Welcome to the Wonderful World of Poetry…
an alliteration!)
We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of
the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering,
these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are
what we stay alive for. ~Dead Poet's Society
(that’s
What is Poetry?
According to poet Marianne Moore, poems are
“imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”
•An “imaginary garden” because it is the
creation of the poet’s imagination,
•It has “real toads” too because it also comes
from the poet’s experiences in real life.
What is Poetry?
Poetry is a genre (type/form) of literature.
– Poetry is a very expressive type of literature
– Every word is important and full of meaning
– Poetry is written in a specific form - lines and
stanzas. Other genres are not.
– Other genres like fiction, nonfiction and drama (plays)
are written in prose form (sentences and paragraphs)
Poetry is All Around Us
• It’s the jingles of jump-rope chants, television
commercials and the words of songs you like.
• Poetry can:
– tell a story, present a picture, reflect on life,
or express an emotional experience.
• No matter what the purpose -poetry is the
most musical of all literary forms.
– Note that rhyme is not necessary (more on that
later).
Introduction To Poetry by Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or
press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch
him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls
for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a
poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to
do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of
it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.
Poetry is very Personal You and I will often interpret
the same poem a differently.
So, how do I figure out what the poem means to me?
Word choice is a key.. every word is significant
Connotation:
Denotation:
The way a word
makes us feel.
The actual dictionary
definition of the word.
Words can give us different feelings when we hear them…some positive, some
negative, and everything in between! See the example below The following words and phrases all refer to "a young person," but their
connotations may be quite different depending, in part, on the context in
which they appear: youngster, child, kid, little one, small fry, brat, urchin,
juvenile, minor.
Some of these words tend to carry favorable connotations (little one), others
unfavorable (brat), and still others fairly neutral connotations (child). Calling a
young person a brat lets our readers know at once how we feel about the
rotten kid.
…But does poetry have to be
so serious to be good?
• No, poetry can take on any mood or tone –serious, funny, etc.
and still be powerful.
• Poems have
– Theme: the insight into life of central idea provided in a poem.
– Tone: the attitude the writer takes toward the subject of the poem
or the audience.
– Mood: the feeling the poem creates in the reader when it is read.
– There are NO rules about what the theme, tone or mood have to be
like.
• For example, read /listen to the poems
• “Maybe Dat's Your Pwoblem Too” and
• “Annabel Lee” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4bb_6MmgZo
• Can you identify the theme, tone or mood of each? Consider word
choice to help.
POINT OF VIEW IN POETRY
POET
• The poet is the author
of the poem.
SPEAKER
• The speaker of the
poem is the “narrator”
of the poem.
POETRY 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
KINDS OF STANZAS
Couplet
Triplet (Tercet)
Quatrain
Quintet
Sestet (Sextet)
Septet
Octave
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
a two line stanza
a three line stanza
a four line stanza
a five line stanza
a six line stanza
a seven line stanza
an eight line stanza
How to Read a Poem
1. Read a poem slowly and more than once.
2. Remember that every word in a good poem is
significant to the poem’s effect. Use a dictionary
to look up unfamiliar words.
3. Use punctuation as a guide to the meaning of the
poem. Read the poem as you would prose, with
words grouped into thoughts instead of line by line.
4. Notice the title.
How to Eat a Poem
Don’t be polite.
́
́
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may
run
down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.
a line of a poem
does not have to be
a sentence
a line of a poem
can be a fragment of a sentence
Lines
of
a Poem
with or without punctuation
With or without capital letters
it
can
spread
itself out
taking time
as it
floats
down
the
page.
Lines
of
a Poem
a line
of a poem
can go anywhere
you want it
to.
but if you want to emphasize
a word
put it all
alone
like a
star
or a
bird
or a
crab.
Poetry Practice
Using the book at your table, select one poem from
the book to represent the group. Divide up the duties
below and prepare to present your poem to the class:
1. Snap a picture & upload to my wiki (share with me for
display when your group presents.)
2. Identify the number of lines and stanzas in your poem.
Notice anything unique about the form.
3. Identify the poet and speaker
4. Read the poem aloud
Poetic Elements
• The following slides review elements of poetry
• You should be able to label these in poems
later in the PowerPoint
• These elements fall into two categories
– Rhythmic/Sound Devices
– Figurative Language
Rhyme & Rhythm
• You have probably seen
more traditional poetry
than any other kind.
– Unlike most modern
poetry, traditional
poetry follows certain
strict patterns of rhyme
and rhythm.
• Whether it is traditional
poetry or modern,
rhyming and sound
devices create the
rhythmic quality we see in
poetry.
RHYME
• Words sound alike
because they share the
same ending vowel and
consonant sounds.
• (A word always rhymes
with itself.)
LAMP
STAMP
Share the short “a”
vowel sound
Share the combined
“mp” consonant sound
END RHYME
• A word at the end of one line rhymes with a
word at the end of another line
Hector the Collector
Collected bits of string.
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.
INTERNAL RHYME
• A word inside a line rhymes with another
word on the same line.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and
weary.
From “The Raven”
by Edgar Allan Poe
NEAR/SLANT RHYME
• a.k.a imperfect rhyme,
close rhyme
ROSE
LOSE
• The words share EITHER
the same vowel or
consonant sound BUT
NOT BOTH
Different vowel sounds
(long “o” and “oo”
sound)
Share the same
consonant sound
RHYME SCHEME
• A rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme (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
The Germ by Ogden Nash
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.
a
a
b
b
c
c
a
a
Rhyme Scheme
• Can you complete the
rhyme scheme of this
poem by Lewis Carroll?
• Start with “A” and mark
the lines that rhyme with
the same letter.
How Doth the Little Crocodile
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws.
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
FREE VERSE POETRY
• Unlike metered poetry,
free verse poetry does
NOT have any repeating
patterns of stressed and
unstressed syllables.
• Does NOT have rhyme.
• Free verse poetry is
very conversational sounds like someone
talking with you.
• Considered a more
modern type of poetry.
Free Verse
Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
-Carl Sandburg
Free
Verse
Miracles
By Walt Whitman
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
Lyric
Poetry
(Describing a scene)
Oranges
By Gary Soto
The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickle in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn’t say anything.
I took the nickle from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady’s eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.
Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl’s hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands
Meter
• Meter – a pattern of
stressed and unstressed
syllables in a line of poetry.
Meter is the rhythm you hear
when a poem is read aloud.
´ ˘ Peter,
´ ˘ pumpkin
´ ˘ eater,
´ ˘
Peter,
˘ couldn’t
˘ keep
˘
´ a˘ wife
´ and
´
´ her;
Had
˘ in
˘ shell
´ her
´ a˘ pumpkin
´
´
Put
˘ there
˘ very
´ ˘ well.
´
And
´ he˘ kept
´ her
Clap on the accented/stressed syllables ´ and
don’t clap on the unaccented/unstressed syllables ˘.
K. Doolin Revised 11/2012
28
ONOMATOPOEIA
• Words that imitate the sound they are
naming
BUZZ
• OR sounds that imitate another sound
“The silken, sad, uncertain, rustling of
each purple curtain . . .”
Refrain
Repetition
Refrain is when
a poem repeats
entire lines or
more several
times
throughout.
Repetition is
when a word
or phrase is
repeated just
once or in
one specific
area of the
poem.
Like the chorus
of a song
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?
CONSONANCE
• Similar to alliteration EXCEPT . . .
• The repeated consonant sounds can be
anywhere in the words
“silken, sad, uncertain, rustling . . “
ASSONANCE
• Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line or lines of
poetry.
(Often creates near rhyme.)
Lake
Fate
Base Fade
(All share the long “a” sound.)
Can you find sound devices???
• Read “Jabberwocky” and locate sound devices
as instructed on your handout.
Figurative Language
•Authors say things sometimes that they do not
mean literally.
Hurry!
Time is
about to
run out!
•This is commonly called using a “figure of
speech”.
•There are several types of figurative language.
METAPHOR
• A direct comparison of two unlike things -with out using
“like” or “as”.
• Examples:
– Oh bright angel, speak again!” It is the East, and Juliet is the
sun!”
- William Shakespeare
– “All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.”
- William Shakespeare
EXTENDED METAPHOR
• A metaphor that goes several lines or possible
the entire length of a work.
• Read “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes on
the next slide to see how Hughes extends the
metaphor
EXTENDED METAPHOR
Mother to Son
by Langston Hughes
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floorBare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin‘ landin's,
And turnin'corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now-For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
SIMILE
• A comparison of two things using “like” or
“as”.
• Examples:
– “She is as beautiful as a sunrise.”
– “The river is peaceful, like a new baby sleeping.”
Allusion
• Allusion comes
from the verb
“allude” which
means “to refer
to”
• An allusion is a
reference to
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”
John Greenleaf Whittier
Personification
•When human like qualities are given to an
animal or object.
•Examples:
•The video camera observed the whole
scene.
•The strawberries seemed to sing, "Eat
me first!"
Hyperbole
• Big exaggeration, usually
with humor and often used
for emphasis.
• Examples:
– She ordered a mile high ice
cream cone.
– My parents are going to kill
me if I fail math!
Imagery
•Language that
appeals to the
senses.
•Most images are
visual, but they can
also appeal to the
senses of sound,
touch, taste, or smell.
from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by
William Wordsworth.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Idiom
• An expression where the literal meaning of
the words is not the meaning of the
expression. It means something other than
what it actually says.
• Ex. He let the cat out of the bag.
Can you identify figurative language??
• Read “The Highwayman” and locate examples
of both sound devices and figurative language
as instructed on your handout.
Consider sound devices, figurative
language and word choice in the poems
we read as we look at examples of
several types of poetry.
Forms of Traditional Poetry
The Ballad
The earliest forms of poetry were
often passed down through music.
A ballad is a poem that tells a story.
Ballads are usually written in quatrains
(stanzas with four lines).
They are generally quite lengthy, with many stanzas.
Ballad of Birmingham
Ballads
Follow on your copy of each Ballad as we listen.
Mark on your paper to note things you notice
about each poem.
https://youtu.be/EPdbHfgM0h0
Barbara Allen
Narrative Poetry
A Poem that tells a story, and has the elements of a story.
Often Narrative poems have a rhyme scheme.
Examples:
“The Highwayman”
“The Cremation of Sam McGee”
by Robert Service
YouTube - The Cremation of Sam McGee
LYRIC
• Generally a short poem
• Usually written in first person point of view
• Expresses
– an emotion
– an idea or
– describes a scene or person
• Does not tell a story
• Are often very musical/rhythmic
Lyric Poetry
VI (If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking)
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I
shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life
the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one
fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall
not live in vain.
Emily Dickinson
Lyric Poetry
Which Lunch Table?
Kristina George
Where do I sit?
All my friends
from last year
have changed;
my world is
fractured
lopsided
rearranged
Where do I fit?
Nothing is clear.
Can already tell
this will be
a jigsaw year.
Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face
by Jack Prelutsky
Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.
Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you'd be forced to smell your feet.
Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your head,
it soon would drive you to despair,
forever tickled by your hair.
Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,
your brain would rattle from the breeze.
Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,
not pasted on some other place-be glad your nose is on your face!
Lyric Poetry
Mirror
By Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful--The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old
woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Lyric Poetry
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
UNFOLDING BUD
Naoshi Koriyama
One is amazed
By a water-lily bud
Unfolding
With each passing day,
Taking on a richer color
And new dimensions.
One is not amazed,
At first glance,
By a poem,
Which is tight-closed
As a tiny bud.
Yet one is surprised
To see the poem
Gradually unfolding,
Revealing its rich inner self
As one reads it
Again
And over again.
Sonnet
A sonnet is a poem with
fourteen lines written in a
specific rhyme scheme.
The best form of poetry for
expressing romantic or
deep feelings.
The poet best known for writing
sonnets is Shakespeare, and the form
most often used is known as the
Shakespearian Sonnet.
Sonnet 116
Quatrain
Quatrain
Quatrain
Couplet
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
a
Admit impediments. Love is not love
b
Which alters when it alterations finds,
a
Or bends with the remover to remove.
b
Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark
c
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
d
It is the star to every wandering bark,
c
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. d
Love’s not Time’s fool, those rosy lips and cheeks
e
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.
f
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
e
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
f
If this be error and upon me proved,
g
I never write, nor no man ever loved.
g
-William
Shakespeare
(setting up
the problem)
(beginning to
answer the
problem)
(problem
solved)
HAIKU
A Japanese poem
written in three lines
Five Syllables
Seven Syllables
Five Syllables
An old silent pond . . .
A frog jumps into the pond.
Splash! Silence again.
CONCRETE POEMS
• In concrete poems, the
words are arranged to
create a picture that relates
to the content of the poem.
Poetry
Is like
Flames,
Which are
Swift and elusive
Dodging realization
Sparks, like words on the
Paper, leap and dance in the
Flickering firelight. The fiery
Tongues, formless and shifting
Shapes, tease the imiagination.
Yet for those who see,
Through their mind’s
Eye, they burn
Up the page.