POETRY HOW-TOS: A TUTORIAL ON CONCRETE POEMS AND COUPLETS WHAT IS ? Dictionary.com defines poetry as, “The art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.” Poetry comes in many forms Concrete poetry and the couplet are two very different forms of poetry. CONCRETE POETRY What is it? According to PoemofQuotes, a concrete poem “uses typographical arrangements to display an element of the poem. This can either be through rearrangement of letters of a word or by arranging the words as a shape.” CONCRETE POETRY In a concrete poem, the words form a shape that represents the main idea of the poem. Before reading this poem (right), the reader can tell what the main idea of the poem is by the shape the words form… THE STEPS TO CREATING A CONCRETE POEM Step 1…Decide on a topic. Step 2…Write the poem. Make sure the topic is one that can be represented with an image. For example, rainbows. The words in a concrete poem can rhyme, but do not have to. Remember, the longer the poem, the more words you’ll have to fit into your image. Step 3…Choose the image you would like to represent your poem. For example, the image that will represent a poem about rainbows is a rainbow. CREATING A CONCRETE POEM (CONTINUED) Step 4…Create the image with words. The image can be drawn first and the words added after, or the words can simply form the image… THE COUPLET What is it? According to PoemofQuotes, “A couplet has rhyming stanzas made up of two lines.” The dog was much too fat. He couldn’t catch the cat. CLICK THE COUPLET A couplet can be composed of two lines, or multiple lines. • In a multiple-line couplet, every two lines must rhyme. • Goose and Moose It's hard to tell just what a goose will have in common with a moose. Or better yet, just what three geese will have in common with three meese. (Is that the plural for a mouse? Is grice the plural for three grouse?) I'll say this once, I'll say this thrice, the plural for a moose is mice, or plural for three mice is meeses. I think that I may fall to pieces. I feel my dizzy state increase about the mice, the grice and geese. by Denise Rodgers Copyright© Denise Rodgers THE STEPS TO CREATING A COUPLET Step 1…Decide on a topic. Step 2…Write the first line of the poem. Make sure the last word in the line can be made into a rhyming word…For example, do not use a word such as orange… Step 3…Write the second line of the poem. The last word of the second line must rhyme with the last word of the first line. REMEMBER… The key to good poetry of any type is creativity and imagination! REFERENCES 55 Types of Poetry. (2011). Retrieved July 7, 2011 from Couplet Poems and Couplet Poetry. (2011). Retrieved July 7, 2011 from http://www.poemofquotes.com/articles/poetry_forms.p hp http://www.funny-poems-for-free.com/coupletpoems.html Poetry. (2011). Retrieved July 7, 2011 from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poetry