Poetry Unit

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Poetry Unit

• Mrs. Driscolls
• 8th Grade Language Arts
• Woodland Middle School

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Prose VS. Poetry

• Prose is any writing that is not poetry. Essays,
  short stories, novels, newspaper articles, and
  letters are all written in prose. Prose is
  usually composed in paragraphs.

• Poetry is a kind of rhythmic, compressed language
  that uses figures of speech and imagery designed
  to appeal to our emotions and imagination.

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Figures of Speech

• Simile
• Metaphor
• Personification
• Idiom
• Cliché

• Euphemism
• Oxymoron
• Hyperbole
• Pun

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Imagery

• Imagery is language that appeals to the senses.
• Most images are visual
• Images can also appeal to the senses of hearing,
  touch, taste, and smell.
• Often images can appeal to several senses at once.

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Poetic Structure

• Poetry is usually arranged in lines.
• A group of consecutive lines in a poem that form
  a single unit is a stanza.
• It often has a regular pattern of rhythm and may
  have a regular rhyme scheme (exception free
  verse).

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Stanzas in Poetry

• A stanza in a poem is something like a paragraph
  in prose It often expresses a unit of thought.
• A stanza may consist of any number of lines it
  may even consist of a single line.
• In some poems, each stanza has the same rhyme
  scheme.

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Speaker in Poetry

• Speaker Poetry Narrator Prose
• The speaker in poetry is the voice talking to us
  in a poem.
• The speaker is sometimes, but not always, the
  poet.
• It is best to think of the voice in the poem as
  belonging to a character the poet has created.
• The character may be a child, a woman, a man, an
  animal, or even an object.

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Poetic Sound Devices

• Rhythm
• Rhyme
• Refrain
• Onomatopoeia
• Alliteration
• Assonance

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Rhythm in Poetry

• Rhythm is a musical quality produced by the
  repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables
  or by the repetition of certain other sound
  patterns.
• A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in
  poetry is called meter.
• Scanning is marking the meter of a poem with
  stressed and unstressed syllables.

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Rhyme in Poetry

• Rhyme is the repetition of accented vowel sounds
  and all sounds following them in words that are
  close together in a poem.
• Purposesbuilding rhythm, lending a songlike
  quality, emphasizing ideas, organizing poems,
  providing humor or pleasure for the reader, and
  aiding memory.
• Types of rhymes end, internal, approximate
  (near or slant), and eye (visual).

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Types of Rhymes

• End rhymes rhymes at the end of lines.
• Internal rhymes rhymes within lines.
• Approximate/near/slant rhymes rhymes involving
  sounds that are similar but not exactly the same
  (leave/live).
• Eye/visual rhymes rhymes involving words that
  are spelled similarly but pronounced differently
  (tough/cough as opposed to tough/rough).

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Rhyme Scheme in Poetry

• Rhyme scheme the pattern of end rhymes in a
  poem.
• To indicate the rhyme scheme of a poem, use a
  letter of the alphabet for each end rhyme.
• A Time to Talk pg 17 abcadbceed

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Refrain in Poetry

• A repeated sound, word, phrase, line, or group of
  lines.
• Usually associated with songs and poems but are
  also used in speeches and other forms of
  literature.
• Purposes build rhythm, provide emphasis, create
  suspense, or help hold a work together.

• From America by Neil Diamond
• Everywhere around the world
• They're coming to America
• Every time that flag's unfurled
• They're coming to America
• Got a dream to take them there
• They're coming to America
• Got a dream they've come to share
• They're coming to America

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Onomatopoeia

• The use of words whose sounds imitate or suggest
  their meaning
• Examples buzz, rustle, boom, ticktock, tweet,
  and bark
• Lines to right suggestion of sound of sleigh
  bells

• From The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe
• Hear the sledges with the bells-
• Silver bells!
• What a world of merriment their melody
• foretells!
• How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
• In the icy air of night!
• While the stars that oversprinkle
• All the Heavens, seem to twinkle
• With a crystalline delight.

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Alliteration

• The repetition of consonant sounds in words that
  are close together.
• Usually at the beginning of words, but also occur
  within or at end of words
• Mostly in poetry but can be in prose

• From The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis
  Carroll
• The sun was shining on the sea,
• Shining with all his might
• He did his very best to make
• The billows smooth and bright-
• And this was odd, because it was
• The middle of the night.

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Assonance

• The repetition of vowel sounds in words that are
  close together.
• Usually at the beginning of words, but also occur
  within or at end of words
• Mostly in poetry but can be in prose

• By Buson
• Sun low in the west
• moon floating up in the east
• flowers in shadows