Elements of Poetry

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Elements of Poetry
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What is a poem?

• a composition in verse, especially one that is
  characterized by a highly developed artistic form
  and by the use of heightened language and rhythm
  to express an intensely imaginative
  interpretation of the subject.

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Terms Found Most Often in Poetry

• Alliteration
• Assonance The repetition of the same vowel sound
  in several words in the same line of poetry or
  sentence as in The lazy babies wailed for cake.
  
• Consonance The use of the same consonant sound
  in the middle of several words in a line of
  poetry as in the ls in slowly and silently the
  mellow willows dangled their branch-like arms.

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• Blank Verse Poetry written in unrhymed iambic
  pentameter. Blank means the poetry is not
  rhymed.
• Iambic Pentameter means that each line consist
  of five iambs, or metrical feet, consisting of an
  unstressed syllable (v) followed by a stressed
  syllable ().

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An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed
by a stressed syllable. We could write the rhythm
like this
da DUM
A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet
in a row
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM
We can notate this with a '?' mark representing
an unstressed syllable and a '/' mark
representing a stressed syllable1. In this
notation a line of iambic pentameter would look
like this
? / ? / ? / ? / ? /
The following line from John Keats' ode To Autumn
is a straightforward example2 To swell the
gourd, and plump the hazel shells We can notate
the scansion of this as follows
? / ? / ? / ? / ? /
To swell the gourd, and plump the ha- zel shells
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• Couplet Two consecutive lines of poetry that
  rhyme.
• For never was a story of more woe than this of
  Juliet and her Romeo.

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• End-stopped line A line of poetry that has
  punctuation at the end (.,)
• Run-on line A line of poetry that has no
  punctuation at the end.
• Rhyme Scheme The repetition of accented vowel
  sounds and all the sounds following them in words
  that are close together in a poem.
• Rhymes that occur at the ends of lines are called
  end rhyme.
• Rhyme occurring within lines of poetry is called
  internal rhyme.
• The rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes formed
  by the end rhyme in a poem.

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• Refrain a repeated word, phrase, like, or group
  of lines.
• Meter A generally regular pattern of stressed
  and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
• Rhythm The pattern created by arranged stressed
  and unstressed syllables in poetry. Rhythm gives
  poetry a musical sound.
• Slant Rhymes Words that do not rhyme exactly
  but repeat some sounds such as hollow and
  mellow or look and back.

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• Exact Rhymes Words that rhyme exactly. (cat and
  hat)
• Sonnet A fourteen line poem.
• Stanza A group of lines forming a unit in a
  poem.
• Quatrain A four line stanza in a poem.

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Example of a poem

• Dreams by Langston Hughes Hold fast to dreams
  For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird
  That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when
  dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with
  snow.

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• How to read a poem
• Read through it once circling and making note of
  anything interesting.
• Read through it again looking for any imagery
  that is used.
• Look for any symbolism and decide what it stands
  for.
• Look at the poem as a whole what is the author
  trying to say?

Langston Hughes