Poetry Notes
• Poetry is the most compact form of
literature.
• FORM – the way a poem looks- or its
arrangement on the page is its form.
– Poets deliberately chose arrangements of
words and even plan spaces between words &
letters to create the form.
• Stanza – groups of lines combined together
• Couplet – a pair of successive line which rhyme
usually
• Triplet – a three lined poem, some or all lines
may rhyme
Poetry Notes cont..
• Sound – Poems are meant to be read aloud
therefore poets choose & arrange words to create
the sounds they want the listener to hear. Common
ones are:
– Rhyme – words that end with the same sound.
• End rhyme
The old moon is tarnished
With smoke of the flood
The dead leaves are varnished
With color like blood,
There are many different rhyme
patterns a writer can use
• Example – AABB
Robert Frost’s “Once by the Pacific”
The shattered water made a misty din
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did before.
The clouds hung low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes
What literary device (figure of speech) is used in
this poem?
There are many different rhyme
patterns a writer can use
• Example – ABAB
T.S. Elliot’s “The Wasteland”
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover,
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to
pass:
“Well now that’s done; and I’m glad its over.”
There are many different rhyme
patterns a writer can use
• Example – ABCABC
T.S. Elliot’s “The Wasteland”
On Margate Sands
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing
What rhyme pattern is used in
Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice?
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold those who favor fire
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction by ice
Is also great
And would suffice
Free Verse: Does not follow a specific rhyme
or meter; even those the poets still write in a
rhythmic pattern.
This is done by repeating sentence patterns
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams
full dazzling
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the
orchard
Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows
Give me an arbor, give me the trellised grape
“Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun “
by Walt Whitman
Poetry is music to your ears
• So what else can a poet do to create music to
your ears?
• Alliteration: Repetition of consonant sounds in several words that
are close together Ex. The swimmer's skin sizzled in the sun.
• Assonance : Same thing except with vowels; anywhere in the words,
there is a repetition of vowels
– Ex. Please bake me a date cake.
• Consonance – anywhere in words, there is repetition of consonant
sounds
– Ex. Write a great paper by the due date.
•
Onomatopoeia – words that sound like the name of the word
– Ex. The cereal snapped, crackled, and popped.
• Repetition – words or phrases are repeated
– Ex. Because there is hope, because there is love,
because there is beauty, I can go on
• Rhyme – sound alike endings of words
– End rhyme – At the end of lines, words rhyme.
• EX. Jars and cans lined the rack; They tumbled down on my
back
– Internal rhyme – Words that rhyme are int the middle of
the line.
• EX. I carry a gold locket in my pocket
Poetry Devices
• Simile – a comparison of two unlike things
using like or as
– Ex. She is beautiful like the morning sun.
• Metaphor – a comparison of two unlike
things without using like or as
– Ex. Frank is a fox.
Poetry Devices
• Personification – an inanimate object is
given human like characteristic
– Ex. The trees danced in the wind.
• Hyperbole – a great exaggeration
– Ex. She ate a mountain of mashed potatoes.
Types of Poems
• Ballads: songlike poem that tells a story,
often a sad story of betrayal, death, or loss
Ballads usually have a regular steady
rhythm, a simple rhyme pattern and a
refrain, all of which make them easy to
memorize. Example: The Cremation of
Sam McGee. Most “country songs” are
ballads.
Epic
• Long narrative poem about the many deeds
of a great hero. Epics are closely connected
to a particular culture. The hero of an an
epic embodies the important values of the
society he comes from ( Heroes of epics
have so far been males) Good example is :
Beowulf, Casey at the Bat
Narrative Poems
• Poems that tell a story- a series of related
events Remember the word narrative
means stories. Paul Revere’s Ride
Lyric Poems
• Poem that does not tell a story but expresses the
personal feelings or emotions of the speaker.
Example: Valentine for Ernest Mann . Lyric, short
poem that conveys intense feeling or profound
thought. In ancient Greece, lyrics were sung or
recited to the accompaniment of the lyre. Elegies
and odes were popular forms of the lyric in
classical times. the Japanese verse called haiku is
a lyric
Ode
• Long lyric poem, usually praising some
subject and written in dignified language.
• Odes originally were songs performed to
the accompaniment of a musical
instrument.
• Example : Ode to Thanks/Oda a las gracias
Sonnet
• Fourteen line lyric poem that follow strict rules of
structure, meter and rhyme.
• Italian sonnet: you make a point in the first eight
lines, you ask a question, then the last six you
answer the question
• English or Shakespearean sonnet is made up of
three units with four lines in each one.
• John Keats was a famous English poet known for
his sonnets. On the Grasshopper and the Cricket.
Elegy
• It is a poem of mourning. Most elegies are
about someone that has died. Some mourn
a way of life that is gone forever.
• O Captain! My Captain by Walt Whitman is
a great example of elegy. It uses metaphor
to compare Lincoln’s life.