“Emotion recalled in tranquility”
“The right word in the right place”
How to Eat a Poem
Don’t be polite
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe whenever you are.
You do not need a knife or fork or spoon or plate or napkin or tablecloth
For there is no core
Or stem
Or ring
Or pit
Or seed
Or skin
To throw away
Terms to know:
Metre – “the measured pulse of poetry”
- deals with the regular or irregular pattern of feet
Foot – a metrical unit in poetry; an accented syllable with
accompanying syllable or syllables.
Rhythm – measured flow of repeated sound patterns
Eg.IAMBIC PENTAMETRE (light/heavy), trochaic (heavy/light)
“ But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”
(5 feet, each consisting of two syllables, iambic rhythm)
Syntax – the order of the words.
FICURES OF SPEECH:
•Simile – a comparison of unlike things using “like” or “as”
Eg. Her face turned as white as chalk.
She voice is like a finely tuned violin.
•Metaphor – a comparison of two unlike things without using “like” or “as”
Her fears was revealed by her chalky cheeks
Her violin voice soothed the children.
•Personification – giving human characteristics to inanimate objects or non living
beings.
Eg. The sun smiled on our picnic!
POETIC / LITERARY DEVICES:
•Allegory – a poem which may be read on two levels; the poet is suggesting “By this I
mean that”. Allegories usually have a moral or didactic purpose, which is conveyed
by symbols, symbolic characters, or symbolic incidents.
•Allusion – a reference to someone, something with which the author assumes the
reader will be familiar. May be historical, literary, mythical, religious etc.
Apostrophe – addressing the absent as though present
Eg. Oh Sun, shine your rays on me
Pun – a play on words (double meaning).“When my car gets old I will retire
it” HAHaHa!
Epigram – a very short, polished, terse verse often with a witty ending
Eg. Swans sing before they die—’twere no bad thing
Should certain people die before they sing.
Coleridge
Euphemism – a polite way of saying something harsh or distasteful
Eg. “Comfort station” instead of toilet.
Hyperbole – an exaggeration for effect
Eg. I’ve told you that a million times.
Oxymoron – a contradiction in terms, usually an adjective followed with a contrasting
noun Eg. Silent scream, freezing fire
Paradox – an apparently contradictory statement which, upon reflection, expresses a
truth Eg. The child is father of the man.
Symbolism – a concrete object is used to suggest abstract ideas.
Transferred Epithet – (an epithet is a term characterizing something. Eg. “brave
Macbeth)
- a transferred epithet is an adjective modifying a noun not
usually associated with it. Eg. Cold war, happy tree
ALLITERATION – the same sound is used to begin words in succession.
Eg. Caroline kicked the Christmas cake!
ASSONANCE – the contained vowel sound of successive words is the same.
Eg. Green leaf, hope floats, brain flamed, sand castle, high tide
CONSONANCE – the repetition of two or more consonants, but with a
change in the intervening vowel.
Eg. Live – love, pitter – patter, horror – hearer
- repeating consonants in any position.
Eg. Crawl with legs (L’s)
Thunder without lightning (TH’s)
ONOMATOPOEIA – the sound of the word imitates the sound of the action.
Eg. Swoosh, murmur, hiss, burp
EUPHONY – an agreeable combination of sounds.
Eg. Numerous marigolds shone beside the babbling brook.
CACOPHONY – a disagreeable combination of sounds.
Eg. Coarse, cackling laughter characterized the snarling, sinister
serviceman!
• Prose:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Literal, concrete
States
Clear and straightforward
Standard sentence structure, proper punctuation
How the passage sounds is secondary
Prose comes from the brain
• Poetry:
–
–
–
–
Figurative, abstract
Suggests
Can be ambiguous
No regular sentence structure, little or no
punctuation
– Sound is key
– Poetry comes from the heart
•
•
•
•
•
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The quality or impressiveness or the importance of the thought expressed.
The emotional effects of the passage and how they are created
The effective use of imagery or colour or sound patterns.
The effects of particular figures of speech and/or poetic devices.
The kind of diction and the effect of its use.
The merits of the verse form and rhyme scheme and the rhythm and melody of the
language
The merit under discussion should be named, illustrated from the text of the poem and,
if possible, commented on as to the effectiveness or result
Types of Poetry: Ballad
A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four
lines and usually a refrain. The story frequently deals
with folk-lore or popular legends. Written in straightforward verse, seldom with detail, but always with
graphic simplicity and force. Most ballads are suitable
for singing and, while sometimes varied in practice, are
generally written in ballad meter, i.e., alternating lines
of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last
words of the second and fourth lines rhyming.
Haiku
Pink cherry blossoms
Cast shimmering reflections
On seas of Japan
Haiku is an unrhymed
Japanese verse consisting of
three unrhymed lines of five,
seven, and five syllables (5,
7, 5) or 17 syllables in all.
Haiku is usually written in
the present tense and focuses
on nature (seasons). There is
much more to haiku than the
made up 5/7/5 version.
Limerick
A Limerick is a rhymed humorous or nonsense
poem of five lines which originated in Limerick,
Ireland. The Limerick has a set rhyme scheme of :
a-a-b-b-a with a syllable structure of: 9-9-6-6-9.
The rhythm of the poem should go as follows:
Lines 1, 2, 5: weak, weak, STRONG, weak, weak,
STRONG, weak, weak, STRONG, weak, weak
Lines 3, 4: weak, weak, STRONG, weak, weak,
STRONG, weak, weak This is the most commonly
heard first line of a limerick: "There once was a
man from Nantucket."
Epic
An epic is a long narrative poem
celebrating the adventures and
achievements of a hero...epics deal with
the traditions, mythical or historical, of a
nation. Examples: Beowulf, The Iliad and
the Odyssey, and Aeneid.
An ODE is a poem praising and glorifying a
person, place or thing.
An Ode To Dreamers
When dreamers dream
And lovers love
Do they receive their visions
From heaven above?
Or do they originate
Where all things start
Within our minds Within our hearts?
I know not all
But what I do know is this
You cannot build a Kingdom
Upon a flimsy wish
So believe in your dreams
Follow them blind
Lest you loose them all,
To the hands of time.