Form

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What Are Elements of Poetry?
Feature Menu
Form Forms of Poetry Tone Imagery Figurative
Language Your Turn
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Form
A poet is like a sculptor.
A sculptor uses tools to shape wood, stone, or
metal.
A poet uses words to shape a poem.
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Form
Read this poem aloud. How do the lengths of the
lines influence the sound of the poem?
Stay beautiful but dont stay down underground
too long Dont turn into a mole or a worm or a
root or a stone from For Poets
by Al Young
The shortlines giveemphasis to words like worm
and stone.
Short lines may also cue readers to speed up.
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Form
To help shape their writing, poets ask
1. How long should the lines be?
2. Should I group the lines into stanzas?
3. Should I follow established forms or
experiment with new forms?
The poets purpose is to give the words a
pleasing shape on the page and to help convey
meaning.
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Form
A stanza is a group of lines that forms a single
unit in a poem.
This is my letter to the world, That
never wrote to me, -- The simple news that
Nature told, With tender majesty. Her
message is committed To hands I cannot see
For love of her, sweet countrymen, Judge
tenderly of me! Letter to the World by Emily
Dickinson (edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson)
This poem has two stanzas.
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Form
Established forms follow a traditional pattern
set by other poets who lived long ago.

• This pattern may determine the poems
• rhythm
• rhyme scheme
• number of lines
• number of stanzas

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Form
Quick Check
How does the shape of this experimental poem help
you understand its meaning?
My Favorite Pencil
One endwipes outmistakes.
The other capturesideas, making surethat people
get the
point.
End of Section
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Form
Quick Check
The poem looks like a pencil the shape of the
poem imitates its subject.
My Favorite Pencil
The other capturesideas, making surethat people
get the
One endwipes outmistakes.
point.
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Forms of Poetry
Could you write a poem by listing four or five
things found in your classroom?
You could if you were writing a catalog poem
free verse that lists the poets thoughts or
feelings on a subject.
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Forms of Poetry
A catalog poem is a list
On the first day of school, I see shoes. My
classmates wear big shoes, small shoes, smelly
shoesshoes built for running and moving. I see
desks. . . .
Other kinds of poems
honor someone or some event
tell stories
express feelings
remember someone
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Forms of Poetry
Express feelingsformally
Tell a story
Express thoughts and feelingsin free verse
Mourn the loss of someone or something
You will read many of these forms in this
collection.
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Forms of Poetry
Quick Check
What is the form of this poem?
I hear America singing, the varied carols I
hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as
it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter
singing his as he measures his plank or
beam, . . . The delicious singing of the mother,
or of the young wife at work, or of the girl
sewing or washing, . . .
from I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman
End of Section
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Forms of Poetry
Quick Check
This is a catalog poem. The poet lists many
different singers.
What is the form of this poem?
I hear America singing, the varied carols I
hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as
it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter
singing his as he measures his plank or
beam, . . . The delicious singing of the mother,
or of the young wife at work, or of the girl
sewing or washing, . . .
from I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman
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Tone
Tone reflects a poets attitude toward a subject.
Amazed at medicaltechnology?
Saddened by his loss?
In awe of his courage?
Inspired by his persistence?
Imagine you are writing a poem about the man in
this picture. What would be your tone, or
attitude?
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Tone
To determine a poems tone, ask
How do the words images sounds make you
feel?
cold?
adventurous?
spooked?
curious?
A poet carefully chooses every word and detail to
help you understand and share his or her attitude.
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Tone
Quick Check
What is the toneof this passage from The
Highwayman?
And still of a winters night, they say, when the
wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly
galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is
a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A
highwayman comes riding Ridingriding A
highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn
door. by Alfred Noyes
End of Section
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Tone
Quick Check
And still of a winters night, they say, when the
wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly
galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is
a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A
highwayman comes riding Ridingriding A
highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn
door. by Alfred Noyes
The spooky, mysterious, tone is created by words
like ghostly anddetails like the dark, cold
night.
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Imagery
You can think of a poet as an artist who uses
words the way a painter uses paint.
clouds like tufts of wool
the rocks wrinkled face . . . a carpet of red
sand
The poets words create images, or pictures, in
the readers mind.
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Imagery
Listen to this excerpt from The Highwayman.
What images do you see?
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the
gusty trees,The moon was a ghostly
galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas,The road was a
ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,And
the highwayman came riding. . . . by Alfred Noyes
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Imagery
Is this how you imagined the scene?
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Imagery
Images in poetry focus on all of the senses.
sight
sound
taste
touch
smell
He rode with a jeweled twinkle. . . .
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the
dark inn yard.
They said no word to the landlord. They drank
his ale instead.
He scarce could reach her hand. . . .
. . . his hair like moldy hay. . . .
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Imagery
Quick Check
Beclouded The sky is low, the clouds are mean, A
traveling flake of snow Across a barn or through
a rut Debates if it will go. A narrow wind
complains all day How some one treated
him Nature, like us, is sometimes caught Without
her diadem. by Emily Dickinson (edited by Thomas
Wentworth Higginson)
Find examples ofimages in this poem that appeal
to different senses.
End of Section
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Imagery
Quick Check
Beclouded The sky is low, the clouds are mean, A
traveling flake of snow Across a barn or through
a rut Debates if it will go. A narrow wind
complains all day How some one treated
him Nature, like us, is sometimes caught Without
her diadem. by Emily Dickinson (edited by Thomas
Wentworth Higginson)
Images that appeal to the senses include Sight
hanging clouds, a blowing snowflake, a barn, a
crown Sound wind blowing
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Figurative Language
Poets also use figures of speechlanguage that
helps make startling connections between
dissimilar things.
What connections are made in the following lines
from The Railway Train?
I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the
valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks. . .
. by Emily Dickinson
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Figurative Language
A train is compared to a horse.
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Figurative Language
A simile is a comparison of two unlike things
using the word like, as, or resembles.
There came a wind like a bugle. . . .

• How are these very different things alike?
• What meaning does the poet want us to make from
  this connection?

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Figurative Language
A metaphor compares two unlike things without
using like, as, or resembles.
Stars are great drops Of golden dew from
Harlem Night Song by Langston Hughes
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Figurative Language
An extended metaphor is a comparison that
continues through many lines or the entire poem.
All the world's a stage, And all the men and
women merely players They have their exits and
their entrances, And one man in his time plays
many parts, His acts being seven ages. by
William Shakespeare
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Figurative Language
Quick Check
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim
and gray, Like a shadow against the curtain of
falling flakes.
from The Runaway by Robert Frost
What figure(s)of speechare used in these lines
from a poem about a young horse?
End of Section
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Figurative Language
Quick Check
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim
and gray, Like a shadow against the curtain of
falling flakes.
from The Runaway by Robert Frost
What figure(s)of speechare used in these lines
from a poem about a young horse?
Like a shadow is a simile. It uses like to
compare the colt and a shadow. Curtain is a
metaphor. It compares snow to a curtain, without
using like, as, or resembles.
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A few more definitions

• Alliteration is the use of two or more words
  that begin with the same consonant sound. EX
  Susie sells silly string at the soda stand.
• Personification gives objects and animals the
  ability to act like people.
• EX The Breeze whispered a lullaby through the
  pines.
• Onomatopoeia use of words to represent a real
  sound. EX hiss, moo, buzz

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Analyze Elements of Poetry
Your Turn

• What makes poetry different from prose?Include
  different elements as examples.
• Identify an element of poetry that you would like
  to understand better, and explain why.

End of Section
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The End
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Become familiar with stanzas, rhyming words and
rhyme schemes (rhyme patterns).

• Most writing is composed using paragraphs.
  Poetry is composed of stanzas. A stanza is a
  paragraph like grouping of lines.

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Rhyming words are words that make the same end
vowel sound (blue/shoe) or the same end vowel and
consonant sound (cat/rat).

• The rhyme scheme in a poem can be represented by
  letters. For example, call the first line a.
  Every other line that rhymes with the first line
  is also represented by the letter a. The first
  line that does not rhyme with a is b. Every line
  that rhymes with b is also b. The patterns
  continues, using new letters to represent each
  new sound at the end of a line. Continues into
  other stanzas.

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The following short poem illustrates the labeling
of a rhyme scheme.

• There once was a big brown cat     
  a                  That liked to eat a lot of
  mice.       b                  He got all round
  and fat                a                 
  Because they tasted so nice.         b