Poetry Notes

1
Poetry Notes

• Poetry is the most compact form of literature.
• FORM the way a poem looks- or its arrangement
  on the page is its form.
• Poets deliberately chose arrangements of words
  and even plan spaces between words letters to
  create the form.
• Stanza groups of lines combined together
• Couplet a pair of successive line which rhyme
  usually
• Triplet a three lined poem, some or all lines
  may rhyme

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Poetry Notes cont..

• Sound Poems are meant to be read aloud
  therefore poets choose arrange words to create
  the sounds they want the listener to hear. Common
  ones are
• Rhyme words that end with the same sound.
• End rhyme
• The old moon is tarnished
• With smoke of the flood
• The dead leaves are varnished
• With color like blood,

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There are many different rhyme patterns a writer
can use

• Example AABB
• Robert Frosts Once by the Pacific
• The shattered water made a misty din
• Great waves looked over others coming in,
• And thought of doing something to the shore
• That water never did before.
• The clouds hung low and hairy in the skies,
• Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes
• What literary device (figure of speech) is used
  in this poem?

4
There are many different rhyme patterns a writer
can use

• Example ABAB
• T.S. Elliots The Wasteland
• She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
• Hardly aware of her departed lover,
• Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass
• Well now thats done and Im glad its over.

5
There are many different rhyme patterns a writer
can use

• Example ABCABC
• T.S. Elliots The Wasteland
• On Margate Sands
• I can connect
• Nothing with nothing.
• The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
• My people humble people who expect
• Nothing

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What rhyme pattern is used in Robert Frosts poem
Fire and Ice?

• Some say the world will end in fire
• Some say in ice.
• From what Ive tasted of desire
• I hold those who favor fire
• But if I had to perish twice,
• I think I know enough of hate
• To say that for destruction by ice
• Is also great
• And would suffice

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Free Verse Does not follow a specific rhyme
or meter even those the poets still write in a
rhythmic pattern.

• This is done by repeating sentence patterns
• Give me the splendid silent sun with all his
  beams full dazzling
• Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from
  the orchard
• Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows
• Give me an arbor, give me the trellised grape
• Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun by Walt
  Whitman

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Poetry is music to your ears

• So what else can a poet do to create music to
  your ears?
• Alliteration Repetition of consonant sounds in
  several words that are close together Ex. The
  swimmer's skin sizzled in the sun.
• Assonance Same thing except with vowels
  anywhere in the words, there is a repetition of
  vowels
• Ex. Please bake me a date cake.
• Consonance anywhere in words, there is
  repetition of consonant sounds
• Ex. Write a great paper by the due date.
• Onomatopoeia words that sound like the name of
  the word
• Ex. The cereal snapped, crackled, and popped.

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• Repetition words or phrases are repeated
• Ex. Because there is hope, because there is love,
  because there is beauty, I can go on
• Rhyme sound alike endings of words
• End rhyme At the end of lines, words rhyme.
• EX. Jars and cans lined the rack They tumbled
  down on my back
• Internal rhyme Words that rhyme are int the
  middle of the line.
• EX. I carry a gold locket in my pocket

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Poetry Devices

• Simile a comparison of two unlike things using
  like or as
• Ex. She is beautiful like the morning sun.
• Metaphor a comparison of two unlike things
  without using like or as
• Ex. Frank is a fox.

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Poetry Devices

• Personification an inanimate object is given
  human like characteristic
• Ex. The trees danced in the wind.
• Hyperbole a great exaggeration
• Ex. She ate a mountain of mashed potatoes.

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Types of Poems

• Ballads songlike poem that tells a story, often
  a sad story of betrayal, death, or loss Ballads
  usually have a regular steady rhythm, a simple
  rhyme pattern and a refrain, all of which make
  them easy to memorize. Example The Cremation
  of Sam McGee. Most country songs are ballads.

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Epic

• Long narrative poem about the many deeds of a
  great hero. Epics are closely connected to a
  particular culture. The hero of an an epic
  embodies the important values of the society he
  comes from ( Heroes of epics have so far been
  males) Good example is Beowulf, Casey at
  the Bat

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Narrative Poems

• Poems that tell a story- a series of related
  events Remember the word narrative means
  stories. Paul Reveres Ride

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Lyric Poems

• Poem that does not tell a story but expresses the
  personal feelings or emotions of the speaker.
  Example Valentine for Ernest Mann . Lyric,
  short poem that conveys intense feeling or
  profound thought. In ancient Greece, lyrics were
  sung or recited to the accompaniment of the lyre.
  Elegies and odes were popular forms of the lyric
  in classical times. the Japanese verse called
  haiku is a lyric

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Ode

• Long lyric poem, usually praising some subject
  and written in dignified language.
• Odes originally were songs performed to the
  accompaniment of a musical instrument. 
• Example Ode to Thanks/Oda a las gracias

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Sonnet

• Fourteen line lyric poem that follow strict rules
  of structure, meter and rhyme.
• Italian sonnet you make a point in the first
  eight lines, you ask a question, then the last
  six you answer the question
• English or Shakespearean sonnet is made up of
  three units with four lines in each one.
• John Keats was a famous English poet known for
  his sonnets. On the Grasshopper and the Cricket.
  

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Elegy

• It is a poem of mourning. Most elegies are about
  someone that has died. Some mourn a way of life
  that is gone forever.
• O Captain! My Captain by Walt Whitman is a great
  example of elegy. It uses metaphor to compare
  Lincolns life.