Poetry
Poetry is the most musical of literary
forms. Poets choose words for both
sound and meaning!
Elements of Poetry
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Sensory Language – writing or
speech that appeals to one or more
of the five senses – sight, sound,
smell, taste, and touch (imagery)
Figurative Language – writing
that is innovative, imaginative, and
not meant to be taken literally.
Sound Devices – add a musical
quality to poetry.
Examples of Figurative Language
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Metaphors – describe one thing as if
it were something else. Her eyes
were saucers, wide with
expectation.
Personification – gives human
qualities to something nonhuman.
Similes – use like or as to compare
two unlike things. The drums were
as loud as a fireworks display.
Examples of Sound Devices
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Alliteration – the repetition of
consonant sounds at the beginning
of words, as in feathered friend
Repetition – the repeated use of a
sound, word, or phrase
Assonance – the repetition of vowel
sounds in stressed syllables that
end with different consonant
sounds, as in fade and hay
Sound Devices continued…
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Consonance – the repetition of final consonant
sounds in stressed syllables with different vowel
sounds, as in end and hand
Onomatopoeia – the use of words that imitate
sounds
Rhyme – the repetition of sounds at the ends of
words
Meter – the rhythmical pattern-or arrangement
and number of stressed and unstressed syllablesin a poem
Rhythm – the pattern of strong and weak beats
Forms of Poetry
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Lyric – expresses thoughts and
feelings of a single speaker, often in
very musical verse. The speaker is
the one telling the poem.
Narrative – tells a story in verse;
often have elements like those in a
short story, such as setting, plot,
and characters.
Forms of Poetry continued…
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Ballads – songlike poems that tell a
story, often dealing with adventure
and romance.
Free verse – poetry that is defined
by its lack of structure; it has no
singular meter, not intentional
rhyme, no fixed line length, and no
specific stanza pattern.
Forms of Poetry continued…
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Haiku – a three-line Japanese verse form;
the first and third lines each have five
syllables and the second line has seven.
Rhyming couplets – a pair of rhyming
lines that usually have the same meter
and length.
Limericks – humorous five-line poems
with a specific rhythm pattern and rhyme
scheme
How is poetry written?
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Stanza – a group of lines of poetry that
are usually similar in length and pattern
and are separated by spaces. A stanza is
like a paragraph of poetry – it states and
develops a single main idea. A two line
stanza is called a couplet and a four line
stanza is called a quatrain.
Refrain – A regularly repeated line or
group of lines in a poem.