Poetry
Colleen Tolle
Communications
Wayzata High School
1. Intro to Poetry
2. Glossary of terms
3. Sounds of poetry
A. Rhythm
- feet
- meter
B. “Lineage” and “The Courage
that My Mother Had”
C. “Song of the Open Road”
and “The Road Not Taken”
4. Poetry Explication
A. Notes
B. Wm Blake Chronology.
C. “The Tyger” and “The
Lamb”
D. “The Fountain”
5. Poetry Analysis and example
essay
A. Notes
B. “Counting the Beats”
6. Forms of Poetry
A. Ballad
- ”Bonny Barbara Allan”
B. Sonnet
- Petrarch
- Shakespeare
7. Poetry examples
A. “Incident in a Rose Garden”
B. “The Seven Ages of Man”
8. Poetry Unit Test
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Introductory Example from a poem by Eugene Field
THE GINGHAM DOG AND THE
CALICO CAT SIDE BY SIDE ON
THE TABLE SAT.
the GINGham DOG and the CAlico CAT
SIDE by SIDE on the TAble SAT
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Foot:
the basic unit of measurement
for counting accents in
poetry.
***Each foot contains only 2 or
3 syllables.***
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Types of Feet
1.Iambic foot: _____ syllables.
Emphasis on ______.
Ex) suggest
Ex)) pretend
Ex))) Renee
NOUN: Iamb
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Types of Feet, continued
2. Trochaic foot: _____ syllables.
Emphasis on _____.
Ex) problem
Ex)) rather
Ex))) Robert
NOUN: Trochee
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Types of Feet, continued
3. Anapestic foot: _____ syllables.
Emphasis on ______.
Ex) interrupt
Ex)) understand
Ex))) apprehend
NOUN: Anapest
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Types of Feet, continued
4. Dactylic foot: _____ syllables.
Emphasis on ______.
Ex) murmuring
Ex)) ruminate
Ex))) Henderson
NOUN: Dactyl
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Types of Feet, continued
5. Spondaic foot: ______ syllables.
Emphasis on ______.
Ex) Seagull
Ex)) Penguin
NOUN: Spondee
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Types of Feet, continued
6. Pyrrhic foot: ____ syllables.
Emphasis on ______.
Ex) in the
Ex)) as he
NOUN: Pyrrh
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Types of Feet, continued
7. Amphibrach foot: _____ syllables.
Emphasis on ______.
Ex) whatever
Ex)) ambitious
NOUN: Amphibrach
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Types of Feet, continued
8. Amphimacer foot: _____ syllables.
Emphasis on _______.
Ex) twenty-two
Ex)) underfed
NOUN: Amphimacer
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Meter:
Is the number of feet in a line of poetry.
Infinite number of feet possible for a line
of poetry, but traditionally stops at eight.
1. monometer = a line of poetry with only one foot
2. dimeter = a line with two feet
3. trimeter = a line with three feet
4. tetrameter =a line with four feet
5. pentameter = a line with five feet
(Shakespeare's favorite)
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Meter cont.
6. Hexameter =a line with six feet (popular
in French poetry)
7. Heptameter = a line with seven feet
8. Octameter =a line with eight feet
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Monometer
Thus I
When the dark
Pass by
Of a spring
And die.
Robert Herrick
Interrupts,*
There is one
Summers
Blend their
Colors
Rarely.
Jessie Jones
Who will serve.
Jessie Jones
*Note: words like “interrupts” may
reflect different feet depending on
context.
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Dimeter
Money
Workers earn it.
Spendthrifts burn it.
Bankers lend it.
Women spend it.
Forgers fake it.
Taxes take it.
Dying leave it.
Heirs receive it.
Thrifty save it.
Misers crave it.
Robbers seize it.
Rich increase it.
Gamblers lose it.
I could use it.
Richard Armour
Somersaults acrobats
Fly in their leotards
Over the murmuring
Summertime crowds.
Unknown
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Trimeter
The idle life I lead
Is like a pleasant sleep,
Wherein I rest and heed
The dreams that by me sweep.
Robert Bridges
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Tetrameter
The hills, the meadows, and the lakes,
Enchant not for their own sweet sakes.
They cannot know, they cannot care
To know that they are thought so fair.
Unknown
The grave's a fine and quiet place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Andrew Marvell
NOTE: Tetrameter was used
widely in the writing of
plays in England before
writers like Christopher
Marlowe and Shakespeare
made iambic pentameter the
standard meter in theater.
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Pentameter
True wit is Nature to advantage dressed.
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.
Alexander Pope
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Hexameter
From "The Eve of St. Agnes"
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.
John Keats
NOTE: Keats wrote "The Eve of St. Agnes" using Spenserian stanzas. Each stanza
ends with a line in hexameter. The stanza is called "Spenserian" because it was
invented by Edmund Spenser in the 16th century for his poem "The Faerie Queene."
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Heptameter
From “Casey at the Bat”
It looked extremely rocky for the Mudville nine that day.
The score stood four to six with but an inning left to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
Ernest Lawrence Thayer
NOTE: This meter was very popular in early 16th century
England and remains usually comic in tone.
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Octameter
From “The Raven”
Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Edgar Allen Poe
NOTE: The internal rhyme at the caesura (a natural
pause or break) in lines three and four.
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Poetry Explication—the study of
poetry
Step I. Examine the situation of the
poem.
Story
Emotion or mood
Speaker
Tone
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Poetry Explication—the study of
poetry
Step II. Examine the structure of the poem.
 Form of poem
 Movement of images and ideas—
chronological, cause/effect, free
association, circular
 Syntax of sentences, parts of speech
 Punctuation of lines—end-stopped line or
enjambment
 Title of poem
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Poetry Explication—the study of
poetry
Step III. Examine the language of the
poem.
Diction
Connotations
Allusions
Imagery
Figurative language
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Poetry Explication—the study of
poetry
Step IV. Examine the sound of the poem.
Rhyme scheme—ir/regular rhyme,
in/formal rhyme scheme, relation to
mood
Rhythm/Meter and its tonal effect
Poetic devices for sound—alliteration,
assonance, consonance
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Poetry Analysis—the essay
Paragraph I.
(Not a formal introductory paragraph)
Describe the conflicts in the poem and
the dramatic situation—who, what
when, where, why.
“This poem dramatizes the conflict
between . . .”
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Poetry Analysis—the essay
Paragraph II
Expand the discussion of the conflict.
Explain the poem, line by line, in terms
of the poem’s form, rhetoric, syntax,
and vocabulary.
Paragraph III
Incorporate important elements of
rhyme, rhythm, and meter.
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Poetry Analysis—the essay
Paragraph Final
 No formal concluding paragraph
 Do not simply restate ideas from introduction.
 Focus on sound effects or visual patterns from poem
to reinforce conflict.
 Points to consider
 Refer to the speaking voice in the poem as “the
speaker” or “the poet,” not by the poet’s name.
 Use present tense verbs throughout the analysis. The
poem continues to exist even if the poet does not!
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Instructions: Poetry Rhythm Quiz
Write down Foot/Meter Bank. (no symbols)
Write down each line of poetry.
Scan each line of poetry. (symbols + dividers)
At end of each line of poetry, write the
corresponding foot and meter.
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Poetry Rhythm Quiz Bank:
Feet & Meters
 Iambic
 Trochaic
 Anapestic
 Dactylic
 Spondaic
 Pyrrhic
 Amphibrach
 Amphimacer
 Monometer
 Dimeter
 Trimeter
 Tetrameter
 Pentameter
 Hexameter
 Heptameter
 Octameter
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QUIZ 1: Poetry Rhythm
 1. I saw eternity the other night.
 2. When silent I so many thousand, thousand years.
 3. To fight aloud is very brave
 4. Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee.
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Quiz 2: Poetry Rhythm
1. Play, Phoebus, on thy lute,
And we will all sit mute.
2. In Xanadu, did Kubla-Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
3. She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies.
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Quiz 3: Poetry Rhythm
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me.
Because I Could Not Stop for Death, Emily Dickinson

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Tyger! Tyger!, William Blake

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, Robert Frost
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