1 POETRY 101
2 Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. — Shelley
3 If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry.-Emily Dickinson
4 Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing. -Dylan Thomas
5 Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.- Rita Dove
6 Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. - Robert Frost
7 Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.- Carl Sandburg
8 A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.-Wallace Stevens
9 If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.-M.H. Abrams
10 No poem is easily grasped; so why should any reader expect fast results?-John Barton
11 Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.-Marianne Moore
12 Poetry: the best words in the best order.-Coleridge
13 You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.-Joseph Joubert
14 So….what makes a poem “good”?1. A subtle, recurrent rhythm – some sort of beat that unifies the poem. The beat is in harmony with the thought: Sadness = slow beat (more contemplative) Happiness = quick beat ( more upbeat)
15 What makes a poem “good”????2. An imaginative use of language – the words of the poem stir up feelings and imagination; every word is absolutely the best word.
16 What makes a poem “good”????3. Strong imagery that relies on and conveys sensory details
17 What makes a poem “good”????4. A condensed utterance – uses a minimum of words packed with meaning
18 What makes a poem “good”???5. An expression of a complex thought – makes you think and requires reading & re-reading for full impact
19 What makes a poem “bad”??? 1. A rhythm that is too obvious and over-done
20 What makes a poem “bad”??? 2. Sentimentality – too much obvious, over-wrought feeling (like a Hallmark card)
21 What makes a poem “bad”??? 3. Sermonizing – draws too obvious of a moral conclusion without letting the reader think about it on her own
22 What makes a poem “bad”??? 4. Wordiness – has unnecessary words that add nothing to the impact
23 What makes a poem “bad”??? 5. Trite rhymes – rhyming for rhyme’s sake…rhymes that are too obvious and make the poem sound like a nursery rhyme.
24 We begin by developing a poetic “toolbox”…So how do we talk about poetry? We begin by developing a poetic “toolbox”…
25 When you talk about a poem, you consider the following:The TYPE of poem The STRUCTURE of the poem The SOUNDS of the poem The MEANING of the poem
26 Types of Poetry
27 There are many different types of poetryThere are many different types of poetry. Here is a sampling of the most common types:
28 What are the types of poetry?Narrative poems – tell a story. One type of narrative poem is the epic. The epic celebrates the adventures and achievements of a hero...epics deal with the traditions - mythical or historical - of a nation. examples: Beowulf, The Iliad and the Odyssey
29 What are the types of poetry. 2What are the types of poetry? 2. Dramatic Monologues – poems spoken by one person within a drama; convey inner conflict
30 What are the types of poetry. 3What are the types of poetry? 3. Ballads- songlike poems that tell a story; originally passed down by oral tradition. The story of a ballad can originate from a wide range of subject matter but most frequently deals with folk-lore or legends.
31 What are the types of poetry. 4What are the types of poetry? 4. An ode is a poem praising and glorifying a person, place or thing
32 What are the types of poetry. 5What are the types of poetry? 5. Haiku – three-line poem comprised of seventeen syllables. Conveys a vivid single impression, usually by means of images from nature
33 What are the types of poetry. 6What are the types of poetry? 6. Sonnets – highly structured poems of fourteen lines and with a specific rhyme scheme. Usually about love, there are two basic types: ~Shakespearean – 14 lines following a rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefefgg ~Petrarchan – 14 lines following a rhyme scheme of abbaabbacdecde
34 What are the types of poetry?7. Free verse – poetry without regular rhythmic pattern (meter). Attempts to capture more natural, informal rhythms of speech. The dominant form of contemporary poetry. In moving from line to line, the poet's main consideration is where to insert line breaks.. Following the direction of Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot, many modern day poets use this particular form of expression.
35 What are the types of poetry?8. Epics – long narrative poems about the deeds of heroes or gods.
36 What are the types of poetry?9. Blank verse – poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
37 Structural Terms
38 Structural Terms Stanza – a group of lines that form a unit
39 Structural Terms 2. Couplet – two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme and form a unit of meaning
40 Structural Terms 3. Meter – the organized rhythmic pattern created by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables. Meter is considered in structured poetic forms, like the sonnet and blank verse poetry, but not in free verse.
41 Structural Terms 4. Foot – Meter is measured in units called feetStructural Terms 4. Foot – Meter is measured in units called feet. A foot usually consists of one stressed syllable and one of more unstressed syllable. For example, an iamb consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. It sounds like di-dah. The unstressed syllables are marked with a and the stressed syllables are marked with a . It looks like this: Be-neath At-tempt
42 Structural Terms 5. Scansion – This is the process of analyzing, or counting, the metrical pattern. It involves counting the number of times a foot is repeated throughout a line of poetry. For example, a line of poetry that has five iambs in it is written in iambic pentameter.
43 Structural Terms 6. Enjambment - the continuation of a thought or a sentence from one line of poetry to the next one without a pause.
44 Structural Terms 7. Caesura -
45 Structural Terms 9. Repetition – the use of an element of poetry (a sound, a word, a line, a clause, etc…) more than once. Used for emphasis.
46 Sound Terms Sound devices are resources used by poets to convey and reinforce the meaning or experience of poetry through the skillful use of sound. After all, poets are trying to use a concentrated blend of sound and imagery to create an emotional response. The words and their order should evoke images, and the words themselves have sounds, which can reinforce or otherwise clarify those images. In turn, these images contribute to the overall “meaning” of the poem. Essentially, the poet is trying to get you, the reader, to sense a particular thing, and the use of sound devices is one of the poet’s tools.
47 Sound Devices 1. ASSONANCE: The relatively close juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds within words, but with different end consonants, as in date and fade.
48 Sound terms 2. CONSONANCE: The repetition of the same end consonants of words such as boat and night or the words, cool and soul, within or at the end of a line of poetry.
49 Sound Terms 3. ALLITERATION: Also called initial rhyme, the repetition of the initial sounds (usually consonants) of stressed syllables in neighboring words or at short intervals, as in wild and woolly.
50 Sound Terms 4. EUPHONY: Harmony or beauty of sound that provides a pleasing effect to the ear, usually sought-for in poetry for effect. It is achieved not only by the selection of individual words and sounds, but also by their relationship in the repetition, proximity, and flow of sound patterns.
51 Sound Terms 5. CACOPHONY: Discordant sounds in the jarring juxtaposition of harsh letters or syllables. Sometimes inadvertent, but often deliberately used in poetry for effect.
52 Sound devices are important to poetic effects; to create sounds appropriate to the content, the poet may sometimes prefer to achieve a cacophonous effect instead of the more commonly sought-for euphony. The use of words with the consonants b,k and p, for example, produce harsher sounds than the soft f and v or the liquid l,m and n. Vowel sounds are generally more pleasing to the ear than the consonants, so a line with a higher ratio of vowel sounds will produce a more agreeable effect; also, the long vowels in words like moon and fate are more melodious than the short vowels in cat and bed.
53 Sound Devices 6. ONOMATOPOEIA: Strictly speaking, the formation or use of words which imitate sounds, like whispering, clang and sizzle, but the term is generally expanded to refer to any word whose sound is suggestive of its meaning.
54 Sound Devices 7. RHYME: In the specific sense, a type of echoing which utilizes a correspondence of sound in the final accented vowels and all that follows of two or more words, but the preceding consonant sounds must differ, as in the words, bear and care. In a poetic sense, however, rhyme refers to a close similarity of sound as well as an exact correspondence; it includes the agreement of vowel sounds in assonance and the repetition of consonant sounds in consonance and alliteration.
55 Sound Devices 9. INTERNAL RHYME: Also called middle rhymeSound Devices 9. INTERNAL RHYME: Also called middle rhyme. Occurs within the line, as in “His childhood fraught with lessons taught by want and misery”
56 Sound Devices 10. NEAR RHYME: Also called slant rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme or half rhyme. The sounds are similar, but not exact, as in home and come or close and lose. (Due to changes in pronunciation, some near rhymes in modern English were perfect rhymes when they were originally written in old English.)