Meter (1), dimeter (2), trimeter (3), tetrameter
(4), pentameter (5), hexameter (6), heptameter
(7) and octameter (8).



....1.............. 2.................3..............4................ 5
Shall I | com PARE | thee TO | a SUM | mer’s DAY?
The above would be considered a pentameter.
STRESS PATTERNS
The most common foot in English is the iamb,
which consists of two syllables, the second one
of which is accented.
 Another common foot is the trochee (also two
syllables, but with the first accented)
 Some metrical feet (dactyl and anapest) have
three syllables.

STRESS PATTERNS

Iamb
Unstressed + Stressed
/
- / - / /
and walked with inward glory crowned
2 Syllables

Trochee
Stressed + Unstressed
/ / - / - / Piping down the valleys wild
2 Syllables

Anapest
Unstressed + Unstressed + Stressed
3 Syllables
- / /
- - / - - /
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold

Dactyl
Stressed + Unstressed + Unstressed
3 Syllables
/ /
- - / - - / - Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me.
STRESS PATTERNS

Spondee
Stressed + Stressed
/
/
/ - - - /
- - /
White founts falling in the court of the sun
2 Syllables
The spondee is a very important poetic device that poets can
use to emphasis meaning within their writing style.

Pyrrhic
Unstressed + Unstressed
2 Syllables
/
/
- /
/
When the blood creeps and the nerves prick
The pyrrhic is also known as a dibrach.

It is unrealistic to construct a whole, serious poem with spondees or
pyrrhics - consequently, they mainly occur as variants within other
structures.
STRESS PATTERNS
A line with three iambic feet is known as iambic
trimeter.
 A line with six dactylic feet is known as dactylic
hexameter.
 Shakespeare is famous for his use of the iambic
pentameter.
/
/
/ / /
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

BLANK VERSE

Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter,
common in Shakespeare's plays and many longer
poems, such as John Milton's Paradise Lost, the
beginning of which provides a famous example:
Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse. . .
FREE VERSE

Free verse is just what it says it is - poetry that
is written without proper rules about form,
rhyme, rhythm, and meter. In free verse the
writer makes his/her own rules. The writer
decides how the poem should look, feel, and
sound.
FREE VERSE EXAMPLE
Winter Poem~By Nikki Giovanni
once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
still and was a flower
SOUND DEVICES
All sound devices are interesting, because they
bring together words that sound alike, but do not
necessarily have anything else in common.
 In "Fire and Ice" the two words in the title are
opposite in meaning but have the same vowel
sound (assonance).
 The poem, which at times suggests that the two
are the same in a much as both can "end" the
world, would be much less effective if the words
lacked this assonance. This is why poetry is so
difficult to translate.

FIRE AND ICE

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
~Robert Frost
ALLITERATION
Alliteration is the repetition of the same sounds
or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning
of words or in stressed syllables, as in "on
scrolls of silver snowy sentences" (Hart Crane).
 Modern alliteration is predominantly
consonantal.
 To find an alliteration, you must look the
repetitions of the same consonant sound
through out a line.

ASSONANCE

the relatively close succession of the same or
similar vowel sounds, but with different
consonants: a kind of vowel rhyme.
From William Carol Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow"
Glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens.
CONSONANCE
The relatively close succession of the same end
consonants with different vowel sounds: a kind of
consonant rhyme.
 Notice all the "r" sounds in the last six lines of "Hyla
Brook":

Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.
ONOMATOPOEIA
The formation or use of words such as buzz or
murmur that imitate the sounds associated with
the objects or actions they refer to is called an
onomatopoeia.
 It is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the
sound it is describing, such as animal noises like
"oink" or "meow", or suggesting its source object
(these are the more important ones), such as
"boom", "click", "bunk", "clang", "buzz", or "bang".

IDENTIFY THE ONOMATOPOEIAS
SOUND OF NATURE
by Marie Josephine Smith
Ticking, tocking.
Head is rocking.
Tippy toeing. Quietly.
Snap, crack.
Crushing branch.
Helter, skelter.
Run for shelter.
Pitter, patter.
Rain starts to fall.
Gathering momentum.
Becomes a roar.
Thunder booms.
RHYME

Rhyme is when the endings of the words sound the
same. Read the poem and note the rhyming end words.
Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And save some part
Of a day I had rued.
RHYME SCHEME
Rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming words
at the end of each line.
 Not all poetry has a rhyme scheme.
 They are not hard to identify, but you must look
carefully at which words rhyme and which do
not in order to determine the rhyme scheme.

RHYME SCHEME

Poems of more than
one stanza often
repeat the same
rhyme scheme in
each stanza.
Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost








A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And save some part
Of a day I had rued.
REPETITION

Repetition is the repeating of a sound, word, or
phrase for emphasis.
Inside
Inside the house
(I get ready)
Inside the car
(I go to school)
Inside the school
(I wait for the bell to ring)
MEANING DEVICES
Diction- Writer’s choice of words
 The words that a writer chooses to use may
carry both denotative and connotative
meanings.
 Denotative- is its explicit definition as listed in a
dictionary.
 Connotative- the association or set of
associations that a word usually brings to mind

CONNOTATIVE
Connotation
Evil, danger,
deceit
VS.
DENOTATIVE
Denotation
any of numerous
scaly, legless,
sometimes
venomous
reptiles; having a
long, tapering,
cylindrical body
and found in most
tropical and
temperate regions
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Whenever you describe something by
comparing it with something else, you are using
figurative language.
 Figurative language is any language that goes
beyond the literal meaning of words in order to
furnish new effects or fresh insights into an
idea or a subject.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
The most common figures of speech are simile,
metaphor, and alliteration.
 Figurative language is used in poetry to
compare two things that are usually not
thought of as being alike.

SIMILE

A simile is a figure of speech in which two
essentially unlike things are compared, often in
a phrase introduced by like or as.
The clouds looked like cotton candy.
Grandpa was as stubborn as a mule
Tom's head is as hard as a rock.
METAPHOR

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which an
implied comparison is made between two unlike
things that actually have something important in
common.

Clouds are cotton candy.

Grandpa was a mule.

Tom is a rock.
unbreakable.
They are fluffy.
He is stubborn.
He is hard, sturdy,
IMAGERY
Imagery is an appeal to the senses.
 The poet describes something to help you to see,
hear, touch, taste, or smell the topic of the poem.
Similar to descriptive writing only in poetry form.

Fog
The fog comes on little cat feet.
It sits looking over harbor and city
SEE , HEAR
SEE
on silent haunches and then moves on. SEE, HEAR,
FEEL
~Carl Sandburg
ANALYZE THIS
The Eagle
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
IDIOM
An idiom is a phrase where the words together
have a meaning that is different from the
dictionary definitions of the individual words.
 This can make idioms hard for students to
understand.

A day late and a dollar short.
This idiom means it is too little, too late.
ANALYZE THAT
A Chip On Your Shoulder
 A Dime A Dozen
 A Drop In The Bucket
 A Piece Of Cake
 A Shot In The Dark
 A Slap On The Wrist
 A Slip Of The Tongue
 A Taste Of Your Own Medicine
 Add Fuel To The Fire

PERSONIFICATION
A figure of speech, which gives the qualities of a
person to an animal, an object, or an idea is called
personification.
 It is a comparison, which the author uses to show
something in an entirely new light, to communicate a
certain feeling or attitude towards it and to control
the way a reader perceives it.
A brave handsome tree fell with a creaking rending cry.
The author is giving a tree the human quality of bravery
and the ability to cry.

PUN
Pun- a pun occurs when a word is used in such a
way as to have more than one meaning; in this way
it is a kind of "instant metaphor."
In the "Oven Bird", after describing an "early petal
fall" Frost writes:
And comes that other fall we name the fall.

The fall of leaves becomes the season named "the
fall."
PARADOX

Paradox- a statement that on the surface seems to
contradict itself and does not make sense, but that at
another level express a truth..
In "The Oven Bird" Robert Frost writes,
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
"in singing not to sing" is a paradox; the contradiction is obvious;
what is not so obvious is what the "truth" of the statement is.
What Frost is actually doing here is "describing" the bird's song as
unsonglike and appropriate for a hot and motionless time of
the year.
PARADOX CONT.
What could Archibald MacLeish in "Ars Poetica" mean by
these paradoxes which begin his poem and say that a
poem should not "speak"?
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown-A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
SYMBOL
Symbol- an image that comes to stand for
something (often an idea) beyond itself.
 Icarus has come to stand for all men who "fly
too close to the sun" and do not heed the
cautions of their parents.

APOSTROPHE

Apostrophe- a figure of speech in which a poem
seems to speak to something that cannot respond.
Here, Lord Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break" is
addressing the sea:
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
ALLUSION

Allusion- a reference to something like a person, a
quote from a famous source (in English and American
literature often the Bible), or a famous work of art.
William Blake's "A Poison Tree" seems to make an allusion to the
story of the Garden of Eden.
(And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.)
Both William Carlos Williams'
"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"
and W.H. Auden's "Musées de
Beaux Arts" make allusions to a
famous painting by Breughel and
to the fall of Icarus depicted in the
painting.
2 LINGUISTIC DEVICES
Inversion-the reordering (inverting) of the usual word order of a sentence, often
by placing the subject after the verb as in the lines of Philip Larkin's from
"Coming":
On longer evenings,
Light, still and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses
or these by Emily Dickinson from "I never Saw a Moor"

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
2 LINGUISTIC DEVICES
But no one inverts more than ee cummings in
"Me up at does"
Me up at does
out of the floor
quietly Stare
a poisoned mouse
2 LINGUISTIC DEVICES
Parallelism-is a general term that includes a number of
specific devices all of which are rooted in having
different parts of a sentence or corresponding parts in
two sentences mirror each other in structure.
Parallelism is a frequent device in prose as well as
poetry.
Blake's "The Poison Tree" begins with a stanza where the
third line parallels the first, and the fourth, the second.

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty" ends with a sentence that
has several examples of parallel structure:
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break" includes two sentences that
parallel each other in structure.
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

Some might consider the study of poetry old
fashioned, yet even in our hurried lives we are
surrounded by it: children's rhymes, verses
from songs, trite commercial jingles, well
written texts. Any time we recognize words as
interesting for sound, meaning or construct, we
note poetics.