Appreciating Poetry
•Form is the way a poem’s ________ and
_______ are laid out on the page.
•In some poems the lines are arranged in
_________, called stanzas.
•Traditional poems follow fixed rules, for
instance they might have a certain __________
of lines or a repeating pattern of __________ or
___________.
•Poems that do not follow set rules are called
________ ___________.
Appreciating Poetry
A Traditional Poem: A Minor Bird by Robert Frost
I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Circle the stanzas.
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
Highlight each pair of
rhyming words with a
different color.
The fault must partly have been in me,
The bird was not to blame for his key,
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.
Appreciating Poetry
A Free Verse Poem: Under the Back Porch by
Virginia Hamilton
As you listen to the poem,
draw what you visualize.
Circle the stanzas.
Our house is two stories high
Shaped like a white box.
There is a yard stretched around it
And in back
A wooden porch.
Under the back porch us my place.
I rest there.
I go there when I have to be alone.
It is always shaded and damp.
Sunlight only slants through the slats
In long strips of light,
And the smell of the damp
Is moist green,
Like the moss that grows here.
My sisters and brothers
Can stand on the back porch
And never know
I am here
Underneath.
It is my place.
All mine.
What do you learn about the
speaker of this poem?
What effect does the short
length of the last four lines
create?
Appreciating Poetry
UNDER THE BACK PORCH - PICTURE
Appreciating Poetry
Sound Devices:
• Rhyme – the repetition of sounds as the
______ of words, as in me and see.
• Rhythm – the pattern of ________ and
________ syllables in each line.
• Repetition – the use of a word, phrase, or line
more than __________.
• Alliteration – the repetition of consonant
sounds at the __________ of words, such as
the c in curved crook.
Appreciating Poetry
How thin and sharp is the moon tonight!
How thin and sharp and ghostly white
Is the slim curved crook of the moon tonight!
Underline the repeated
phrases.
Circle the rhyming words.
Put a box around the example
of alliteration.
Appreciating Poetry
A word is dead by Emily Dickinson
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
Draw a box around each
stanza.
Circle the rhyming words.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
Mark the pattern of stressed
and unstressed syllables that
create rhythm in the second
stanza.
Appreciating Poetry
Sound Devices:
• Onomatopoeia – the use of words (made up or
real) whose __________ suggest their
___________.
• Examples: achoo, bong, boom, bubble, clank,
fizz, hiss, knock, hiccup, meow
• Come up with 3 more on your own:
–
–
–
Appreciating Poetry
Cynthia in the Snow by Gwendolyn Brooks
It SUSHES.
It hushes
The loudness of the road.
It flitter-twitters,
And laughs away from me.
It laughs a lovely whiteness,
And whitely whirs away,
To be
Some otherwhere,
Still white as milk or shirts
So beautiful it hurts.
Highlight the onomatopoeic
words that the poet uses to
suggest the silencing effect of
falling snow.
Put a box around the
examples of alliteration.
Circle three pairs of rhyming
words.
Appreciating Poetry
Imagery and Figurative Language (Review):
• Simile – a comparison between two unlike
things, using the words like or as
• Metaphor – a comparison between two unlike
things that does not contain the word like or
as (saying one thing IS another).
• Personification – a description of an object,
an animal, a place, or an idea as if it were
human or had human qualities.
Appreciating Poetry
Example 1:
He’s white
As spilled milk,
My cat who sleeps
With his belly
Turned toward
The summer sky.
Example 2:
Fame is a bee.
It has a song –
It has a sting –
Ah, too, it has a wing.
Example 3:
Look out how you use proud
words.
When you let proud words
go, it is
Not easy to call them back.
They wear long boots, hard
boots; they
Walk off proud; they can’t
hear you
Calling –
Look out how you use proud
words.
Circle a simile.
Draw a box
around a
metaphor.
Highlight the
examples of
personification.
Appreciating Poetry
The Poet Inside You Project Due Dates:
Assignment #1 – Tuesday, April 24th
• Acrostic and Alliteration Poem
Assignment #2 – Friday, April 27th
• Couplet and Free Verse
Assignment #3 – Tuesday, May 1st
• Narrative
Assignment #4 – Friday, May 3rd
• Haiku, Cinquain, and Tanka
Assignment #5 – Tuesday, May 7th
• Limerick and Shape
Other important dates:
POETRY Test on Wednesday,
May 8th
The Poet Inside You POETRY
BOOK (all poems edited,
typed, and bound) due on
Friday, May 10th