What is poetry?
“Poetry is
emotion
compressed
into as few words as possible”
-George Elliot Clark
“ Poetry is no antiquated use of language…”
-Carl Leggo
Poetic Terms
Alliteration
Bugs Bunny
• Baseball Bugs: "Watch me paste this
pathetic palooka with a powerful
paralyzing perfect pachydermous
percussion pitch!"
Alliteration
The repetition of consonant sounds,
especially at the beginning of words.
Example:
- She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
(An old tongue-twister).
Simile
Simile
A figure of speech involving a comparison
between unlike things using like, as, or as
though.
Example:
"My love is like a red, red rose.“
“She is glowing as bright as the sun.”
Metaphor
Metaphor
A comparison between essentially unlike
things without an explicitly comparative
word such as like or as.
Example:
"My love is a red, red rose,“
“He is a stone wall”
Personification
Personification
A poetic device giving human attributes to
an inhuman thing (animal).
Example:
- "The tree jumped into the road in front of
my car"
- "With an evil scowl, the storm cloud
thundered its disapproval"
- The car froged ahead with determination.
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia
The use of words to imitate the sounds they
describe. Words such as buzz and crack
are onomatopoetic.
Example:
POW! BAM! SNAP!
Hyperbole
A figure of speech involving exaggeration.
Example:
I’ve told you a million times!
I haven’t talked to you in forever!
Oxymoron
Oxymoron
• Contradictory terms appear side by side.
Example:
- “A yawn may be defined as a silent yell.”
- Open secret
- Living dead
- Hell’s Angels
- Jumbo shrimp
Repetition
Repetition
“I Still Hear the Bell Ringing”
If you don’t know a word,
Look it up in the dictionary,
Strong advice, for now I know
Many words and in words I am known
Never hate anybody,
Wisdom like an iron bell ringing
From a grey sky, its echoes
Heard through the years
Never hate anybody
Never hate anybody
Why do we use repetition?
Imagery
Imagery
• Involves one or more of your 5 senses
(hearing, taste, touch, smell, sight)
• An author uses a word or phrase to
stimulate your memory of those senses.
• These memories can be positive or
negative which will contribute to the mood
of a poem.
Assonance
e
• The repetition of similar vowels in the
stressed syllables of successive words.
• Example: Reeses Pieces
• The repetition of final consonant sounds of
words for effect Ex. “As Ireland is backed
to England”
Allusion
• Carlos used Herculean strength to lift the
sofa off his cat’s tail.
• Allusion: Hercules.
Someone who is very
strong.
Definition: A reference
o a person, place,
event; possibly biblical
historical, literary,
Point of View
AllEGory
• Lord of the Flies is a novel about a group
of boys stranded on a deserted island.
• As an allegorical novel, LOF reveals the
dark savage that exists within the heart of
each human.
• Story where literal meaning covers fro a
second, unsaid, larger meaning.
You dig?
• Connotation
• Denotation
• Connotation
• Set of associations connected
to work
• Ex. “vacation spot”
• Ex. Place where the fishing is
good”
• Cool, refreshing
• = connotations of the word
lake
Denotation refers to the literal
meaning of a word, the
"dictionary definition."¨
Ex. Lake = inland body of water
Pun- a play on words
• Ex. The bear couldn’t bear it!
• Ex. The doctor had no patience (patients)
Euphemism
• -using a favourable term for an
unfavourable
• Ex. Lady Macbeth died by her own hand
• Ex. We wait alike for the inevitable hour
Irony
• Verbal
• Situational
• Dramatic
• Verbal- sarcasm
• Situational- the opposite of what one would
expect to happen in that situation
• Ex. “A traffic jam when you’re already late”
• Dramatic- when the audience knows information
that a character does not. This information is
often key to the plot and the character makes
misguided choices based on his/her lack of info.
Paradox
• A statement or situation that seems
contradictory but can also feel true
• Ex. “Life is much too important to be
taken seriously” (Oscar Wilde)
• Ex. “Most marriages recognize this
paradox: Passion destroys passion; we
want what puts an end to wanting what we
want” (John Fowles)
Analogy
• A reasoning, explaining or comparison
between parallel concepts/ideas/objects
• A simile can be an analogy and a
metaphor is an implied analogy
• Ex. Writing a book of poetry is like
dropping a rose petal down the Grand
Canyon and waiting for the echo."
(Don Marquis)
Different types of
Stanza
• A fix number of lines of verse forming a
unit of a poem.
• Each stanza is its own unit.
• Indicates a break between thoughts,
actions or concepts.
• Some different types of stanzas are...
Couplet
• Stanzas of only 2 lines that usually rhyme.
Example:
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
is idle, biologically speaking.
Quatrain
• Four line stanza.
Oh the birds are singing,
In a nest of broken sticks,
Look what they are bringing,
It's nutrition for their chicks.
Verse
• One line of poetry.
Stream of Consciousness Response
• Write as many thoughts and feelings as
we can without worrying about spelling or
grammar.
• All the thoughts in our heads; these
thoughts and feelings happen so fast we
often don’t write them down.
• The Addict
Ask as many questions as you can...
But
As the hand of love
Freely extended
Always returns
Covered with scars
(if not nailed to the cross),
It is not stupid to refuse the cure
It is not stupid
To remain paralyzed,
Stuck on the pallet.
But
It is boring.
Prose Poem
• Prose poem A kind of open form poetry that it is
a mix of poetry and written verse. Prose poetry
lacks line breaks normally associated with poetry
but it still maintains a poetic quality by using
techniques such as fragmentation, compression,
repetition and rhyme. Prose poetry can be brief
(a few lines) or it can be several pages long. It
can explore a limitless amount of subjects.
• Examples: “Transparent Womb” and
“Knife”
Concrete Poem
• 2 types:
1) A free verse poem in the shape of what it is
describing or in the shape of something
related to the topic.
2) A one word poem in the shape of what it is.
3) Creative a concrete poem, which
Narrative
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Plot
Short or long
Tells a story
“A story told in poetic form”
• Ex. “Birches”-Robert Frost
“Birches”
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are
bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
•
•
As he went out and in to fetch the cows-Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Free Verse
• Doesn't have to have a rhyme scheme or
rhythm.
• The theme is the most important.
• It pays less attention to the normal
grammatical patterns of the English
sentence.
• Sentence fragments may be used.
• Should have impact on the reader.
• The arrangement is well thought out
Free Verse
• Ex. “Driving on Empty”
• Choose either “Birches” or “Running on
Empty”
• Deconstruct: A way to analyze a poem
• SIFT- use handout/ work w/ partner
• Story, Imagery, Form, Theme
Extended Metaphor
• “Mother to Son”-Langston Hughes
• A metaphor carried throughout a poem.
• An idea or object is used to represent a deeper
meaning...the object comes to metaphorically
represent something deeper
• Ex. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair./
•
It’s had tacks in it/ And splinters” (ll.2-3)
Free Verse
“Cat’s in the Cradle”
• Ballad Poems are poems that tells a
story similar to a folk tale or legend and
often has a repeated refrain. A ballad is
often about love and often sung. A
ballad is a story in poetic form.
• Death
• Loss
• Supernatural
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Simple language
Narrative
Repetition
Rhyme
Song like
Dialogue
Folk
Literary
• 5 line poem
• Rhyme: AABBA
• Funny
An Example of a Limerick
What is a limerick, Mother?
It's a form of verse, said brother
In which lines one and two
Rhyme with five when it's through
And three and four rhyme with each other.
author unknown
Haiku
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Write about everyday things.
Themes: nature, feelings or experiences.
Simple words and grammar.
No rhyme....they paint. (imagery)
3 lines.
• 1st line: 5 syllables.
• 2nd line: 7 syllables.
• 3rd line: 5 syllables.
• A Rainbow.
Curving up, then down.
Meeting blue sky and green earth.
Melding sun and rain.
• Nature
Frogs jumping around
Frogs hopping away from snakes
Frogs doing cool tricks.
diamante
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1 word- subject
2 words- adjectives
3 words- participles (ing)
4 words- nouns
3 words- participles
2 words- adjectives
1 word- noun (opposite or example of the
subject)
Ornament
Glistening, bright
Hanging, sparkling, falling
Tinsel, popcorn, lights, berries
Shining, breaking, cracked
Wrecked, ruined
Star
Tanka
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Japanese poetry.
5 lines with a total of 31 syllables.
5-7-5-7-7 division.
Nature and seasons.
Where is the white snow? (5)
It is time for it I know? (7)
I go on looking (5)
On the hill, over the brook (7)
But the snow is hiding still (7)
Types of Rhyming Poems
There are many types of rhyming poems.
Here are names of some of them:
•The Couplet
•The Limerick
•The Ballad Stanza (including the short and long)
•Octaves