 Poetry
is the art and craft of putting feelings
into special combinations of words.
 Poetry
is a form of expression, just like
music, painting, sculpture, etc…
 Poets
must give careful attention to words.
 Poetry


demands skill.
While we can admire the feelings in a poem, we
must remember that the words make the poem.
The best poets are those who find the best words
and put them into the best order.
 Read
poems several times and aloud at least
once. They are meant to appeal to our ears
as well as our minds.
 Be aware of punctuation, especially commas
and periods.
 If a line of poetry does not end with
punctuation, do not stop!
 Read the poem in a normal voice; the poem’s
music will emerge naturally.
 Check meanings of unfamiliar words.
 Poetry
– rhythmic, compressed language that
uses figures of speech and allusion
 Rhyme - repetition of accented vowel sounds
and all sounds following
 Rhythm - musical quality by repetition of
stressed/unstressed sounds
 Rhyme scheme – pattern of rhyme formed by
the end rhyme of each line

Example




Roses are red (A)
Violets are blue, (B)
You bake good bread (A)
And I love you. (B)
Meter
- pattern of stressed
and unstressed syllables
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
(Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
(Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
 stanza
- group of lines in a poem
that form a single unit
We were both young, when I first saw you.
I close my eyes and the flashback startsI'm standing there, on a balcony in summer air.
I see the lights; see the party, the ball gowns.
I see you make your way through the crowdYou say hello, little did I know...
That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebblesAnd my daddy said "stay away from Juliet"And I was crying on the staircasebegging you, "Please don't go..."
And I said...
Romeo take me somewhere, we can be alone.
I'll be waiting; all there's left to do is run.
You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess,
It's a love story, baby, just say yes.
By Taylor Swift
 couplet
– two lines of rhyming poetry
Decorator Hermit Crab
There was a little hermit crab (A)
Who thought his tank was rather drab (A)
At first he didn't know what to do (B)
Then decorated with pink and blue. (B)
Now he is no longer crabby (C)
With his new home, he's rather happy! (C)
©2001 Vanessa Pike-Russell
 quatrain
– four lines of poetry
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
-From William Blake's "The Tyger"
 alliteration
- repeated consonant sounds
Betty Botter
by Mother Goose
Betty Botter bought some butter,
But, she said, the butter’s bitter;
If I put it in my batter
It will make my batter bitter,
But a bit of better butter
Will make my batter better.
So she bought a bit of butter
Better than her bitter butter,
And she put it in her batter
And the batter was not bitter.
So ’twas better Betty Botter
Bought a bit of better butter.
 assonance
- repeated vowel sounds
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony
foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And an in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
Excerpt from “Bells” by Edgar A. Poe
 free
verse - poetry without regular
meter or rhyme scheme

Example
Running through a field of clover,
Stop to pick a daffodil
I play he loves me, loves me not,
The daffy lies, it says he does not love me!
Well, what use a daffy
When Jimmy gives me roses?
-- Flora Launa
 narrative

poem - poem that tells a story
Examples: “Annabel Lee” and “The Highwayman”
 epic

- long narrative of hero’s deeds
Examples: “The Iliad”, “The Odyssey”,
“Beowulf”
 ballad-

songlike poem that tells a story
Examples: “The Highwayman” was made into a
song.
 lyric
poem - expresses feelings/thoughts
without telling a story
 limerick
– humorous poem with
five lines; 1st, 2nd, 5th rhyme; 3rd &
4th couplet

Example:

I’m going to write a limerick,
To see if I still know the trick.
And I think that I do,
Guess it’s stuck in like glue.
Who’d’ve thought that one’d pop up so quick?
 haiku
- three-line, 17 syllables:
 five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables
5-7-5

Examples:
I am first with five
Then seven in the middle -Five again to end.
Green and speckled legs,
Hop on logs and lily pads
Splash in cool water.
In a pouch I grow,
On a southern continent -Strange creatures I know.
 sonnet
- fourteen line poem about
single idea, feeling, sentiment