Poetry
Poetry is not a rose, but the scent of the rose . . . Not
the sea, but the sound of the sea.
Eleanor Farjeon
What is Poetry?
Poetry is “a kind of language that
says more and says it more
intensely than ordinary language.”
Laurence Perrine
What is Good Poetry?
 It
withholds something from the
reader at first.
 A good poem sounds special.
 A good poem is memorable.
 Good poems speak to unanswerable
questions.
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a
sense of wrong, a homesickness, a
lovesickness.
Robert Frost
The Vocabulary of Poetry
 Verse
– a metric line of poetry
 Stanza – little paragraphs of poems
 Meter – the patterned repetition of
stressed and unstressed syllable in a
line of poetry
The Vocabulary of Poetry
 Couplet
– poems with two line
stanzas
 Triplet – poems with three line
stanzas
 Quatrain – poems with four line
stanzas
The Vocabulary of Poetry

Blank Verse – unrhymed poetry that
normally consists of ten syllables in which
every other syllable, beginning with the
second is stressed.

Free Verse – poetry that doesn’t have a
regular meter or rhyme scheme.
How do you measure the quality
of a poem? Is there a formula to
tell whether a poem is good or
not?
Standards of Evaluation
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Concise
Clarity
Imagery
Show Don’t Tell
Originality
Sound
Structure
Control
Standards of Evaluation
 Concise: Is the poem tight, clean,
and free of unnecessary words? Is
every word in the poem there for a
good reason?
Standards of Evaluation
 Clarity
of thought: Is the poem
clear to the reader? Does the poem
appeal to a universal audience?
Standards of Evaluation
 Imagery: Do the words draw a
picture for the reader? Do the
words appeal through detail and
images?
Standards of Evaluation
 Show
not Tell: Does the poem
have strong action verbs and specific
nouns? Does the poem avoid
colorless, abstract adjectives and
adverbs? Does the poem avoid
telling the reader? Does it show the
reader through detail?
Standards of Evaluation
 Fresh
and Original: Does the
poem offer fresh, unexpected
comparisons; original metaphors,
vivid word choice? Does the poem
avoid clichés; vague and generally old
idea.
Standards of Evaluation
 Sound: Does the poem employ
rhythm and poetic devices to create
an identifiable flow? Is it a pleasure
to hear?
Standards of Evaluation
Structure: Does the poem
demonstrate effective word
placement and line control? If a line
is broken with a certain word, is
there a reason?
Standards of Evaluation
 Control: Does the poem
demonstrate simplicity and singleness
of purpose. Is the subject of the
poem treated from experience or
observation? Does the poem avoid
abstract concepts?
Genuine poetry can communicate
before it is understood.
T. S. Eliot
Reading Poetry
A poem may take days, weeks, sometimes
years to produce. Reading a poem is also
a process.
Give a poem three readings!
The Process
1st Reading – Read all the way
through simply to get a general
impression of the poem.
The Process
2nd Reading – Read out loud, if
possible. Pay attention to the
“sound effects.” Read slowly,
word by word, observing
punctuation and spacing. Try to
understand what each word or
phrase means.
The Process
3rd Reading - Determine the
literal meaning of the poem.
What is the poem about? What
does the poem seem to say
about its subject?
http://www.poetryoutloud.org/news/nationalfinals.html
A poem begins in delight and
ends in wisdom.
Robert Frost
Types of Poetry
Narrative – tells a story
 Lyric – expresses thoughts and feelings of poet

◦ Elegy – on the subject of death
◦ Sonnet – a fourteen line poem
◦ Ode – in praise of something
Elegies, odes, and sonnets are types of lyric poems.
Conceit – an extended metaphor
 Haiku – small poem about nature
 Limerick – funny five line poem

Elegy
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
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,
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
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.
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
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;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Sonnet 43
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
From the Allen Tate poem
“Ode to the Confederate Dead”
Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath,
They sough the rumour of mortality.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
by William Shakespeare
Conceit
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.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime 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 wand'rest 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.
Haiku
A poem is never finished, only
abandoned.
Paul Valery
Figurative Language and Sound Devices

Figurative Language – speech or writing
that departs from literal meaning in order
to achieve a special effect or meaning.
Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/figurative+language

Sound Devices – use of specific words
based on the effect given to the sound of
a line of verse.
Elements of Poetry

Aphasia is a disorder that robs you of
the ability to communicate.

Coma is a state of prolonged
unconsciousness that can be caused by a
wide variety of problems
A
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Allusion
An indirect reference to a historical, Biblical,
or literary event.
Personification
Assigning human qualities to nonhuman things.
The harmonica grinned with rust.
Hyperbole
A gross exaggeration to
make a point
Her mouth was as big as the grand canyon.
Apostrophe
To address something inanimate as if it
could respond.
Sky why do you drown me with your tears?
Simile
Comparing two unlike things using
like or as
Their voices crossed over like braids.
Imagery
Use of sensory details to create an experience in
the reader’s mind.
Visual - something seen in the mind's eye
Auditory - represents a sound
Olfactory - a smell
Tactile - touch, for example hardness, softness, wetness,
heat, cold
Gustatory - a taste
and
Organic - internal sensation: hunger, thirst, fatigue, fear
Kinesthetic - movement or tension
Heat by H.D.
O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.
Cut the heat—
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.
Assonance
Repeated vowel sounds within a
line of verse.
I calculated the capacity of the class based
on their academic performance.
Consonance
Repeated consonant sounds within
a line of verse
They are chestnuts shining in the rain.
Onomatopoeia
Imitation of sound in words: words
that imitate the sound
associated with something
The hiss of steam from the engine signaled
trouble for the driver.
Metaphor
A comparison of two unlike things
saying one is another
The toads sitting on the road were baked
potatoes huddled against one another.
Alliteration
The repeated initial sound of a
word within a line of verse
We walked carefully around the rough and
ragged rock.