Introduction to Poetic Terminology Definition of Poetry Poetry

Introduction to Poetic Terminology

Definition of Poetry • Poetry - A type of writing that uses language to express imaginative and emotional qualities instead of or in addition to meaning. • Poetry may be written as individual poems or included in other written forms as in dramatic poetry, hymns, or song lyrics.

Literary Devices Used in Poetry

Figurative Language is the use of words outside of their literal or usual meaning to add beauty or force. It is characterized by the use of similes and metaphors.

Metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, in which one thing becomes another without the use of the words like, as, than, or resembles.

Example: Love is a rose.

Simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles. Example: My love is like a red, red rose. - Robert Burns

Onomatopoeia Onomatopeia is the use of a word or words whose sound imitates its meaning. Examples: crackle, pop, fizz, click, chirp

Personification is a special kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing is talked about as if it was human (given human characteristics).

Example: This poetry gets bored of being alone, It wants to go outdoors to chew on the wings, To fill its commas with the keels of rowboats…. -Hugo Margenat, from”Living Poetry”

Symbolism is when a person, place, thing or idea stands for itself and for something else. Example: Use of the bald eagle to represent the United States.

Alliteration is the use of similar sounds at the beginning or end of a word.

Assonance is the use of similar vowel sounds within a word.

Poetic Structures

Iambic Foot An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Example: We could write the rhythm like this: da DUM

Meter is the pattern of rhythm established for a verse.

Rhythm is the actual sound that results from a line of poetry.

Iambic Pentameter is a line of poetry with five iambic feet in a row This is the most common meter in English poetry.

Example: We could write the rhythm like this: da-DUM da-DUM We can notate this with a ˘ mark representing an unstressed syllable and a '/' mark representing a stressed syllable

Example Continued: The following line from John Keats' Ode to Autumn is a straightforward example: ˘ / ˘ / ˘ To swell the gourd, and plump the ha - zel / shells

Rhyme is the placement of identical or similar sounds at the ends of lines or at predictable locations within lines.

Lines Poetry is separated into lines on a page. Lines may be based on the number of metrical feet, or may stress a rhyme pattern at the ends of lines.

Stanzas are groups of lines in a poem which are named by the number of lines included. • • • Two lines is a couplet. Three lines is a triplet or tercet. Four lines is a quatrain. Five lines is a quintain or cinquain. Six lines is a sestet. Eight lines is an octet.

Couplet is two lines of a poem that are related by either rhyme or structure.

Rhyme Scheme is the use rhyme in a pattern as a structural element in a poem.

Rhyme schemes are described using letters that correspond to sets of rhymes. Example: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, A Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; A All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, B Couldn’t put Humpty together again. B ------------------------The rhyme scheme for this poem is: AABB

and I and J and tagalong K, All on their way up the coconut tree. Example Continued: A told B, B told C, “I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree. ” A A B A -from Chicka, Chicka Boom by Bill Martian Jr. , and John Archambault ----------------------- “Whee!” said D A To E F G A “I’ll beat you to the top B of the coconut tree. ” A Chicka chicka boom! Will there be enough room? Here comes H Up the coconut tree E E E A Rhyme scheme: C C D A AABA CCDA EEEA

Poetic Forms

Blank Verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Example: To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. From Hamlet William Shakespeare

Free Verse is poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

Example: excerpt from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman: I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loaf and invite my soul, I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

Sonnet A sonnet is a fourteen line poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18) by William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime 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 wand'rest 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.

Haiku is a popular form of traditional Japanese poetry consists of 17 -syllables comprising three metrical lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.

Example (5) Tree grow-ing old-er (7) An-cient el-der shad-ing me (5) Calm, cool, peace-ful day - Mrs. Chi, 2/08

Acrostic poetry Acrostic poems use letter patterns to create multiple messages Example: When the first letters of lines read downward form a separate phrase or word.

Example Energetic Rowdy Irritating Clown -Mrs. Chi, 2/08

Concrete Poetry uses word arrangement, typeface, color or other visual effects to complement or dramatize the meaning of the words used.

Example #1: From Wright Flyer Online

Example #2: by Michael P. Garofalo

Epic Poetry An Epic Poem is a long story told in verse which tells the great deeds of a hero. Example: The Odyssey by Homer

Narrative Poetry Narrative Poem is a poem that tells a story. Example: T’was the Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore

Verse Fable is a brief story told in verse that illustrates a moral and features human-like animals, plants, objects, or forces of nature.

A Boy Cries Wolf Once there was a foolish boy Whose job it was to guard some sheep In case a hungry wolf might come To pounce upon them in their sleep. Example: The owners told him: If a wolf Should come, be sure to give a cry So we can come and save the sheep And give that wolf a swift goodbye. The foolish boy grew bored one night, And cried out Wolf! just for jokes, And farmers came from far and wide, But left disgusted by his hoax. But then at midnight that boy spied A savage wolf about to strike, Wolf! he screamed, but no one came And sheep and shepherd died alike. MORAL: Those who enjoy making fools of others often make fools of themselves. from the book Aesop's Best: 80 Fables in Verse by William Cleary

Lyric Poetry portrays the poet's own feelings, states of mind, ideas, and perceptions.

Example: Where the Sidewalk Ends There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends. by Shel Silverstein