What is Poetry?
April - May 2022
By Noel Awad
Understanding the basics of the most artistic yet challenging literary
genre
“Poetry is a type of literature that conveys a
thought, describes a scene or tells a story in
a concentrated lyrical arrangement of
words.”
-Poetry 101, Masterclass
The Basics
of
Poetry
RHYTHM &
METER
FORM
●
Verse
●
Stanza
●
Line break
●
Syllables
●
Rhythm
pattern–
stressed &
unstressed
syllables
●
Foot/Feet
RHYME
(sometimes)
●
Rhyme
scheme
○
AABB
○
ABBA
○
ABCB
● Verse: a single line of a poem
● Stanza: a grouping of lines, like a
Structure of A Poem
Lots of ideas in a small
amount of text
paragraph in prose (can be 2 lines or
14 lines, it depends on the type of
poem)
● Lineation  Line Break: end of a line
beginning of a new line. (Important
because it causes you to pause while
reading. Which could change the
rhythm altogether.)
William Shakespeare - Poetry for Kids
MoonDance Press (2018)
“If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body
so cold no fire can ever warm me, I
know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if
the top of my head were taken off, I
know that is poetry. These are the only way I
know it. Is there any other way?”
- Emily Dicksinson letter to T. W. Higginson, 16 August 1870
Setting the
Rhythm of a
poem –
TYPES OF METER
What are SYLLABLES?
A syllable is a single, unbroken vowel sound within a word. A syllable
always has a vowel sound but not necessarily consonants.
5 BASIC RHYTHMS OF VARYING STRESSED AND
UNSTRESSED SYLLABLES
The meters with two-syllable feet are:
● IAMBIC (x /) : That time of year thou mayst in me behold
●
TROCHAIC (/ x): Tell me not in mournful numbers
●
SPONDAIC (/ /): Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones,
O Sea!
Meters with three-syllable feet are
●
ANAPESTIC (x x /): And the sound of a voice that is still
●
DACTYLIC (/ x x): This is the forest primeval,
the murmuring pines and the hemlock (a trochee replaces the final
dactyl)
Each unit of rhythm is called a FOOT of poetry
Feet, well,
metrical feet
●
Types of feet: iambs,
trochees, spondees, anapests
& dactyls
●
Lines of feet:
(1)
(3)
(5)
(7)
monometer, (2) dimeter,
trimeter, (4) tetrameter,
pentameter, 6(hexameter),
heptameter (8) octameter
https://youtu.be/I5lsuyUNu_4