Elements
of
 A type of
literature that
expresses ideas,
feelings, or tells a
story in a specific
form (usually
using lines and
stanzas)
The Elements of Poetry
Poetry is hard to define. Even
poets argue among themselves
about what makes a poem a
poem. There are some common
characteristics, however, that we
can use to help us differentiate
between poetry and prose.
It should look like
a poem, meaning
that lines don’t run
to the margins.
Some lines are not
even sentences.
There are usually
some musical
devices that give
the poem a songlike, lyrical quality.
Images are
conveyed through
sensory details and
figurative language.
The poem has some
form to hold it
together. Some
poems actually have
a prescribed form
like haikus and
sonnets.
The poem has some
meaning,
image or
emotion it wants
to share with the
reader.
To critically analyze a poem, we must look at its
elements and see what they are doing to the
poem. Then we can infer a meaning to it.
The following slides will take us through the
elements so that we can recognize them, and
then we will try to put it all together and analyze
the meaning of the poem.
Form
Form is the structure of the poem. Any
type of writing must have something to
hold it together.
The structure can be created through
many means: meter, stanza, rhyme
scheme, or set patterns of poetry like
sonnet, haiku , concrete, and others.
Stanza
A stanza in poetry is like a paragraph in
prose. The author divides the poem by
grouping words into stanzas. We can
often see the structure of the poem by
the author’s use of stanza.
Stanza
•A unit of lines grouped together •
•Similar to a paragraph in prose
Couplet- •A stanza consisting of two
lines that rhyme
Quatrain - •A stanza consisting of four
lines
Imagery
Imagery is the senses the poem evokes in the
reader. Imagery puts the reader in the poem.
It helps the reader to “see” the poem.
The tools of imagery are
Senses : sound, sight, touch, smell, taste, and
emotion.
Figurative language : metaphor, simile,
personification, hyperbole, etc.
Compare/Contrast
Example: “Continuous as the stars that
shine and twinkle on the milky way”
Sensory details
Sensory details touch the five senses.
They make the poem vivid to the
reader.
Let’s look at the sensory details in the
poem “Those Winter Sundays.”
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blue black cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden
Trees
splintering
and
breaking
Sound
Smell
Sight
Those
Winter
Sundays
Taste
Touch
cracked
Hands
ached
In “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden has caused us to experience
several senses. “…[B]lueblack cold” certainly makes us feel how
cold it was. When the father’s hands are described as “cracked
hands that ached” we can feel the roughness. He describes the cold
“splintering and breaking.” We can hear the trees and ice crack.
And then the rooms “were warm” when the boy got up. We know
how that feels on a cold day. When the boy fears “the chronic
angers of that house” and when he speaks “indifferently to him” we
know what emotions the boy is feeling.
Hayden has caused us to feel cold, cracked hands and warm rooms.
We hear splintering and breaking and feel anger and indifference.
These sensory details make the poem come alive to us and help us to
feel what the boy felt on those winter Sundays.
Figurative Language
Figurative language is words not meant
to be taken literally. The words are
symbolic. We know these images as
metaphor, simile, personification,
hyperbole, and others. Because the
poet is comparing a less familiar object
to a common one, the comparison
makes the familiar image stronger.
Figurative Language
Metaphor
Direct Metaphor
Implied Metaphor
Simile
Simile
Personification
Love is
Blind
Winds of
Change
I Smell
a Rat
You’re
Ice
cold
Light of My
Life
What Is A Metaphor?
Apple of my eye
Heart of
stone
The Sweet Smell of Success
The World
Is a Stage…
Bite the
Bullet
Rolling in
Dough
Let the Cat Out
of the Bag
True Definition of Metaphors
Makes Comparisons Between
Two Unrelated Subjects
Expands the Sense
and Clarifies Meaning
Metaphor/Simile
Metaphors and similes compare
something in the poem to something
familiar outside the poem. Making the
connection requires background
knowledge for the metaphor/simile to
be meaningful to the reader.
Metaphor
Direct Metaphor
Comparing two unlike objects or ideas
My love is a rose
I item becomes the other item…
Metaphor, Continued
Indirect metaphor
- An indirect comparison between two
unlike things.
“My love has a rosy bloom”
I item has characteristics of the 2nd item
Look at the metaphors in the poem,
“frost.”
Frost
How does
The plain
Transparency
Of water
Sprout these
Lacy fronds
And plumes
And tendrils?
And where,
Before windowPanes, did
They root
Their lush forests,
Their cold
Silver jungles?
The author of this poem compared the frost on a window to the
lacy fronds, plumes, and tendrils of a fern. In the last stanza she
has expanded the comparison to “crystal forests” and “silver
jungles.” Let us picture that in our minds. Can we “see” the frost
on the window?
Why are Metaphors
Significant in Poetry?
Symbolism
Concise Language
Makes Language Livelier
Writers Use Them
Without Stating Obvious
Gives Words New Meaning
Simile
A comparison using like or as
“Life is like a box of chocolates”
Personification
Giving human qualities to an inanimate
object
“The moon smiled down on the lovers”
Personification
When an author uses personification, he gives
human characteristics to a non-human object.
Look at the human characteristics used by
Howard Nemerov in his poem “The Vacuum.”
Also notice how personification reveals the
speaker’s attitude toward housekeeping.
The Vacuum
The house is quiet now
The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,
Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth
Grinning into the floor, maybe at my
Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.
I’ve lived this way long enough,
But when my old woman died her soul
Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can’t bear
To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust
And the woolen mice, and begin to howl
Because there is old filth everywhere
She used to crawl, in corner and under the stair.
I know now how life is cheap as dirt,
And still the hungry, angry heart
Hangs on and howls, biting at air.
Hyperbole/ Exaggeration
The poet uses hyperbole to overstate
something to reveal the truth.
In a poem called “Sow” Sylvia Plath
describes how much the sow eats. She
writes, “Of kitchen slops and,
stomaching no constraint,/ Proceeded
to swill/ The seven seas and every
earthquaking continent.”
How much did the sow eat?
Idiom
An expression where the literal meaning
of the words is not the meaning of the
expression. It means something other
than what it actually says.
Ex. It’s raining cats and dogs.
Music
The poet uses musical devices to make
the poem song-like. In fact, some
poems are/were songs.
The musical devices we will discuss, and
be responsible for, are onomatopoeia,
rhythm, rhyme, letters, repetition,
pause, and enjambment.
Sound Techniques
Rhyme Scheme
Alliteration
Onomatopoeia
Music
The poet uses musical devices to
make the poem song-like. In
fact, some poems are/were
songs.
The musical devices we will
discuss, and be responsible for,
are onomatopoeia, rhythm,
FREE VERSE POETRY
Does NOT have
rhyme.
Free verse poetry is
very conversational sounds like someone
talking with you.
A more modern type
of poetry.
BLANK VERSE POETRY
from Julius Ceasar
Written in lines of
iambic pentameter,
but does NOT use
end rhyme.
Cowards die many times before their
deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but
once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have
heard,
It seems to me most strange that men
should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Pattern
Some poems are written in a set form
like sonnets, haikus, pantoums,
limericks, concrete, etc.
These patterns sometimes require a
regular rhyme scheme or meter; or
number of syllables or lines.
Meter
Meter is the set pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. The
main meter patterns are
Iambic -- U/ (one foot)
Trochee - /U
Anapest -- UU/
Dactyl -- //U
Iambic
Iambic is the most common pattern of meter since it is the way we
generally talk . It is the unstressed/stressed syllable pattern.
Here is an example of iambic lines:
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, (/U|U/|U/|U/)
The bridal of the earth and sky; (U/|U/|U/|U/)
The dew shall weep thy fall to night, (U/|U/|U/|U/)
For thou must die.(U/|U/|)
(from “Virtue” by George Herbert)
Trochee
Trochee is the reverse of an iamb. It is a stressed/unstressed
pattern like in this line:
Piping down the valleys wild, (/U|/U|/U|/)
Piping songs of pleasant glee, (/U|/U|/U|/)
On a cloud I saw a child, (/U|/U|/U|/)
From “Songs of Innocence” by William Blake
Anapest
Anapest is a meter pattern that sounds
like hoof-beats. UU/|UU/
A tutor who tooted the flute
(/|UU/|UU/|/)
Tried to teach two young tooters to toot.
Rhyme Scheme
Having a certain rhyme scheme also is
a way to give structure to poetry.
Look at the rhyme scheme in the poem
“Cross” by Langston Hughes. See how
it holds the poem together. Also notice
the use of stanzas. Why did Hughes
put these words in the stanza?
Cross
Langston Hughes
My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well.
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I’m gonna die
Being neither white or black?
Pattern
Some poems are written in a set form
like sonnets, haikus, pantoums,
limericks, concrete, etc.
These patterns sometimes require a
regular rhyme scheme or meter; or
number of syllables or lines.
Look at the following examples:
Rhythm
Rhythm is the beat of a poem.
It is the pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables.
End rhymes: the last word in the lines
rhyme
Internal rhymes: occurring within the
poem.
Exact rhymes: the words rhyme exactly
(e.g., tapping and rapping)
Approximate rhymes: sounds that are
similar but not exactly the same (e.g., bat
Counting-Out Rhyme
Silver bark of beech , and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Twig of willow.
Stripe of green in moosewood maple,
Colour seen in leaf of apples,
Bark of popple.
Wood of popple pale as moonbeam,
Wood of oak for yoke and bran-beam,
Wood of hornbeam.
Silver bark of beech, and hollow
Stem of elder, tall and yellow
Twig of willow.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Rhyme
Exact rhyme are words that have the
exact same-sounding ending, like cat
and hat
Slant rhyme words sound similar, but
aren’t exact, like one and down.
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of
rhyming words.
Look at the following poem and identify
the rhyme scheme.
RHYME
Words sound alike
because they share
the same ending
vowel and
consonant sounds.
(A word always
rhymes with itself.)
LAMP
STAMP
 Share the short “a”
vowel sound
 Share the combined
“mp” consonant
sound
END RHYME
A word at the end of one line rhymes
with a word at the end of another line
Hector the Collector
Collected bits of string.
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.
INTERNAL RHYME
A word inside a line rhymes with
another word on the same line.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered weak and weary.
From “The Raven”
by Edgar Allan Poe
NEAR RHYME
a.k.a imperfect
rhyme, close rhyme
The words share
EITHER the same
vowel or consonant
sound BUT NOT
BOTH
ROSE
LOSE
 Different vowel
sounds (long “o”
and “oo” sound)
 Share the same
consonant sound
Rhyme Scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of
rhyming words. Look at the
following poem and identify the
rhyme scheme.
Rhyme Scheme
Heavy is my heart,
Dark are thine eyes
Thou and I must part
Ere the sun rise
A
B
A
B
Rhyme Scheme- The pattern in which end rhyme
occurs
• Example:
Continuous as the stars that shine (A)
And twinkle on the milky way, (B)
They stretched in never-ending line (A)
Along the margin of a bay: (B)
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, (C)
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. (C)
Repetition
Poems also create music through the
repetition of words and lines.
Example: “gazed and gazed”
Look at the poem “One Perfect Rose” by
Dorothy Parker. One line is repeated three
times. Notice how the meaning of the line
changes by the third repetition.
One Perfect Rose
by Dorothy Parker
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure with scented dew still wet –
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the flowerlet;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose
Refrain
•The repetition of one or more phrases
or lines at certain intervals, usually at
the end of each stanza •Similar to the
chorus in a song
Letters
Repetitive initial consonant sounds in a
poem are called alliteration.
Repetition of other consonant sounds is
called consonance.
Repetitive vowel sounds are called
assonance.
The following poem has many examples
of each. See how many you can find.
Also notice what other element of
poetry you can find.
Alliteration
Repetition of the initial consonant sound
“She sells seashells at the sea shore”
ALLITERATION
Consonant sounds repeated at the
beginnings of words
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
peppers, how many pickled peppers did
Peter Piper pick?
Assonance
•The repetition of a vowel sound in two
or more words in the line of a poem •
• Example: “Which is the bliss of
solitude”
ASSONANCE
Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line or
lines of poetry.
(Often creates near rhyme.)
Lake
Fate
Base
Fade
(All share the long “a” sound.)
ASSONANCE cont.
Examples of ASSONANCE:
“Slow the low gradual moan came in the
snowing.”
- John Masefield
“Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet
sleep.”
- William Shakespeare
CONSONANCE
Similar to alliteration EXCEPT . . .
The repeated consonant sounds can be
anywhere in the words
“silken, sad, uncertain, rustling . . “
Pause
When we read poetry, we must be
careful to read it with the punctuation
the author provided. Our tendency is to
pause at the end of each line when we
should pause at the punctuation marks.
When pauses come in the middle of the
line, we call it a caesura. When the line
continues to the next line we call it
enjambment.
The next slides show examples of each.
Enjambment
We Real Cool
by Gwendolyn Brooks
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June.
We die soon.
Notice that the enjambment forces you
to pause before the end of the line.
The word we is emphasized and gives
the poem a syncopated rhythm, similar
to the rhythm in jazz. This is
appropriate since the poem is about the
period of the 30’s when Prohibition
was in effect and jazz was king.
Caesura
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town.
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
This is only the first stanza of the poem, but you can see how effective the caesura is
in creating the sound of the waves.
Onomatopoeia
A word whose sound imitates its
meaning
More onomatopoeia
“The bee buzzed by my ear “
“The clock ticked down the final hour”
“The engine purred while awaiting the
green light”
Onomatopoeia
We are familiar with onomatopoeia
even if we don’t understand the word.
When two cars collide, what sound do
they make? Crash! That is
onomatopoeia – words that make the
sound they are imitating.
Here is a poem by Eve Merriam
appropriately titled “Onomatopoeia.”
See how many sounds are heard.
Onomatopoeia
The rusty spigot
sputter,
utters
a sputter,
spatters a smattering of drops,
gashes wider;
slash,
splatters,
scatters,
spurts,
finally stops sputtering
and plash!
gushes rushes splashes
clear water dashes.
POINT OF VIEW IN POETRY
POET
• The poet is the
author of the poem.
SPEAKER
• The speaker of the
poem is the
“narrator” of the
poem.
Mood- the feeling a poem creates for
the reader
Tone - the attitude a poet takes toward
his/her subject
Contrast
Poets use contrast to further show images.
Antithesis strengthens the differences of the
image.
In the next poem Ms. Piercy describes the
ambivalence of the speaker’s love relationship
by writing these contrasting images: “…cold
and hot winds of our breath,/ as we make
and unmake in passionate/ diastole and
systole the rhythm/ of our unbound
bonding…”
Symbol
•A word or object that has its own
meaning and represents another word,
object or idea •
• Example: The daffodils
represent happiness and pleasure
to the author.
Here are Some
Specific Types of
Poems you MAY want
to try writing…
Types of Poetry
ALLITERATION- The repetition of a
consonant sound
Windshield wipers wipe the windshield
Wipe the water off the pane
This way
That way
This way
That way
This way
That way
In the rain
Mary Ann Hoberman
Types of Poetry
BIO POEM- An eleven line poem about
yourself.
Line
Line
Line
Line
Line
Line
Line
Line
Line
Line
Line
1- Your First Name
2- 4 Traits that describe you
3- Sibling of…(Three people or ideas)
4- Lover of…(Three items)
5- Who feels (Three items)
6- Who needs (Three items)
7- Who gives (Three items)
8- Who fears…(Three items)
9- Who would like to see…(Three items)
10- Resident of (Your city, street, or State)
11- Your last name
Types of Poetry
DIAMONTE- A Diamonte Poem is shaped like a
diamond. It too has a set pattern. Opposites are
also used.
Noun
Adjective, Adjective
Verb, Verb, Verb
Noun, Noun, Noun, Noun
Verb, Verb, Verb
Adjective, Adjective
Noun
Cocoa Tree
Tropical, Gnarly
Growing, Producing, Flowering
Pods, Beans, Buds, Apples
Dropping, Crunching, Baking
Delicious, All-American
Apple Tree
CINQUAIN
A five line poem
containing 22
syllables
Two Syllables
Four Syllables
Six Syllables
Eight Syllables
Two Syllables
How frail
Above the bulk
Of crashing water hangs
Autumnal, evanescent,
wan
The moon.
Types of Poetry
CONCRETE POEM- Also called picture
poetry, is formed to look like what you
are writing about.
CONCRETE POEMS
Poetry
Is like
Flames,
Which are
Swift and elusive
Dodging realization
Sparks, like words on the
Paper, leap and dance in the
Flickering firelight. The fiery
Tongues, formless and shifting
Shapes, tease the imiagination.
Yet for those who see,
Through their mind’s
Eye, they burn
Up the page.
HAIKU
Haiku poetry is a very short, centuries
old form of Japanese poetry, that
usually deals with nature, that has a
specific pattern. The pattern is:
5 Syllables
7 Syllables
5 Syllables
Snow is falling down
Our snow days are all used up
That means I’ll see you
-Antal 2008
I AM POEM
I AM POEM- A 3 distinctive stanza poem
about yourself that follows a specific
pattern.
FIRST STANZA
I am (two special characters you have)
I wonder (something you are actually curious
about)
I hear (an imaginary sound)
I see (an imaginary sight)
I want (an actual date)
I am (the first line of a poem repeated)
SECOND STANZA
I
I
I
I
I
I
pretend (something you actually pretend to do)
feel (a feeling about something imaginary)
touch (an imaginary touch)
worry (something that really bothers you)
cry (something that makes you very sad)
am (the first line of the poem repeated)
THIRD STANZA
I
I
I
I
understand (something you know is true)
say (something you believe in)
dream (something you actually dream about)
try (something you really make an effort
about
I hope (something you actually hope for)
I am (the first line of a poem repeated)
LIMERICK
A Limerick is a funny little poem
containing five lines. The last words of
the 1st(A), 2nd(A), and 5th(A) lines
rhyme with each other, and the last
words of the 3rd(B), and 4th(B) lines
rhyme with each other.
A clumsy young fellow named Jim(A)
Was never informed how to swim.(A)
He fell off a dock(B)
And sunk like a rock(B)
And that was the end of him.(A)
LYRIC
A short poem
Usually written in first person point of
view
Expresses an emotion or an idea or
describes a scene
Do not tell a story and are often musical
(Many of the poems we read will be
lyrics.)
NARRATIVE POEMS
A poem that tells a
story.
Generally longer
than the lyric styles
of poetry b/c the
poet needs to
establish characters
and a plot.
Examples of Narrative
Poems
“The Raven”
“The Highwayman”
“Casey at the Bat”
“The Walrus and the
Carpenter”
PANTOUM
A pantoum is an old Malaysian form of
poetry that repeats certain lines. You
start off with 8 original lines and repeat
certain ones to complete 16 lines. Look
at the pattern in the next poem.
Deserted House
Robert King
Questions linger in the tall grass.
Over the long abandoned house
The clouds pile up, filling the sky
the night birds veer and dart away
without an answer to the grass
reflected in broken windows
or the last sunlight slanting low.
and we are alone by the house.
The clouds pile up, filling the sky
The night birds veer and dart away.
over the long abandoned house
Questions linger in the grass
with the last sunlight slanting low
and we are alone by the house
reflected broken windows.
without an answer to the grass.
PERSONIFICATION POEM
Poetry that assigns human characteristics to
non-human things.
DINNER
Knife was the first to speak.
He was known mostly for his sharp cutting remarks.
Chairs sat down underneath the table.
Napkins folded themselves into their laps.
Teapot, unable to stand the tension, began to boil.
Cup held one hand on her hip
Knowing she could hold her own
Fork and spoon huddled off to the side next to the plate.
They knew plate could handle whatever was dished out.
Terry Garrison
SIMILE & METAPHOR POEM
A poem that contains the use of simile and
metaphor.
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
A fourteen line poem
with a specific rhyme
scheme.
The poem is written in
three quatrains and
ends with a couplet.
The rhyme scheme is
abab cdcd efef gg
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
SONNET
The sonnet is the requirement of every
experienced poet. You must write one!
It is fourteen lines of rhymed iambic
pentameter.
The first 12 lines pose a problem, ask a
question, or set up a situation.
The couplet at the end solves the
problem, answers the question or
settles the situation.
The
End