Introduction to Poetry

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Introduction to Poetry

• Poem by Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry

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Introduction to Poetry definitions

• SAMUEL JOHNSON (from Preface to Shakespeare)The
  end of writing is to instruct the end of poetry
  is to instruct by pleasing.
• WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (from Preface to Lyrical
  Ballads) Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
  powerful feelings it takes its origin from
  emotion recollected in tranquility the emotion
  is contemplated till, by a species of reaction,
  the tranquility gradually disappears, and an
  emotion, kindred to that which was the subject of
  contemplation, is gradually produced, and does
  itself actually exist in the mind.

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Definitions contd.

• ROBERT FROST (The Letters of Robert Frost to
  Louis Untermeyer (1963)) A poem begins with a
  lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a
  love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward
  expression an effort to find fulfillment. A
  complete poem is one where the emotion has found
  its thought and the thought has found the words."
• MERRIAMWEBSTER.COM Poem A composition in verse
• Poetry 1 a metrical writing VERSE b the
  productions of a poet POEMS 2 writing that
  formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness
  of experience in language chosen and arranged to
  create a specific emotional response through
  meaning, sound, and rhythm3 a something
  likened to poetry especially in beauty of
  expression b poetic quality or aspect ltthe
  poetry of dancegt

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Definitions contd.

• Jonathan Culler (from Literary Theory. A Very
  Short Introduction) language that makes abundant
  use of figures of speech and language that aims
  to be powerfully persuasive.
• Horace via Reaske (The College Writers Guide to
  the Study of Literature) Horace, who was
  concerned with the complexities of aesthetic
  experience, compared poetry to pictures and
  suggested that both can be superficially
  arresting or densely compact.

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What is poetry? -1

• Poetry is one of the oldest literatures - oral
  poetry existed before written literature
• The Greek root of the word poetry is poësis,
  meaning a making and a poet is a maker
  (English word wright (a maker, a craftsperson) as
  used in playwright).
• The word poetry is so venerable that the study of
  the principles of literature, as well as the
  study of principles of poetry, is still called
  poetics by many in the field of English

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What is poetry? -2

• Poetry is incredibly diverse cant discuss all
  the forms, styles, methods, or principles.
• Poetry rewards a lot of reading and thinking. For
  all writers, of all forms, poetry study teaches
  the possibilities of words (their music, rhythm,
  sound) and the possibilities of language (the
  intensity and compression of language, the beauty
  and ugliness). Words stand bare in poetry.
• Poetry is nothing to be frightened of - we need
  to learn ways of reading and understanding it.
  Ex. reading across the line.

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How do you recognize a poem?

• The vast majority of poetry announces itself as
  poetry by its
• Length - (relatively short)
• Visual impression - irregular lines, often
  divided in stanzas or sections, capitalized first
  letter of each line.
• Concentrated, intense language that makes some
  deliberate sound effects which can involve
  rhythm, rhyme, or other sounds.
• Concentrated language effects that seem based on
  the word and the line for expression (rather than
  the sentence or the paragraph)
• Meaning making that often depends on metaphor,
  symbol, association, surprise, strong description
  - the reader must take a closer/deeper look.

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Recognizing a poem - buts

• Avant garde artists who deliberately question or
  have questioned the way poetry works.
• The level of language ranges from slang to the
  most formal standard English, the subjects
  include the forbidden, the marginal, the avant
  garde, the personal, the traditional.
• Poets, like all artists, have different agendas,
  just like fiction and drama writers, and their
  form, content and conscious and unconscious
  agendas are present and reflect each other.

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Formal poetry Form and quasi-form

• Formal poems follow a fairly strict formula of
  "versification" - regular rhyme, meter, rhythm
  and/or division into stanzas.
• Formal poetry may be the most ancient of all
  literature - in oral cultures form is an aid to
  memory it is now accepted that Homer's Iliad
  and Odyssey were Greek oral forms with repeating
  patterns that aided the teller of the tale.
• Some poets don't write in a strict form, but use
  some formal devices, such as same-line stanzas,
  or occasional regular rhyme or rhythm to help
  organize the look and content of their poetry.
  We'll call this loose, arbitrary form Quasi-Form.

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Formal poetry free and anti-form

• Most contemporary poets find forms artificial and
  write in irregular lines, irregular stanzas, with
  no regular repeating rhythm or rhyme. Instead,
  their language is sculpted to follow the poet's
  own taste. We'll refer to these poems as open
  form or free form (also called vers libre ).
• Finally, some poets write in ways that challenge
  and confuse the whole idea of form as necessary
  to poetry. They may do this through parody or
  ridicule of a form, for example. We'll call this
  use of form Anti-Form.

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l(aleaffalls)oneliness
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Gwendolyn Brooks 1917-2000
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We real cool. We Left school. We 
Lurk late. We Strike straight. We 
Sing sin. We Thin gin. We 
Jazz June. We Die soon.
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Subject/theme of a poem

• Love poem
• Political poem
• Metaphysical poem (philosophical)
• Confessional Poem - Poem of self
  exploration/revelation
• Poem reflecting on death or other solemn themes
  (Elegy)
• Poem to praise a wedding (Epithalamion)
• Poem to impart wisdom, learning and aid memory
  (Proverb)
• Poems that are discovered in everyday life (found
  poetry)
• Puns - poems that depend on word play, humor,
  cleverness
• Epigram (short, witty, concise saying)

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Langston Hughes Epigram

• EPIGRAM
• Oh, God of dust and rainbows, help us see
• That without dust the rainbow would not be.

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Poetic Terms -1

• Word - the intensity of words, their strength,
  music
• Rhyme Masculine, Feminine, Compound, Off/near,
  End, Internal
• Rhyme scheme, i.e. aa/bb/cc
• Neologism - making new words or combining words
  in new forms
• Assonance - similarities in vowel sounds (seat
  and meal)
• Consonance similarities in consonant sounds
  (loft, lift and left)
• Alliteration - combinations of words based on
  their similarities in consonant sounds (like
  lilacs lying in lakes)

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Poetic terms -2

• Compression - the use of compact language, often
  removing unnecessary words
• Punctuation - including lack of, spaces (pauses),
  too much
• Image - an important structural unit, like the
  scene
• Description - the way images are made
• Metaphor/Symbol/Figure - also a basic structural,
  organizing unit of a poem
• Internal Consistency
• Ending - one of the hardest things to accomplish
  in a poem - where to end?

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Line the sentence of a poem

• Line the sentences in poetry can be stretched,
  cut, interrupted, fragmented
• End-stopped A line that expresses a complete
  thought
• Enjambment run on lines, run-on verse
• Metrical or prosodic structure grouping of
  syllables that comprise a line into metrical feet
  of various kinds. Iamb, binary feet with stress
  of second syllable, Trochee, binary feet with
  stress on initial syllable
• Line breaks - where you decide to cut the line,
  on what word
• Caesura break in meaning or rhetorical pause in
  the middle of a line

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Stanza the paragraph of a poem

• Stanza - consists of a set of lines
• One-line Couplet
• Tercet or Triplet Quatrain
• Quintet or Cinquain Sestet, sextet, sextain
• Septet Octave (Octet)
• Nine, Ten line stanza
• Sonnet (also called a quatorzain or fouteneer)

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POETIC GENRES ODE

• a formal celebration of a special event and thus
  is usually a fairly public and continuous form of
  expression.
• A long lyric on a serious theme
• Example Ode on a Grecian Urn / John Keats

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John Keats (1795-1821)Ode on a Grecian Urn

•               1Thou still unravish'd bride of
  quietness,
•               2     Thou foster-child of silence
  and slow time,
•               3Sylvan historian, who canst thus
  express
•               4     A flowery tale more sweetly
  than our rhyme
•               5What leaf-fring'd legend haunts
  about thy shape
•               6     Of deities or mortals, or of
  both,
•               7          In Tempe or the dales of
  Arcady?
•               8     What men or gods are these?
  What maidens loth?
•               9What mad pursuit? What struggle to
  escape?
•             10          What pipes and timbrels?
  What wild ecstasy?

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•             11Heard melodies are sweet, but those
  unheard
•             12     Are sweeter therefore, ye
  soft pipes, play on
•             13Not to the sensual ear, but, more
  endear'd,
•             14     Pipe to the spirit ditties of
  no tone
•             15Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou
  canst not leave
•             16     Thy song, nor ever can those
  trees be bare
•             17          Bold Lover, never, never
  canst thou kiss,
•             18Though winning near the goal yet,
  do not grieve
•             19     She cannot fade, though thou
  hast not thy bliss,
•             20          For ever wilt thou love,
  and she be fair!

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• 21Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot
  shed
•             22      Your leaves, nor ever bid the
  Spring adieu
•             23And, happy melodist, unwearied,
•             24      For ever piping songs for
  ever new
•             25More happy love! more happy, happy
  love!
•             26      For ever warm and still to be
  enjoy'd,
•             27           For ever panting, and
  for ever young
•             28All breathing human passion far
  above,
•             29      That leaves a heart
  high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
•             30           A burning forehead, and
  a parching tongue.

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• 31Who are these coming to the
  sacrifice?
•             32      To what green altar, O
  mysterious priest,
•             33Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at
  the skies,
•             34      And all her silken flanks
  with garlands drest?
•             35What little town by river or sea
  shore,
•             36      Or mountain-built with
  peaceful citadel,
•             37           Is emptied of this folk,
  this pious morn?
•             38And, little town, thy streets for
  evermore
•             39      Will silent be and not a
  soul to tell
•             40           Why thou art desolate,
  can e'er return.

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EPIC

• Is applied to a work that meets the following
  criteria it is a long narrative poem on a great
  and serious subject, elevated in style, and
  centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on
  whose actions depend the faith of a tribe, a
  nation, or the human race.
• Example Beowulf
• Example Paradise Lost / John Milton

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The Sonnet

• Comes from the Italian word sonetto little song
  and was in use during the Renaissance (14th
  16th centuries).
• It is a lyric poem containing 14 lines in iambic
  pentametre with a set rhyme scheme abba abba cde
  cde 5 rhymes (structure set by Guittone
  dArezzo).
• It is divided into an OCTAVE/OCTET (8 line
  stanza) which states or develops the proposition
  and a SESTET (6 line stanza) which contains the
  solution or resolution. There are also minor
  breaks between the two quatrains of the octet and
  the two tercets of the sestet.
• Traditional subjects include love and faith

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Kinds of sonnets

• The Petrarchan (Petrarch, Laura poems, 1304-74)
  or Miltonic sonnet (where the break can occur in
  the 8th or 9th line)
• The English or Shakespearean (1564-1616) sonnet
  the form was introduced to England by Sir Thomas
  Wyatt (1503-42) in the 16th century and came to
  maturity with Shakespeare who wrote 154 sonnets.
  Sonnets 1-126 addressed to Mr. W.H. (William
  Herbert, Earl of Pembroke) and Sonnet (127-154)
  addressed to the Dark Lady. The rhyme scheme used
  is abab cdcd efef gg (7 rhymes). The epigrammatic
  force of the last couplet is very strong sums
  up the message or gives it a twist
• The Spenserian sonnet (1552-99, Amoretti to his
  fiancee Elizabeth Boyle) has an interlocking
  rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee (5 rhymes of the
  Italian sonnet are rearranged.)

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Shakespeares Sonnet XVIII
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art
more lovely and more temperateRough winds do
shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease
hath all too short a dateSometime 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
wander'st 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.
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ELEGY

• A poem in which the speaker either mourns for
  someone who has died or contemplates the tragic
  importance of death. It expresses the poets
  grief over somebody or something that has been
  lost.
• A formal and sustained poem of lament for the
  death of a particular person.
• Example Elegy for a Dead Soldier / Karl Shapiro
  , Antipater of Sidon, the Destruction of Corinth.

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BALLAD

• A brief and usually sad stories told in song, the
  story is told in compact dramatic scenes, with
  simple dialogue and concrete imagery, and often a
  refrain.
• Example Sir Patrick Spence , Ballad of
  Birmingham / Dudley Randall, Lord Randall

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Lord Randall

• "O where ha you been, Lord Randal, my son?And
  where ha you been, my handsome young man?""I ha
  been at the greenwood mother, mak my bed
  soon,For I'm wearied wi hunting, and fain wad
  lie down."
• "An wha met ye there, Lord Randal, my son?And
  wha met ye there, my handsome young man?""O I
  met wi my true-love mother, mak my bed soon,For
  I'm wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down."
• "And what did she give you, Lord Randal, My
  son?And wha did she give you, my handsome young
  man?""Eels fried in a pan mother, mak my bed
  soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fein wad lie
  down."

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• "And what gat your leavins, Lord Randal my
  son?And wha gat your leavins, my handsome young
  man?""My hawks and my hounds mother, mak my bed
  soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fein wad lie
  down."
• "And what becam of them, Lord Randal, my son?And
  what becam of them, my handsome young man?"They
  stretched their legs out and died mother mak my
  bed soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fain wad
  lie down."
• "O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my
  son!I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young
  man!""O yes, I am poisoned mother, mak my bed
  soon,For I'm sick at the heart, and fain wad lie
  down."

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• "What d'ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal, my
  son?What d'ye leave to your mother, my handsome
  young man?""Four and twenty milk kye mother,
  mak my bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, and I
  fain wad lie down."
• "What d'ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal, my
  son?What d'ye leave to your sister, my handsome
  young man?""My gold and my silver mother mak my
  bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, an I fain
  wad lie down."
• "What d'ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal, my
  son?What d'ye leave to your brother, my handsome
  young man?""My houses and my lands mother, mak
  my bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, and I
  fain wad lie down."
• "What d'ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal,
  my son?What d'ye leave to your true-love, my
  handsome young man?""I leave her hell and fire
  mother mak my bed soon,For I'm sick at the
  heart, and I fain wad lie down."