Poetry
Dead Poet's Society - Find your own voice
SPI 3002.8.5 Determine the significance/meaning of a
symbol in poetry or prose.
SPI 3002.8.6 Differentiate between mood and tone in
poetry or prose.
SPI 3002.8.9 Demonstrate knowledge of sound and
metric devices.
SPI 3002.8.10 Demonstrate knowledge of the
characteristics of various types of poetry.
SPI 3002.8.14 Identify classical, historical, and literary
allusions in context.
SPI 3002.8.16 Analyze how form relates to meaning
(e.g. compare a poem and a newspaper on the same
theme or topic).
Fun examples
Alphabet Poetry
Snowflakes
•
Astonishingly beautiful
Cold, darting
Exciting frost
Graceful heavens
Icy jewels
Keen lace
Majestic needles of pretty, quiet,
Raining snow
Turning under
Vibrant Winds
Xciting,
yearly
Zany
Haiku
•
A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines
of five, seven, and five morae, usually containing a
season word.
As the wind does blow
Across the trees, I see the
Buds blooming in May
I walk across sand
And find myself blistering
In the hot, hot heat
Falling to the ground,
I watch a leaf settle down
In a bed of brown.
•
Limerick
A short sometimes vulgar, humorous poem consisting of five anapestic lines. Lines 1, 2, and 5 have
seven to ten syllables, rhyme and have the same verbal rhythm. The 3rd and 4th lines have five to
seven syllables, rhyme and have the same rhythm.
There once was a man from Peru
Who had a lot of growing up to do,
He’d ring a doorbell,
then run like hell,
Until the owner shot him with a .22.
- Anonymous
•
There was a Young Lady whose chin
Resembled the point of a pin:
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
- Edward Lear
• Name
Poetry that tells about the word. It uses the letters
of the word for the first letter of each line.
Nicky
by
Marie Hughes
Nicky is a Nurse
It's her chosen career
Children or Old folks
Kindness in abundance
Year after year
Shape
Poetry written in the shape or form of an
object. This is a type of concrete poetry.
Ballads
• Tell a story
• Subjects can be
heroic, satirical,
romantic, or political.
• Focus on the actions
and dialogue of a
story, not on the
characters.
• Usually end in
tragedy.
Bonny
Barbara
Allan
The Ballad of
Jesse James
Jesse James was a man
And he killed many men
He robbed the Glendale train
And he took from the richer
And he gave that to the poorer
He’d a hand and a heart and a brain
Oh Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life
Three children they were so brave
But that dirty little coward
That shot Mr. Howard
Has laid Jesse James in his grave
(instrumental)
On Wednesday night
When the moon was shining bright
They robbed that Glendale train
And the folks from miles about (yeah they
can)
They all said without a doubt
It was done by her Frankie and Jesse James
(yes it was)
Oh Jessie had a wife, to mourn for his life
Three children they were so brave
But that dirty little coward
That shot Mr. Howard
Has laid (poor) Jesse James in his grave
(instrumental)
Well the people held their breath
When they heard about jesses death (yeah)
And they wondered how poor Jesse came to
die (how did he die? )
It was one of his guys, called little Robert ford
And he shot Jessie James on the sly
Oh Jessie had a wife to mourn for his life
Three children they were so brave
But that dirty little coward
That shot Mr. Howard
Has laid Jesse James in his grave
Has laid poor Jesse in his grave
He laid Jesse James in his grave
Dramatic Poetry
•
•
•
•
Also called verse drama.
Mix of drama and poetry
Shakespeare’s plays
Look for figurative and stage directions for
full meaning of this poetry
PUCK
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's
tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be
friends,
And Robin shall restore amends
Epic Poems
• Long, complicated story-poems
• Tell about extraordinary deeds of
heroes and villains
• Uses invocation – asking a god of
muse for help and Epithet –
naming a character’s qualities
– The Odyssey, Beowulf, Gilgamesh
Epic Heroes Today
Lyric Poetry
• Conveys an exact mood or feeling
• Poet speaks directly to the reader and asks
for sympathy
• Sonnet – 14 line poem with strict formatting
Iambic pentameter
Shall I Compare Thee to a
Summer's Day
sonnet formulas
Lyric Poem O Captain! My Captain!
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is
done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the
prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people
all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the
vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear
the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you
the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for
you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their
eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer,
his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my
arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and
sound, its voyage closed and
done;
From fearful trip,
the victor ship, comes in with
object won; 20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O
bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Walt Whitman
Narrative Poetry
• Tells a story
• Narrative Poetry is found in different types
of poetry such as Ballads, Epics,
and Lays. All of these examples are
different kinds of narrative poems some of
which are the length of a book such as
the Song of Hiawatha or the Iliad.
Example of Narrative Poetry - Excerpt
John Barleycorn
by
Robert Burns
There were three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they have sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
The Raven
Goblin Market
On Turning Ten
The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light-a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
Billy Collins
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Interpreting poetry
Example of Narrative Poetry
•
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
To an extent, reading literature
is a subjective process because
different pieces of writing can
be interpreted in different ways
by the reader. In this example,
Frost is commonly interpreted
as looking back on his
experience with joy. That is true,
if he were to speak those lines
cheerfully. However, imagine
that he actually sighs when he
says "sigh" and he appears
sullen when he says "And that
has made all the difference."
The entire meaning of the poem
is changed, and Frost is,
indeed, not thrilled with the
choice he made in the past.
Poetic Devices
• Poets use a variety of techniques to make their words more
effective.
• Alliteration – the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings
of words.
• Example: Before I built a wall I’d ask to know/what I was walling in
or walling out. Mending Wall – Robert Frost
• Repetition – repeating sounds, syllables, lines, and stanzas in
literature.
• Example: The rain is falling all around, / It falls on field and tree, /It
rains on the umbrellas here. Rain by Robert Stevenson
• The woods are lovely, dark and deep. /but I have promises to keep, /
And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.
• Onomatopoeia – using words to suggest
how something sounds. The word will
sound like the intended sound.
• Boom Boom Pow
• Examples: Whoosh, splash, buzz, hiss.
• How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, /In their icy
air of night. /By the twanging, /And the
clanging, /How the danger ebbs and flows.
The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe
• Allusion – reference to specific place, historical
event, famous literary figure, or work of art within
a literary work.
– Classical – classical art, religion, mythological
figures, poetry, and the like.
• Brandon is beginning to think he’s so powerful that he
belongs on Mount Olympus.
– Historical – reference some important person or
event from history.
• I would never betray my team. I’m no Benedict Arnold.
– Literary – reference famous literary works, their
characters, or their authors.
• Marcus was sure Jessica had passed the test when he
saw her Cheshire-Cat smile.
Poets often use Rhythm and rhyme scheme to complement
the mood and tone of their work
• Fixed forms – appear in poetry such as
sonnets, odes, and ballads.
• Blank verse – lines that have a definite
rhythm, but no rhyme.
– Iambic pentameter, often used by
Shakespeare
• Free verse – has no regular meter or
rhythm.
Blank verse
Excerpt from Macbeth
by
William Shakespeare
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Free verse
Song of Myself
by
Walt Whitman
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good
belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of
summer grass.
Rhythm
– Arrangement of sounds or movement, in a
definite pattern, over a period of time.
– Rhythm appears in music, athletics, dance,
and some fiction.
– Our minds and bodies react to rhythm.
• Meter
– A word pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables.
Rhythm
Stressed syllable
Unstressed
– “Shall I compare thee to a summers day”
METER OR FOOT
– “Shall I compare thee to a summers day”
5
Iambic pentameter: This poem excerpt has
5 feet/meters of unstressed and stressed
syllables per line.
Rhyme
Internal rhyme – found inside a single line of poetry
– Poor Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life
Slant rhyme/half rhyme – words that almost but not quite
rhyme.
When have I last looked on (a)
Internal rhyme –
The round green eyes and the long wavering
bodies (b)
Of the dark leopards of the moon (a)
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
(b)
For all their broom-sticks and their tears, (c)
Their angry tears, are gone. (d)
The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished;
(e)
I have nothing but the embittered sun; (d)
Banished heroic mother moon and vanished,
(e)
Occurs
atthat
theI have
endcome
of lines
And now
to fifty years (c)
I must endure the timid sun. (d)
Mood and Tone
Mood – the feeling the work conveys. How the
reader is supposed to feel while reading.
Tone – the author’s attitude toward the work.
Tone gives shape and life to literature, because it is through tone
that the attitude and mood of a work are created and presented.
Tone gives voice to the characters, both literally and figuratively.
Through tone, the reader is able to learn about
a character's personality and disposition. However, the tone also
shapes the work as a whole, and whether the piece should be
read as a serious, funny, dramatic or upsetting.
Both are made clear through the style of writing,
word choice, rhythm, meter, etc.
QUIZ
“With only butterflies to brood, and bees to
entertain… From “The Grass” by Emily Dickinson
This is an example of A. Alliteration
C. Mood
B. Onomatopoeia D. Epithet
To Fanny
John Keats (1795-1821)I cry your mercy–pity–love!–aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmasked, and being seen–without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole,–all–all–be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,–those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,–
Yourself–your soul–in pity give me all.
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life’s purposes,–the palate of my mind
Losing its gist, and my ambition blind!
Which type of poem is this?
A. Narrative poem
C. Free verse
B. Dramatic Poem
D. Sonnet
Dying
(aka I heard a fly buzz when I died )
by
Emily Dickinson
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
What type of poetry is this?
A. dramatic
B. blank verse
C. free verse D. lyric
Song of Myself
by
Walt Whitman
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good
belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of
summer grass.
What type of poetry is this?
A. dramatic
B. ballad
C. free verse D. lyric
The Mermaid
by
Author Unknown
'Twas Friday morn when we set sail,
And we had not got far from land,
When the Captain, he spied a lovely
mermaid,
With a comb and a glass in her hand.
Chorus
Oh the ocean waves may roll,
And the stormy winds may blow,
While we poor sailors go skipping aloft
And the land lubbers lay down below,
below, below
And the land lubbers lay down below.
Then up spoke the Captain of our gallant
ship,
And a jolly old Captain was he;
"I have a wife in Salem town,
But tonight a widow she will be."
Chorus
Then up spoke the Cook of our gallant ship,
And a greasy old Cook was he;
"I care more for my kettles and my pots,
Than I do for the roaring of the sea."
Chorus
Then up spoke the Cabin-boy of our gallant ship,
And a dirty little brat was he;
"I have friends in Boston town
That don't care a ha' penny for me."
Chorus
Then three times 'round went our gallant ship,
And three times 'round went she,
And the third time that she went 'round
She sank to the bottom of the sea.
Chorus
What type of poetry is this?
A. dramatic
B. ballad
C. epic poem D. lyric
The poem Nocturne by Eugene O Neill
• The sunset gun booms out in hollow roar
Night breathes upon the waters of the bay
The river lies, a symphony in grey,
Melting in shadow on the further shore.
A sullen coal barge tugs its anchor chain
A shadow sinister, with one faint light
Flickering wanly in the dim twilight,
It lies upon the harbor like a stain.
Silence. Then through the stillness rings
The fretful echo of a seagull's scream,
As if one cried who sees within a dream
Deep rooted sorrow in the heart of things.
What mood does this poem convey?
A. relaxing
B. melancholy C. serene
D. Nostalgic