DEFINITION OF ALLEGORY

An allegory is a whole world of symbols. Within a narrative form, which can be either in prose or verse, an allegory tells a story t
read symbolically. You may have encountered The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser, or a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Rappacinis Daughter, or maybe youve heard that The Wizard of Oz was originally an allegory. Interpreting an allegory is compl
because you need to be aware of what each symbol in the narrative refers to. Allegories thus reinforce symbolic meaning, but ca
appreciated as good stories regardless of their allegorical meaning.

DEFINITION OF ALLITERATION

Alliteration occurs when the initial sounds of a word, beginning either with a consonant or a vowel, are repeated in close success
Examples:
Athena and Apollo
Nate never knows
People who pen poetry

Note that the words only have to be close to one another: Alliteration that repeats and attempts to connect a number of words is
than a tongue-twister.

The function of alliteration, like rhyme, might be to accentuate the beauty of language in a given context, or to unite words or con
through a kind of repetition. Alliteration, like rhyme, can follow specific patterns. Sometimes the consonants aren't always the ini
they are generally the stressed syllables. Alliteration is less common than rhyme, but because it is less common, it can call our a
word or line in a poem that might not have the same emphasis otherwise.

DEFINITION OF ASSONANCE
If alliteration occurs at the beginning of a word and rhyme at the end, assonance
takes the middle territory. Assonance occurs when the vowel sound within a word
matches the same sound in a nearby word, but the surrounding consonant
sounds are different. "Tune" and "June" are rhymes; "tune" and "food" are
assonant. The function of assonance is frequently the same as end rhyme or
alliteration: All serve to give a sense of continuity or fluidity to the verse.
Assonance might be especially effective when rhyme is absent: It gives the poet
more flexibility, and it is not typically used as part of a predetermined pattern. Like
alliteration, it does not so much determine the structure or form of a poem; rather,
it is more ornamental.

Go to assonance exercise
See how assonance functions in "The Fish"
DEFINITION OF DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION
Denotation is when you mean what you say, literally. Connotation is created
when you mean something else, something that might be initially hidden. The
connotative meaning of a word is based on implication, or shared emotional
association with a word. Greasy is a completely innocent word: Some things, like
car engines, need to be greasy. But greasy contains negative associations for
most people, whether they are talking about food or about people. Often there are
many words that denote approximately the same thing, but their connotations are
very different. Innocent and genuine both denote an absence of corruption, but
the connotations of the two words are different: innocent is often associated with a
lack of experience, whereas genuine is not. Connotations are important in poetry
because poets use them to further develop or complicate a poem's meaning.

Go to denotation and connotation exercise

See how denotation and connotation function in "The Fish"
DEFINITION OF DICTION

Diction refers to both the choice and the order of words. It has typically been split
into vocabulary and syntax. The basic question to ask about vocabulary is "Is it
simple or complex?" The basic question to ask about syntax is "Is it ordinary or
unusual?" Taken together, these two elements make up diction. When we speak
of a "level of diction," we might be misleading, because it's certainly possible to
use "plain" language in a complicated way, especially in poetry, and it's equally
possible to use complicated language in a simple way. It might help to think of
diction as a web rather than a level: There's typically something deeper than a
surface meaning to consider, so poetic diction is, by definition, complex.

Go to diction exercise
See how diction functions in "To His Coy Mistress"
See how diction functions in "My Papa's Waltz"
DEFINITION OF IMAGE
Think of an image as a picture or a sculpture, something concrete and
representational within a work of art. Literal images appeal to our sense of
realistic perception, like a nineteenth-century landscape painting that looks "just
like a photograph." There are also figurative images that appeal to our
imagination, like a twentieth-century modernist portrait that looks only vaguely like
a person but that implies a certain mood.
Literal images saturate Samuel Coleridge's poem, "Kubla Khan: or, A Vision in a
Dream":
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And there were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. (lines 6-11)
A figurative image begins T. S. Eliot's famous poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock":
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
To see the evening in the way Prufrock describes it requires an imaginative leap:
He's doing much more than setting the scene and telling us that it's nighttime. We
are encouraged to see stars, to feel the unconscious and infinite presence of the
universe, but these things are only implied. In either case, poetic imagery alters or
shapes the way we see what the poem is describing.

Go to image exercise
See how images function in "To His Coy Mistress"
See how images function in "My Papa's Waltz
DEFINITION OF IRONY
As a figure of speech, irony refers to a difference between the way something
appears and what is actually true. Part of what makes poetry interesting is its
indirectness, its refusal to state something simply as "the way it is." Irony allows
us to say something but to mean something else, whether we are being sarcastic,
exaggerating, or understating. A woman might say to her husband ironically, "I
never know what you're going to say," when in fact she always knows what he will
say. This is sarcasm, which is one way to achieve irony. Irony is generally more
restrained than sarcasm, even though the effect might be the same. The woman
of our example above might simply say, "Interesting," when her husband says

something that really isn't interesting. She might not be using sarcasm in this
case, and she might not even be aware that she is being ironic. A listener who
finds the husband dull would probably understand the irony, though. The key to
irony is often the tone, which is sometimes harder to detect in poetry than in
speech.

Go to irony exercise
See how irony functions in "The Fish"
See how irony functions in "To His Coy Mistress"
See how irony functions in "My Papa's Waltz"
DEFINITION OF METAPHOR
Closely related to similes, metaphors immediately identify one object or idea with
another, in one or more aspects. The meaning of a poem frequently depends on
the success of a metaphor. Like a simile, a metaphor expands the sense and
clarifies the meaning of something. "He's such a pig," you might say, and the
listener wouldn't immediately think, "My friend has a porcine boyfriend," but rather,
"My friend has a human boyfriend who is (a) a slob, (b) a voracious eater, (c)
someone with crude attitudes or tastes, or (d) a chauvinist." In any case, it would
be clear that the speaker wasn't paying her boyfriend a compliment, but unless
she clarifies the metaphor, you might have to ask, "In what sense?" English
Renaissance poetry is characterized by metaphors that turn into elaborate
conceits, or extended metaphors. Poets like John Donne and William
Shakespeare extended their comparisons brilliantly, with the effect that the reader
was dazzled. Contemporary poets tend to be more economical with their
metaphors, but they still use them as one of the chief elements that distinguishes
poetry from less lofty forms of communication.

Go to metaphor exercise
See how metaphor functions in "To His Coy Mistress"
DEFINITION OF METER
Meter is the rhythm established by a poem, and it is usually dependent not only
on the number of syllables in a line but also on the way those syllables are
accented. This rhythm is often described as a pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables. The rhythmic unit is often described as a foot; patterns of feet can be
identified and labeled. A foot may be iambic, which follows a pattern of
unstressed/stressed syllables. For example, read aloud: "The DOG went
WALKing DOWN the ROAD and BARKED." Because there are five iambs, or feet,
this line follows the conventions of iambic pentameter (pent = five), the common
form in Shakespeare's time. Stressed syllables are conventionally labeled with a
"/" mark and unstressed syllables with a "U" mark.

Go to meter exercise
See how meter functions in "To His Coy Mistress"
See how meter functions in "My Papa's Waltz"
DEFINITION OF RHYME
The basic definition of rhyme is two words that sound alike. The vowel sound of
two words is the same, but the initial consonant sound is different. Rhyme is
perhaps the most recognizable convention of poetry, but its function is often
overlooked. Rhyme helps to unify a poem; it also repeats a sound that links one
concept to another, thus helping to determine the structure of a poem. When two
subsequent lines rhyme, it is likely that they are thematically linked, or that the
next set of rhymed lines signifies a slight departure. Especially in modern poetry,

for which conventions aren't as rigidly determined as they were during the English
Renaissance or in the eighteenth century, rhyme can indicate a poetic theme or
the willingness to structure a subject that seems otherwise chaotic. Rhyme works
closely with meter in this regard. There are varieties of rhyme: internal rhyme
functions within a line of poetry, for example, while the more common end rhyme
occurs at the end of the line and at the end of some other line, usually within the
same stanza if not in subsequent lines. There are true rhymes (bear, care) and
slant rhymes (lying, mine). There are also a number of predetermined rhyme
schemes associated with different forms of poetry. Once you have identified a
rhyme scheme, examine it closely to determine (1) how rigid it is, (2) how closely
it conforms to a predetermined rhyme scheme (such as a sestina), and especially
(3) what function it serves.

Go to rhyme exercise
See how rhyme functions in "My Papa's Waltz"
DEFINITION OF SIMILE
Have you ever noticed how many times your friends say, "It's like . . ." or "I'm like .
. . "? They aren't always creating similes, but they are attempting to simulate
something (often a conversation). The word like signifies a direct comparison
between two things that are alike in a certain way. Usually one of the elements of
a simile is concrete and the other abstract. "My love is like a red, red rose" writes
Robert Burns. He's talking about the rose's beauty when it's in full bloom (he tells
us that it's May in the next line). "Love is like a rose" is a simpler version of the
simile, but it's a more dangerous version. (A black rose? A dead rose in
December? The thorns of a rose?) Sometimes similes force us to consider how
the two things being compared are dissimilar, but the relationship between two
dissimilar things can break down easily, so similes must be rendered delicately
and carefully.

Go to simile exercise
See how similes function in "The Fish"
See how similes function in "To His Coy Mistress"
See how similes function in "My Papa's Waltz"
DEFINITION OF SYMBOL
A symbol works two ways: It is something itself, and it also suggests something
deeper. It is crucial to distinguish a symbol from a metaphor: Metaphors are
comparisons between two seemingly dissimilar things; symbols associate two
things, but their meaning is both literal and figurative. A metaphor might read, "His
life was an oak tree that had just lost its leaves"; a symbol might be the oak tree
itself, which would evoke the cycle of death and rebirth through the loss and
growth of leaves. Some symbols have widespread, commonly accepted values
that most readers should recognize: Apple pie suggests innocence or homespun
values; ravens signify death; fruit is associated with sensuality. Yet none of these
associations is absolute, and all of them are really determined by individual
cultures and time (would a Chinese reader recognize that apple pie suggests
innocence?). No symbols have absolute meanings, and, by their nature, we
cannot read them at face value. Rather than beginning an inquiry into symbols by
asking what they mean, it is better to begin by asking what they could mean, or
what they have meant.

Go to symbol exercise
See how symbols function in "The Fish"
See how symbols function in "My Papa's Waltz"

DEFINITION OF TONE
The tone of a poem is roughly equivalent to the mood it creates in the reader.
Think of an actor reading a line such as "I could kill you." He can read it in a few
different ways: If he thinks the proper tone is murderous anger, he might scream
the line and cause the veins to bulge in his neck. He might assume the tone of
cool power and murmur the line in a low, even voice. Perhaps he does not mean
the words at all and laughs as he says them. Much depends on interpretation, of
course, but the play will give the actor clues about the tone just as a poem gives
its readers clues about how to feel about it. The tone may be based on a number
of other conventions that the poem uses, such as meter or repetition. If you find a
poem exhilarating, maybe it's because the meter mimics galloping. If you find a
poem depressing, that may be because it contains shadowy imagery. Tone is not
in any way divorced from the other elements of poetry; it is directly dependent on
them.

Go to tone exercise
See how tone functions in "The Fish"
See how tone functions in "To His Coy Mistress"
DEFINITION OF WORD ORDER
Poetry can be like a recipe. If you were making a cake, you would first mix the dry
ingredients together; then you would cream butter and sugar together, then add
eggs, then stir the dry ingredients in. Why wouldn't you just drop all of the
ingredients into a big bowl at the same time and mix? You'd end up with a lumpy
mess, and no one wants a cake, or a poem, to be a lumpy mess. Word order
matterssometimes for clarity of meaning (a solo guitar isn't the same as a guitar
solo) and sometimes for effect ("a dying man" is roughly the same as "a man,
dying," but the effect of the word order matters). There are many different ways to
order words and communicate approximately the same meaning, so readers
should always question why poets have chosen a particular order, whether the
choice is conventional or just the opposite.

Go to word order exercise

See how word order functions in "My Papa's Waltz"
ALLEGORY EXERCISE
Consider the following story line:

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted to explore the world, so, one day she packed up her things and set out on a
She walked through the woods that surrounded her hut until she reached a road. Standing on the other side of the road was ano
a little boy. When asked, he suggested that she go north, for that was where the big towns and more interesting sights were. So
along the road northward until she reached a large town. She spent several days exploring the town and meeting all kinds of stra
Finally she grew bored, and found a new road along which to travel. Standing at the edge of town was a young woman. When a
suggested that the little girl go east, for that was where the small cities and most interesting sights were. So the little girl walked
along the road until she came to a small city. She wandered through the city for a few weeks and saw all manner of new inventio
she had seen everything, so she left and found a new road along which to travel. Waiting at an intersection was a man, who, wh
suggested that the little girl go south, for that was where the big cities were. So the little girl walked along the road going south fo
time, until she came to a large city. There she talked with people from different countries who spoke different languages and had
different cultures. She learned a lot during her stay, but finally she had had enough of the city, so she found another road along w
travel. Resting in a nearby park was an old woman, who, when asked if she could recommend any particular direction for the litt
travel, exclaimed, Oh, there is a lovely forest west of here. I love to wander through the trees and enjoy the peace and quiet. S
went west and after a while, found the very forest in which she lived. She skipped through the trees to her hut, glad to be home.

How might we allegorize this tale? We could, for example, make the story
symbolic of gaining experience (naming the little girl Innocence, perhaps). Or we
could substitute animals for the human characters (the little girl could, for
example, be represented by a baby chick, or a fawn, and the old woman by an
owl). Does allegorizing the story add a layer of meaning? Does your version
seem to have a moral? Write your allegorical version of the story and your
responses to these questions in your notebookthis will be collated so that you
can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.

ALLITERATION EXERCISE

Pretty woman sounds different from lovely lady, although both mean essentially the same thing (attractive adult female). A w
choose lovely lady for its triple alliteration and its rhyme; another writer might reject that phrase for the same reason (probably
flowery).

In the following lines, come up with synonymous phrases for the alliterated
phrase (dont hesitate to use a thesaurus if you need to). Then describe how the
alliterated phrase differs from your less ornamental version. What is gained in
each? What is sacrificed? Write your responses in your notebookthis will be
collated so that you can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.
Sometimes snakes slithered past.
A majestic mountain was visible in the distance.
He hopped about happily.
The baker busily kneaded the bread.
They stayed up while the moon mounted in the sky

ASSONANCE EXERCISE

Instructions: Create assonance by selecting the appropriate word from the choices given. Remember, assonance occurs when t
sound within a word matches the same sound in another word, but the surrounding consonant sounds are different.

Write your responses in your notebookthis will be collated so that you can print
or e-mail your work when you are finished.
Dazed
Fruit
Purple
Reek
Ready

DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION EXERCISE

Can everything have a connotative meaning? Poets gravitate toward words with strong connotative possibilities because they ar
with connotative possibility, like leaves falling in autumn (graceful and beautiful, but signifying a kind of death) or roses (undulatin
sensual, but don't grab one by the stem). What is the connotation of, say, the following sentence ?:
The man drank whiskey quietly.

The denotative meaning is simple: a guy drank whiskey and didn"t make much noise. But to get at the connotative meaning, thin
emotional impact of the line, and about the associations you have with these words. Drinking can be celebratory; parties are som
accompanied by alcohol. But this man does not seem to be in the company of others. The word "quietly," in association with alco
to mean "alone." Intensifying this feeling is the fact that "the man" is anonymous to the reader (he isn't "Jack"), and he is drinking
How might it have been different if he were drinking scotch, a kind of whiskey that is generally associated with sophistication? W
were drinking a milder, "fun" drink like a pina colada? "Quietly" and "whiskey" allow us to read a connotation into a simple senten
poem makes you feel a certain way, ask yourself why.

Look at the following sentences. The words in the menu for each sentence denote
the same meaning, however they have different connotations. Choose one of the
words in the menu and then, in your notebook, write about how the word you
chose changes the connotative meaning of the sentence. Your notebook will be
collated so that you can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.

She

his favorite T-shirt.

DICTION EXERCISE
Lets take a simple sentence and see how it would be possible to rewrite it:
She took an apple from under the tree.

First, lets alter the order, or syntax: From under the tree she took an apple. She, from under the tree, took an apple. From under
apple she took. They all make sense; we havent altered the basic meaning. But all three of these altered versions change some
first brings the rhyme (she/tree) closer together. The second plays on our notion of suspense. The third sounds like it belongs in
some other form where the took at the end of the sentence is there either for emphasis, or to set up a rhyme ( . . . that crook!

Now lets alter the vocabulary: She picked up a fruit from the ground, where it lay. She pilfered an apple that had fallen from its t
lovely woman stooped and grabbed the fallen apple. In all three versions we have the basic elementsa woman, an apple, a tre
are given different emphasis.

A poet reworks diction, not always to the best effect. Lets combine some of the altered vocabulary and syntax from above: From
tree a lovely woman pilfered a fruit. Well, maybe, but the diction should be working toward a single effect, or enhancing an imag
accommodating meter.

Try rewriting the following simple phrases by altering diction (syntax, vocabulary,
or both) while preserving the original sense. Think of each as a single line: You
don't necessarily have to expand or elaborate to alter diction. What effect are you
trying to achieve? Write your responses in your notebookthis will be collated so
that you can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.
I was awash in memories, reliving the innocence of times past.
Then, without warning, a knock came at the door.
They watched a pretty red sunset.

IMAGE EXERCISE
Even mundane objects can take on a special meaning when rendered as a poetic image. Consider:
A red balloon, bobbing uncertainly
On a string tied to the wrist
Of a weary boy
Breaks free, and floats hopefully skyward
Fading rapidly into a tiny blood spot.

Kids lose balloons, and its not tragicunless youre the kid! The hopefulness of the balloon, free at last, contrasts with the impli
the boy must feel. He is tired, perhaps worn out from a fair. Tragedy on a small scale (its a tiny blood spot, not a bloodbath) sma
nevertheless, and can happen quickly. All of these ideas are packed into a single, relatively simple image.

What kind of poetic imagery might evolve around the following scenarios? Control
your image with descriptive and economic language. Remember: Images can be
controlled both by what you include and what you consciously do not include.
Readers have imaginations, but you have to give those imaginations something
concrete to go on. Write your responses in your notebookthis will be collated so
that you can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.
A couple, kissing for the first time (described by an outsider)
A city seen from an airplane
A feather floating on a pond

IRONY EXERCISE

Irony is easier to communicate in speech than in writing. Consider the following circumstance: A child is playing violin and his au
is obviously not ready for the youth orchestra." We don't know whether the aunt is speaking ironically or not; if the child is playing
the tone is straight. If the child is playing perfectly, then the tone is ironic. Much depends on the way the aunt pronounces "obvio

Let's assume all of the following statements are meant to be read ironically. You are a poet: You want to communicate irony, but
want to overdo it, for heavy-handed irony isn't much fun to read. How much context would you have to add in order to ensure tha
ironic but that your touch is light?
Example:
His house was clean and orderly.
One might add:
Just as he had always hoped,
His house was clean and orderly;
No dust settled on pictures
And there was no furniture to clutter the living room.
The refrigerator had no moldering vegetables
And the tub had no trace of her hair
That used to clump and cluster in the drain.
The only thing out of place
Was a piece of paper taped clumsily to the door
In sloppy handwriting: "ALL YOURS."

The cleanliness and orderliness of the man's house may have been what he had always wanted, but he most likely didn't want t
to the problem of disorder. He is obviously a neat freak, and he wanted his wife or girlfriend to match his meticulous standards; i
got what he said he wanted.

Explain the situation(s) that would make the following lines ironic. Write your
responses in your notebookthis will be collated so that you can print or e-mail
your work when you are finished.
He loved the power of a speeding car.
Her mother waved enthusiastically from the doorway.
He closed the door softly behind him.

METAPHOR EXERCISE
What's the best metaphor to describe your life thus far? Who are you, metaphorically? Fill in the following line:

I am...
Use a metaphor that is evocative and comprehensible. How far would you have to go to make your sense perfectly comprehens
reader? Try to be economical without being clichd. The key is to make sense as well:
I am a jumbo shrimp,
Drenched in cocktail sauce
About to be swallowed
By an overweight lawyer
At a three-martini lunch.
This speaker feels: insignificant? powerless in the face of America's corporate elite? Maybe so; why, then, is he a "jumbo" shrim
medium shrimp? Why not the olive in the martini, or better yet, the pimento in the olive? It's your metaphor for your life: choose i
remember to avoid those words that convert metaphors into similes (like and as).

PART 1: What does your metaphor reveal? Write your responses in your
notebookthis will be collated so that you can print or e-mail your work when you
are finished.

PART 2: Metaphor-Maker: Drag-and-drop a referent and a vehicle from the

following. Then describe what the metaphor you have created reveals about the
referent. Write your responses in your notebookthis will be collated so that you
can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.

is a
METER EXERCISE

Meter can be awfully technical, and you can get confused trying to sort out a spondee from a dactyl. (Those aren't dinosaur nam
attuned to meter, though, you should probably concentrate first on the internal "beat" of a poem and add the scientific terms late
teacher might insist that you tap your feet rather than learn to play with a metronome. The same advice may be applied to readin
understand a poem's metrical logic, then get technical, if necessary.

Scan the meter of the poem below by selecting "/" for stressed syllables and "U"
for unstressed syllables in the pull=down menu above each syllable.

"I'm Happiest When Most Away" by Emily Bront

I'm

hap

pi

est

when

most

way

can

bear

my

soul

from

its

home

of

On

win

dy

night

when

the

moon

is

And

the

eye

can

wan

der

through

worlds

of

When

am

not

and

none

be

side

Nor

earth

nor

sea

nor

cloud

less

sky

But

on

ly

spi

rit

wan

dering

wide

Through

in

fin

ite

im

mens

it

y.

(This exercise will not be added to your notebook.)

RHYME EXERCISE
Rhyme for its own sake is really just decorative.

Identify the rhyme scheme (pattern) for the following poem and explain how each
rhyme contributes to the poem's meaning or unity. Complete the exercise and
write your explanations in your notebook -- this will be collated so you can print or
e-mail your work when you are finished.

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;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells

SIMILE EXERCISE
Try to create some similes. Remember that similes draw comparisons between two things that are alike in a certain way.

In the first column is the set-up for a few similes. In the second column are
several possible ways to finish them. Try and match them up in such a way that
your imagined reader might be able to understand the basis of the comparison.

The goal is to expand the sense, not to confuse it. If none of the choices in the
second column work for one of the set-ups, what would work?
Once you find a comparison that could work, try adding a second line that can
clarify the relationship. Write your responses in your notebookthis will be
collated so that you can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.

A relationship like...

A professor as interesting as...

Her face was like...

A force as strong as...

A night as long as...

A comforting voice like...

It made him uneasy, like...

A job as appealing as...

Her eyes beckoned, like...

SYMBOL EXERCISE

It is important to consider the qualities and associations of a symbol within a poem. If you are looking into the symbolic value of
instance, you may begin by saying, Sweet, crisp fruit, juicy, tastes good in the fall, red and white in sharp contrast. Those are a
apples qualities. You should be able to go beyond those associations into some others you have with apples, like Adam and Ev
innocence or gaining of knowledge. Or Sir Isaac Newton and gravity. Or Snow White: temptation and danger. One apple pro
signify all of these things, but along with the context surrounding it, you may get closer to an understanding of its symbolic value
I took the apple from her hand
And ate it, feeling almost guilty
As the juice dripped down my chin.
Its probably safe to eliminate Isaac Newton here: We seem to be pretty firmly in Eden. The next step is to examine that symbol
its other qualities and use them to begin to formulate an interpretation.

What are the symbolic possibilities of the following things?

A blind man, A dove, A river, The stars, A play, A computer screen, Lightning, A
mountain
Consider both their inherent qualities and their cultural associations. Once you
have brainstormed about their possibilities, consider how each item might be
used as a symbol within a poem and compose a few lines that would give the
symbol context and eliminate or complicate some of its symbolic possibilities.
Write your responses in your notebookthis will be collated so that you can print
or e-mail your work when you are finished.

TONE EXERCISE
Consider the tone of the following excerpt from a poem by John Keats:
"To Autumn"
I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has oer-brimmed their clammy cells.

The poems tone is luxuriant and contented. How might it change, however, if the last autumnal harvest had been poor and the s
it would be hard to survive through the winter?

Try to rewrite this stanza with this hypothetical context of scarcity in mind. You
might, for example, change "mellow" in the first line to withering. Write your
responses in your notebookthis will be collated so that you can print or e-mail
your work when you are finished.

WORD ORDER EXERCISE

The Red Wheelbarrow, a famous poem by William Carlos Williams, reads:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

Readers of this poem might wonder if anything really depends on the red wheelbarrow. Try altering the word order, though: Wha
change without disrupting the sense of the poem? The whole poem depends on the red wheelbarrow. Maybe you came up with
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
the white
chickens
beside the red
wheelbarrow
glazed with rain
water

But does the title allow you to do that? And wouldnt it be possible for a reader to say that the rainwater glazes the chickens as w
wheelbarrow in your version?

Take the following poem and change around its word order as much as you are
comfortable with. Then compare your version to the original. You haven't gained
any words and you haven't lost any words, but what is different? Is there a new
effect, a shift in emphasis? Write your responses in your notebookthis will be
collated so that you can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.
Presentimentis that long Shadowon the lawn by Emily Dickinson
Presentimentis that long Shadowon the lawn
Indicative that Suns go down
The notice to the startled Grass
That Darknessis about to pass

Thewhiskeyonyourbreath
Couldmakeasmallboydizzy;
ButIhungonlikedeath:
Suchwaltzingwasnoteasy.
Werompeduntilthepans
Slidfromthekitchenshelf;

Mymotherscountenance
Couldnotunfrownitself.
Thehandthatheldmywrist
Wasbatteredononeknuckle;
Ateverystepyoumissed
Myrightearscrapedabuckle.
Youbeattimeonmyhead
Withapalmcakedhardbydirt,
Thenwaltzedmeofftobed
Stillclingingtoyourshirt.

PAL: Perspectives in American Literature

- A Research and Reference Guide - An
Ongoing Project
Paul P. Reuben
(To send an email, please click on my name above.)

Appendix F: Elements of Poetry - A Brief Introduction

Page Links: | 1. What is Poetry? | 2. Reading the Poem | 3. Denotation and
Connotation | 4. Imagery | 5. Figurative Language 1: Metaphor, Personification,
and Metonymy | 6. Figurative Language 2: Symbol and Allegory | 7. Figurative
Language 3: Paradox, Overstatement, understatement, Irony and Allusion | 8.
Tone and Musical Devices | 9. Rhythm and Meter | 10. Patterns of Traditional
Poems | MLA Style Citation of this Web Page |
| Appendix O: American Poetry: Selected Bibliography |
Site Links: | Appendices: Index | Alphabetical List | Table Of Contents | Home
Page | June 9, 2008 |

1. What is Poetry?
It is difficult to define; we have been more successful at describing and
appreciating poetry than at defining it. Poetry might be defined, initially, as a kind
of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary
language. William Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings, recollected in tranquillity." Poetry is the most condensed and
concentrated form of literature, saying most in the fewest number of words.

2. Reading the Poem:

a. Read a poem more than once. b. Keep a dictionary by you and use it. c. Read
so as to hear the sounds of the words in your mind. Poetry is written to be heard:
its meanings are conveyed through sound as well as through print. Every word is

therefore important. d. Always pay careful attention to what the poem is saying.
e. Practice reading poems aloud. Ask yourself the following questions: i. Who is
the speaker and what is the occasion? ii. What is the central purpose of the
poem? iii. By what means is the purpose of the poem achieved?

3. Denotation and Connotation:

The average word has three components parts: sound, denotation, and
connotation. Denotation is the dictionary meaning(s) of the word;
connotations are what it suggests beyond what it expresses: its overtones of
meaning. It acquires these connotations by its past history and associations, by
the way and the circumstances in which it has been used.

4. Imagery:
Poetry communicates experience and experience comes to us largely through the
senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and touching). Imagery may be
defined as the representation through language of sense experience. The word
image perhaps most often suggests a mental picture, something seen in the
mind's eye - and visual imagery is the most frequently occurring kind of imagery
in poetry. But an image may also represent a sound; a smell; a taste; a tactile
experience; and an internal sensation.

5. Figurative Language 1:
Metaphor, Personification, and Metonymy: Figures of speech are another
way of adding extra dimensions to language. Broadly defined, a figure of speech
is any of saying something other than the ordinary way, and some rhetoricians
have classified as many as 250 separate figures. Figurative language is language
that cannot be taken literally. Metaphor and simile are both used as a means of
comparing things that are essentially unlike; in simile the comparison is
expressed by the use of some word or phrase such as like, as than, similar to,
resembles or seems; in metaphor the comparison is implied - that is, the
figurative term is substituted for or identified with the literal term.
Personification consists in giving the attributes of a human being to an animal,
an object, or a concept. Closely related to personification is apostrophe, which
consists in addressing someone absent or something non human as if it were
alive and present and could reply to what is being said. Synecdoche (the use of
the part for the whole) and metonymy (the use of something closely related for
the thing actually meant) are alike in that both substitute some significant detail
or aspect of an experience for the experience itself.

6. Figurative Language 2:
Symbol and Allegory: A symbol may be roughly defined as something that
means more than what it is. Image, metaphor, and symbol shade into each other
and are sometimes difficult to distinguish. In general, however, an image means
only what it is; a metaphor means something other than what it is; and a symbol
means what it is and something more too. Allegory is a narrative or description
that has a second meaning beneath the surface one. Although the surface story
or description may have its own interest, the author's major interest is in the
ulterior meaning. Allegory has been defined as an extended metaphor and
sometimes as a series of related symbols.

7. Figurative Language 3:

A paradox is an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless true. It may either

be a situation or a statement ("damn with faint praise"). Overstatement, or
hyperbole, is simply exaggeration but exaggeration in the service of truth.
Understatement, or saying less than one means, may exist in what one says or
merely in how one says it Like paradox, irony has meanings that extend beyond
its use merely as a figure of speech. Verbal irony, saying the opposite of what one
means, is often confused with sarcasm and with satire. Sarcasm and satire both
imply ridicule, one on the colloquial level, the other on the literary level. The term
irony always implies some sort of discrepancy or incongruity: between what is
said and what is meant, or between appearance and reality, or between
expectation and fulfillment (dramatic irony and irony of situation). Allusion, a
reference to something in history or previous literature, is, like a richly
connotative word or a symbol, a means of suggesting far more that it says.
Allusions are a means of reinforcing the emotion or the ideas of one's own work
with the emotion or ideas of another work or occasion. Because they are capable
of saying so much in so little, they are extremely useful to the poet.
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8. Tone and Musical Devices:

Tone , in literature, may be defined as the writer's or speaker's attitude toward

the subject, the audience, or toward herself/himself. Almost all the elements of
poetry go into indicating its tone: connotation, imagery, and metaphor; irony and
understatement; rhythm, sentence construction, and formal pattern. The poet
chooses words for sound as well as for meaning. Verbal music is one of the
important resources that enable the poet to do something more than
communicate mere information. Essential elements in all music are repetition and
variation. The repetition of initial consonant sounds, as in "tried and true," "safe
and sound," "fish and fowl," "rhyme and reason," is alliteration. The repetition
of vowel sounds, as in "mad as a hatter," "time out of mind," "free and easy,"
"slapdash," is assonance. The repetition of final consonant sounds, as in "first
and last," "odds and ends," "short and sweet," "a stroke of luck," is consonance.
The combination of assonance and consonance is rhyme. Rhyme is the repetition
of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds.

9. Rhythm and Meter:

The term rhythm refers to any wave like recurrence of motion or sound. Meter is
the kind of rhythm we can tap our foot to. Metrical language is called verse; non
metrical language is prose.
Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactylic trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The foot is the metrical unit by which a line of poetry is measured; it usually
consists of one stressed or accented ( ' ) and one or two unstressed or
unaccented syllables ( - ).

Name of Foot Name of Meter Measure

Iamb

Iambic

-'

Trochee

Trochaic

'-

Anapest

Anapestic

--'

Dactyl

Dactylic

'--

Spondee

Spondaic

''

Pyrrhus
Pyrrhic
-| Top | The secondary unit of measurement, the line, is measured by naming the
number of feet in it. A line that ends with a stressed syllable is said to have a
masculine ending and a line that ends with an extra syllable is said to have a
feminine ending. A pause within a line is called a caesura and is identified by a
double vertical line (||). A line with a pause at its end is called end-stopped
line, whereas a line that continues without a pause is called run-on line or
enjambment. The following metrical names are used to identify the lengths of
lines:
Length

Name

one foot

Monometer

two feet

Dimeter

three feet

Trimeter

four feet

Tetrameter

five feet

Pentameter

six feet

Hexameter

seven feet

Heptameter

eight feet
Octameter
The third unit, the stanza, consists of a group of lines whose metrical pattern is
repeated throughout the poem.
The process of measuring verse is referred to as scansion. To scan a poem we
do these three things: 1. we identify the prevailing meter, 2. we give a metrical
name to the number of feet in a line, and 3. we describe the stanza pattern or
rhyme-scheme.
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10. Patterns of Traditional Poems

Ballad , or literary ballad, is a long singing poem that tells a story (usually of love
or adventure), written in quatrains - four lines alternatively of four and three feet
- the third line may have internal rhyme.

Ballade is French in origin and made up of 28 lines, usually three stanzas of 8

lines and a concluding stanza, called envoy, of 4 lines. The last line of each stanza
is the same and the scheme is ababbcbc and the envoy's is bcbc.
Blank Verse is made up of unrhymed iambic pentameter lines.
Elegy is a lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is dead.
Epigram is a brief, pointed, and witty poem of no prescribed form.
Free Verse has no identifiable meter, although the lines may have a rhymescheme.
Haiku is an unrhymed poem of seventeen syllables derived from Japanese verse;
it is made up of three lines, lines 1 and 3 have five syllables, line 2 has seven.
Heroic Couplet is two lines of rhyming iambic pentameters.
Limerick is a five-line poem in which lines 1, 2, and 5 are anapestic trimeters
and lines 3 and 4 are anapestic dimeters, rhymed as aabba. Possible source of
origin is Limerick, Ireland.
Lyric is a poem of emotional intensity and expresses powerful feelings.
Narrative form is used to tell a story; it is usually made of ballad stanzas - four
lines alternatively of four and three feet.
Ode, English in origin, is a poem of indefinite length, divided in 10-line stanzas,
rhymed, with different schemes for each stanza - ababcdecde, written in iambic
meter.
Parody is a humorous imitation of a serious poem.
Quatrain is a four-line stanza with various meters and rhyme schemes.
Sestina consists of thirty-nine lines divided into six six-line stanzas and a threeline concluding stanza called an envoy.
Sonnet is a fourteen line poem. The Italian or Petrarchan has two stanzas: the
first of eight lines is called octave and has the rhyme-scheme abba abba; the
second of six lines is called the sestet and has the rhyme cdecde or cdcdcd. The
Spenserian sonnet, developed by Edmund Spenser, has three quatrains and a
heroic couplet, in iambic pentameter with rhymes ababbcbccdcdee. The English
sonnet, developed by Shakespeare, has three quatrains and a heroic couplet, in
iambic pentameter with rhymes ababcdcdefefgg.
Tercet is a three-line stanza; when all three lines rhyme they are called a
triplet.
Terza Rima consists of interlocking three-line rhyme scheme (aba, bcb).
Villanelle is a fixed form consisting of nineteen lines divided into six stanzas: five
tercets and a a concluding quatrain.

(Definitions and examples in Appendices F, G, & H are from Laurence Perrine,

LITERATURE: Structure, Sound, and Sense; 1978, Shapiro and Beum, A Prosody
Handbook; Miller Williams, Patterns of Poetry; and Lawrence Zillman, The Art and
Craft of Poetry.)

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "PAL: Appendix F: Elements of Poetry." PAL: Perspectives in
American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide.
URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/append/axf.html (provide page
date or date of your login).

| Top |

Elements of Poetry
This is a list of elements used within the writing of poems.
Alliteration
Two or more words which have the same initial sound.
Assonance
A partial rhyme which has the same internal vowel sounds amongst different
words.
Metaphor
A comparison which does not use the words like or as.
Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like their meaning. For example, buzz, moo, pow.
Repetitions
The repetition of the same word throughout the poem to emphasize
significance.
Rhyme
The repetition of sounds within different words, either end sound, middle or
beginning.
Rhythm
The flow of words within each meter and stanza.
Simile
A comparison using the words like or as.
Style
The way the poem is written. Free-style, ballad, haiku, etc. Includes length of
meters, number of stanzas along with rhyme techniques and rhythm.
Symbol
Something that represents something else through association, resemblance or
convention
Theme
The message, point of view and idea of the poem.

Poetry Definition

Poetry is more than just rhyming. In fact, poetry doesn't even have
to rhyme. The main ingrediants are movement and sound. These two things along
with feeling make up what poetry is...
1. The art or work of a poet.
2.
Poems regarded as forming a division of literature.
The poetic works of a given author, group, nation, or kind.
3. A piece of literature written in meter; verse.
4. Prose that resembles a poem in some respect, as in form or sound.
5. The essence or characteristic quality of a poem.
6. A quality that suggests poetry, as in grace, beauty, or harmony: the poetry of the
dancer's movements.
Reference: Dictionary.com

Poetry Dictionary
Alliteration
Starting three or more words with the same sound. Example: The crazy
crackling crops
Assonance
A repetition of vowel sounds within syllables with changing consonants.
Example: Tilting at windmills
Cliche
An overused word or phrase. Example: I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.
Homonym
A word that has the same spelling (or different spelling but same sound) as
another, but has a different meaning or origan.
Hyperbole
A large exageration, usually used with humor. Example: The fish was a
football field and a granny long.
Idiom
A language familiar to a group of people. Example: Ya'll comin' to da party
tonight?
Metaphor
A word or phrase used to have a completely different meaning. Example:
Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" being a constant reminder of his loss and not
truly a raven.
Onomatopoeia
A word imitating a sound. Example: 'buzz', 'moo' and 'beep'
Penultimate syllable
The next to last syllable of a word.
Rhyme
Similarity of sound in the last syllable. Example: Spoon and Toon
Simile
An expression that compares one thing to another using 'like' or 'as'. Example:
The milk tasted like pickles.

Synechdoche
The metaphorical or rhetorical substitution of a whole for a part or vice versa.
Example: Counting 'heads' as cattle.
Tercet
A group of three lines, often rhyming together or with another tercet.

51 Types of Poetry
ABC
A poem that has five lines that create a mood, picture, or feeling. Lines 1
through 4 are made up of words, phrases or clauses while the first word of
each line is in alphabetical order. Line 5 is one sentence long and begins with
any letter.
Acrostic
Poetry that certain letters, usually the first in each line form a word or message
when read in a sequence.
Ballad
A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tail or legend which often has a
repeated refrain.
Ballade
Poetry which has three stanzas of seven, eight or ten lines and a shorter final
stanza of four or five. All stanzas end with the same one line refrain.
Blank verse
A poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter and is often unobtrusive. The
iambic pentameter form often resembles the rhythms of speech.
Bio
A poem written about one self's life, personality traits, and ambitions.
Burlesque
Poetry that treats a serious subject as humor.
Canzone
Medieval Italian lyric style poetry with five or six stanzas and a shorter ending
stanza.
Carpe diem
Latin expression that means 'seize the day.' Carpe diem poems have a theme of
living for today.
Cinquain
Poetry with five lines. Line 1 has one word (the title). Line 2 has two words
that describe the title. Line 3 has three words that tell the action. Line 4 has
four words that express the feeling, and line 5 has one word which recalls the
title.
Classicism
Poetry which holds the principles and ideals of beauty that are characteristic of
Greek and Roman art, architecture, and literature.
Couplet
A couplet has rhyming stanzas made up of two lines.
Dramatic monologue
A type of poem which is spoken to a listener. The speaker addresses a specific
topic while the listener unwittingly reveals details about him/herself.
Elegy

A sad and thoughtful poem about the death of an individual.

Epic
An extensive, serious poem that tells the story about a heroic figure.
Epigram
A very short, ironic and witty poem usually written as a brief couplet or
quatrain. The term is derived from the Greek epigramma meaning inscription.
Epitaph
A commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument written to
praise the deceased.
Epithalamium (Epithalamion)
A poem written in honor of the bride and groom.
Free verse (vers libre)
Poetry written in either rhyme or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed
metrical pattern.
Ghazal
A short lyrical poem that arose in Urdu. It is between 5 and 15 couplets long.
Each couplet contains its own poetic thought but is linked in rhyme that is
established in the first couplet and continued in the second line of each pair.
The lines of each couplet are equal in length. Themes are usually connected to
love and romance. The closing signature often includes the poet's name or
allusion to it.
Haiku
A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five
morae, usually containing a season word.
Horatian ode
Short lyric poem written in two or four-line stanzas, each with its the same
metrical pattern, often addressed to a friend and deal with friendship, love and
the practice of poetry. It is named after its creator, Horace.
Iambic pentameter
One short syllabel followed by one long one five sets in a row. Example: laLAH la-LAH la-LAH la-LAH la-LAH
Idyll (Idyl)
Poetry that either depicts a peaceful, idealized country scene or a long poem
telling a story about heroes of a bye gone age.
Irregular (Pseudo-Pindaric or Cowleyan) ode
Neither the three part form of the pindaric ode nor the two or four-line stanza
of the Horatian ode. It is characterized by irregularity of verse and structure
and lack of coorespondence between the parts.
Italian sonnet
A sonnet consisting of an octave with the rhyme pattern abbaabba followed by
six lines with a rhyme pattern of cdecde or cdcdcd.
Lay
A long narrative poem, especially one that was sung by medieval minstrels.
Limerick
A short sometimes vulgar, humorous poem consisting of five anapestic lines.
Lines 1, 2, and 5 have seven to ten syllables, rhyme and have the same verbal
rhythm. The 3rd and 4th lines have five to seven syllables, rhyme and have the
same rhythm.
List

A poem that is made up of a list of items or events. It can be any length and
rhymed or unrhymed.
Lyric
A poem that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet.
Memoriam stanza
A quatrain in iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of abba -- named after
the pattern used by Lord Tennyson.
Name
Poetry that tells about the word. It uses the letters of the word for the first
letter of each line.
Narrative
A poem that tells a story.
Ode
A lengthy lyric poem typically of a serious or meditative nature and having an
elevated style and formal stanza structure.
Pastoral
A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, romanticized way.
Petrarchan
A 14-line sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abbaabba followed by a
sestet of cddcee or cdecde
Pindaric ode
A ceremonious poem consisting of a strophe (two or more lines repeated as a
unit) followed by a an antistrophe with the same metrical pattern and
concluding with a summary line (an epode) in a different meter. Named after
Pindar, a Greek professional lyrist of the 5th century B.C.
Quatrain
A stanza or poem consisting of four lines. Lines 2 and 4 must rhyme while
having a similar number of syllables.
Rhyme
A rhyming poem has the repetition of the same or similar sounds of two or
more words, often at the end of the line.
Rhyme royal
A type of poetry consisting of stanzas having seven lines in iambic pentameter.
Romanticism
A poem about nature and love while having emphasis on the personal
experience.
Rondeau
A lyrical poem of French origin having 10 or 13 lines with two rhymes and
with the opening phrase repeated twice as the refrain.
Senryu
A short Japanese style poem, similar to haiku in structure that treats human
beings rather than nature: Often in a humorous or satiric way.
Sestina
A poem consisting of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy. The end
words of the first stanza are repeated in varied order as end words in the other
stanzas and also recur in the envoy.
Shakespearean
A 14-line sonnet consisting of three quatrains of abab cdcd efef followed by a
couplet, gg. Shakespearean sonnets generally use iambic pentameter.
Shape

Poetry written in the shape or form of an object.

Sonnet
A lyric poem that consists of 14 lines which usually have one or more
conventional rhyme schemes.
Tanka
A Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables
and the other seven.
Terza Rima
A type of poetry consisting of 10 or 11 syllable lines arranged in three-line
tercets.
Verse
A single metrical line of poetry.
Villanelle
A 19-line poem consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes.
The first and third lines of the first tercet repeat alternately as a refrain closing
the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.

Poetry Styles
The style of writing poetry differs from person to person; long or
short meters, three or four lines to a stanza. But the great thing is, no matter how a
poem is written it still holds great emotion. Some techniques used in poetry are
onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyming, simile and metaphor.
Onomatopoeia is one of the easiest to learn and use (but not spell). The definition of
onomatopoeia is a word imitating a sound. For example; 'buzz', 'moo' and 'beep'. This
can be used in a variety of ways giving the reader a 'hands on' feel.
One technique that you might be familiar with is alliteration. This procedure is used
by starting three or more words with the same sound. An example of this would be
'The crazy crackling crops.' The three words don't have to have the exact same
beginning to have this effect.
The next style is assonance. It is defined as a repetition of vowel sounds within
syllables with changing consonants. This is also used in many different circumstances.
One would be 'tilting at windmills.' Notice the vowels within each syllable sound the
same.
Rhyming is probably the most well-known technique used. However unlike popular
belief, it does not need to be within a poem to make it a poem. It is what it is.. a
technique.
As for similes, they are often used within poetry. They are an expression that
compares one thing to another. A paradigm of this would be 'The milk tasted like
pickles.' This method is used in all forms of poetry and generally has the words 'like'
or 'as.'

The last but not least style is metaphor. A metaphor is a word or phrase used one way
to mean another. Metaphors are sometimes hard to spot and take some thinking to
figure out, but they give writers more power to express their thoughts about a certain
situation. One famous case where a metaphor is used is within 'The Raven' by Edgar
Allen Poe. In fact, not only is it found within the story, the story itself is a metaphor of
memory and the constant reminder of the narrator's loss.
These techniques are seen throughout history within both famous and amateur poems
alike. To have a full grasp of poetry onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyming,
simile and metaphor should be household words.
To view a more comprehensive definition list of go here: Poetry Dictionary

Poetry in a Nutshell
Poetry is more than just rhyming and prose in meters and verse. It
is an art form. It is something that can not be judged by its cover and can not be
criticized to the point where it just "sucks." Poetry is about expression. Poetry
expresses the way we feel about a certain subject through imagery and other senses. It
helps us deal with our daily life, be it good or bad.
The emotion which is put within each meter brings it to life. A poem without emotion
is not a poem at all but simply prose. Poetry is what makes us feel happy or sad, mad
or gleeful, loving or broken hearted. Poetry is life through words. It does not need to
be of a certain subject or even rhyme, it only needs emotion.
Poetry is poetry. It has its own mind. If it flows, good -- if not... it needs work. The
rules can be bent but not broken. Our life is our life and no one can tell us what we
have been through but ourselves. We know best not some stranger reading our poems.
Our poetry is our life, not what someone says.
Rhyming in poetry is not always the best way to express yourself. Rhyming actually
takes away many words that could have been used. If you try to rhyme it cuts your
dictionary into little pieces. It doesn't need to be this way, choose flow over rhyme.
As a result of this, poetry is defined as a way of putting flowing words together in
meter and verse to show emotion or tell a story.

Tips for Writing Poetry

Writing poetry has always been about emotion; thrilling, bitterness
and even humorous. Although it sounds simple enough, it isn't always. Poetry can be
as complicated or as frivolous possible, it's all up to the author.
Poetry is food for thought and all food has its ingredients.

Writing poetry techniques

Show all senses. A genuine poem offers its readers a variety of senses to endure while
reading.

Smell. Give the readers a mental smell of the scene. Create a situation where
the reader can distinguish between a 'good' or 'bad' scent.
Touch. Is it rough, smooth, pleasurable? Give the reader a way to 'touch' the
scenery.
Sight. What does it look like? Describe the scenery, describe the situation. Use
words which will describe it easily without going too far into detail.
Hearing. Does it screech? Does it yelp? Or is it smoothing and sensual?
Again, let the situation give a sense of what the surroundings sound like.
Taste. Is it salty or bitter? It doesn't always have to be food that has a taste. It
could be a situation which leaves a 'bad taste in your mouth' or even a good
taste.

Have a point. Why are you writing? What is it about? Although not always directly,
show your readers the path to the meaning of the poem. Say what you want to say, but
still let your readers decide on what the true meaning is.
Have rhythm. To be considered a poem, a writing must have rhythm. Let the meters
flow smoothly off the tongue. This doesn't mean the poem has to have the same
number of syllables every line or even every other. It means to allow the reader not to
get tongue twisted while going line to line. Give it flow.
Don't rhyme unless it fits. Not all poems rhyme, in fact the majority do not. Many
amateur writers tend to force rhymes where it doesn't need to be. Only use it when it
fits the overall poem and helps bring the emotion to the reader.
Give the poem characteristics. A poem doesn't always have to fit inside a genre.
Make it your own style. Use as much voice as possible. Show that there is a person
behind the poem.

Help with Writing Poetry

To help with writing, I have composed a list of helpful tips and
tricks to aid with writer's block and to improve your writing.

Try a different point of view. Write a poem which is the exact opposite of
what you believe in, while not using irony.
Write in different places. Try bringing a notebook with you when you go to
the park, or sitting on the train to work. Just use the influence of your
surrounding to help your inspiration.
When you are reading a poem that you dislike, find out why. This could
help better your own writing by improving on those aspects.
If you are having writer's block, try "flushing". This is when you write
anything that comes into your mind as fast as you can for a minute, any word,
phrase or sentence. After the time is up, go back through your work and see if

anything pops out that you want to write about, if not, that's up to you. The
point of flushing is to get rid of the garbage which is holding your mind back.
Create a dream journal. Often, dreams lead to thoughts which never would
have been uncovered during consciousness. Write what the dream was about,
then at a later date, come back to the dream and read what happened, it might
just be this is the inspiration you need for your next best writing.
If you write a bad poem, don't give up. Even great poets have written
hundreds, if not thousands, badly. Just keep writing.
Learn from your criticism. Don't necessarily live by it, but learn from it.
Everyone has a different perspective on a poem, one person may like it and the
next hate it.
If you create a poem you really like, write another. Maybe your creative
juices are flowing, or maybe you were at your peak. There's only one way to
find out.
Don't hold back your fears. If something has happened or you're afraid of
happening, write about it.
If you ever wish to have your poem published, submit them now. Because
sooner or later it must be done. Most people who don't get published during
their life never will be, it's not unheard of, but the Emily Dickinson's of the
world are rare and far between.
Go to poetry readings (or host your own). This is a great chance to enhance
your knowledge of current poetry and learn what others enjoy. It's also a great
place to meet fellow poets.
To help with criticism, try joining a poetry group or creating your own. To
help get started, list your group in a local arts publication, many are free to do
so.
Publish a poetry journal. Not only will it get the word out about your
writing, but it will help you improve by encouraging you to write.

Fight
Category: American poems
Serious anxiety flowing
Crashing through my mind
Blood rushing through my veins
Muscles tightening upon compression
The moment is soon to come
Where losers will not win
The masks come off from posers
And winners show their skills
The death of one has come quickly
Another soon to fall
The abilities matched between us
Strength, quickness, stamina
Just the same
I choose the weapon I know best
To fight off the evil souls
Outnumbering my foolish hatred
They strike quickly

This moment of oppression

Only seen by some
Its the time to attack
My weapon swung but too soon
They move quickly to retaliate
My arm struck, bleeding
My opponent strong but still foolish
I use my mind to strike back
Weakening their hope to win
Seeing the passion within my eyes
They settle into fear
Victory will soon come
Victory will soon come
by Gary R. Hess

Best Friends
Category: Friendship poems
Friends that watch your back
Friends that play with your heart
All act the same from the start
Before you know it some disappear
Others stay beside you for life
Those are the friends
The best friends
by Gary R. Hess

Cat, Cat
Category: Funny poems
Cat, cat,
Come out of my hat,
And I'll give you a ball of yarn;
And when I give
I'll make sure it's long
If I am not amusing
by Gary R. Hess

Love Poems
Many love poems have been inspired by relationships over the
course of a lifetime. When I was just a teenager my thoughts of love circled around
affairs which were long distance. Who knew that they could inspire so much poetry?

Being in love is the best inspiration. The romance, candle light dinners, long sensual
evenings, it's amazing. The feeling that our life is complete and nothing could ever go
wrong. We feel free.

Long Distance Relationships

The beauty of love lasts a life time, but what happens when the relationship is long
distance? It's still the same only hundreds (if not thousands) of miles away. When
you're in love it doesn't matter if your loved one is in the same city, state or even
country. Love has no distance.

Love Poetry
But a Nightmare
Butterfly Voice
The Day We Met
Everlasting Love
The Extra Mile
Dolphin's Cry
Feeling
Middle Ages Love
One Kiss
Our Moment
The Sacred Fruit
That Girl
Thinking
Thinking About You
To Kim
Waiting for the Kiss
Wanting You
Why I Love You
Without You
You're Beauty
You're the One

Love Sayings
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Kahlil Gibran
Where there is love there is life.
Mahatma Gandhi
The art of love ... is largely the art of persistence.
Albert Ellis
Love is the flower you've got to let grow.

John Lennon
Fortune and love favor the brave.
Ovid
We loved with a love that was more than love.
Edgar Allan Poe
The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.
Anais Nin
We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
Tom Robbins
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where
it does not.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind
extinguishes candles and fans fires.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

More love quotes

Romantic love quotes

Inspirational Quotes
No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to flee
and fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You
should never agree to surrender your dreams.
Rev. Jesse Jackson
The future depends on what we do in the present.
Mahatma Gandhi
Inspiration and genius--one and the same.
Victor Hugo
Nothing is predestined: The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead
to new beginnings.
Ralph Blum

On Triumph and Defeat

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Montaigne,Essays

On Faith and Inspiration

The world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer,
to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go
out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you
return from your daily victory or defeat.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much
greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat...We
must find each other.
Mother Teresa
It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we
men live in a city without walls.
Epicurus
Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear
death.
Erik H. Erikson
There are so many little dyings that it doesn't matter which of them is death.
Kenneth Patchen

Composition of Poetry: Meaningful Soul

Poem
Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard. Poetry has been always near to heart of people in
every age and every form. Read about types of poetry, poets and composition of poetry.

Identifying poem Dylan Thomas said, "A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is
never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the

shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around
him."
The function of poetry can be described as two pages covering book of new life of literature.
First, it gives birth to knowledge and pleasure.
Second it lets a desire in mind to reproduce this material of knowledge according to the
rhythm of beauty.
If knowledge is the body, poetry is the soul. Virtue, love, patriotism, beautiful natural scenery
will be all repel if poetry did not beautify. When knowledge increase literature body too much
that it becomes too difficult to animate it.
According to Shelley we have too much moral, political and historical wisdom. There is no
want of knowledge but what we lake is the creative faculty to imagine that which we know. We
want tie poetry of life, without which the cultivation of sciences remains circumscribed.
Marge Piercy said "One of the functions of poetry has always been to articulate for people, to
give dignity to people's experiences, their sufferings, their pleasures, the dramas of their
lives."
According to Steven Ratiner, poetry is built upon a communal voice. Reaching beyond the
purely subjective, you seem to be speaking both to and for your audience. There are even a
few of the poems in the new collection that start out with "I" but wind up speaking "we."
Composing Poetry
"A poem . . .
begins as a lump in the throat,
a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. . . .
It finds the thought
and the thought finds the words."
- Robert Frost
Samuel Taylor Coleridge says "Poetry is the best words in the best order." There are certain
considerations to be made, both technical and stylistic, when writing poetry. Technical
consideration include poetic meter and structure. Stylistic considerations tend to be harder to
define, but can include poetic devices such as kennings.
"Poetry is the record of the best and the happiest moments of the happiest and best minds."
Poets are the emotional state more sensitive to feelings, emotions and ideals and they can
color all of them with the divine colors of imagination. Poetry thus makes immortal all that is
best and most gorgeous in the world. It catches the vanishing moments of the beauty.
Robert Frost said "Poetry is about the grief." The poetry is a result of dying emotions of poet
rather hot or creative imaginations. Poetry turns all things to loveliness. It makes the beautiful
more beautiful thus all familiar things are shown with a touch of better beauty than they hold.
Rollo May outlines poems "Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and
limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which
are essential to the work of art or poem."
Poets
"To be a poet
is a condition,
not a profession."
- Robert Frost
The poets amaze us with electric life which burns within their words. Poets are the most

responsive of souls and they represent the sprit of their age. Poets are the unacknowledged
legislators of the world. Thus by giving the highest and divine place to poetry and poets. "A
poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so
strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful
music..." described Soren Kierkegaard.
Patterns of Poetry
Blank Verse
Introduced to England in the 16th century, blank verse consists of unrhymed lines of ten
syllables each; with the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables bearing the accents.
Blank verse is especially well-adapted to dramatic verse. Christopher Marlowe, William
Shakespeare, and John Milton are masters of blank verse.
Rhymed Couplet
A rhymed couplet consists of two successive lines of verse with similar end-rhymes. Both the
grammatical structure and the idea of the rhymed couplet convey a sense of completion.
Rhymed Stanza
A rhymed stanza is a division of a poem that consists of two or more lines arranged together
as a unit. A stanza's group of lines is usually arranged around a recurring pattern of metrical
length and sequence of rhyme. This structure is determined by the number of lines, the
dominant meter, and the rhyme scheme.
Types of Poetry
Narrative Poem
A narrative poem is a non-dramatic poem that tells a story or presents a narrative. A narrative
poem may be long or short, complex or simple. Types of Narrative Poems are Epics, Ballads
and Metrical Romances. A ballad is a story song that often has a refrain or chorus as in the
example below.
Dramatic Poem
A dramatic poem is a poem that employs dramatic form or technique.
Satiric Poem
A satiric poem is a poem that treats its subject with irony and/or ridicule.
Didactic Poem
A didactic poem is a poem that is intended primarily to teach a lesson.
Sonnet
A sonnet is a lyrical poem of fourteen lines, highly arbitrary in form and following one of
several rhyme conventions.
Ode
An ode is a ceremonious lyrical poem marked by exaltation or feeling and style. An ode has
varying line length and complex stanzas.
Elegy
An elegy is a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet's meditations upon a grave
theme (usually death).
Haiku
The haiku is a three lined Japanese poem about nature. This particular type of poetry has a
limit on the amount of syllables you can have for each line. The first line always has five
syllables. The second line has seven syllables. The third line has the same amount as the first
line.
Limerick

The limerick is humorous nonsense verse consisting of a triplet and couplet, making it a five
line poem. Lines one, two, and five are the triplet and rhyme. Lines three and four form a
rhyming couplet.
Acrostic
A poem where the first letter of each line spells a word that can be read vertically.
Cinquain
A type of poetry in which the first line has one word, the second has two words describing the
first line, the third line shows action with three words, the fourth line has four words that
convey feeling, and the fifth line refers to line one.
Free Verse
The poetry that is written material freed from paragraph form and has rhythm but no rhyme
Finally, there is only one best way i see to understand poet or poetry as Anne Sexton
suggested.
Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.
Further Readings
Critical Approaches to Literature - Short analysis By P.P Mehra & P.N.Bhatt
A Critical Study By David Daiches
By Jay C
Published: 1/25/2005

Writing Poetry: How to Write a Poem

Want to know how to go about writing a poem? Read on

Enlarge Image

Writing poetry is quite a daunting task. It sounds easy at the outset, but when one gets down
to it, it becomes more and more complicated. Some of us can go ahead and create a magical
flow with words quite easily, while it is a long-winded and onerous task for others. Needless to
say, when one contemplates writing poetry, one must be up to the challenge.
There are several things that one must consider while wondering how to write poetry. Here is
a list of things to think about that, hopefully, will make the process easier for you.
The Subject:
Commonly known as the Theme of the poem, this is the important starting point and central
point of your work. What is the poem all about? What are you trying to get across to the world
at large, via your poem? Is it a story, an experience, a description of events, or a description

of a place?
An interesting way to take the jump from this point is writing down the words, phrases or
sentences that come to your mind when you are thinking about the subject or the theme of
your poem. Dont worry if nothing sounds or feels right, just write it down for now.
The Feeling:
A poem, no matter how descriptive it may be, is not to be used to state the obvious. We all
know that the grass is green, for example. What you need to express in your poem is what
you felt when you saw the green grass. What emotions did it evoke within you? What were
you going through at the time and how did seeing the green grass change or enhance your
feelings at that moment of time? With your words, you have to convey what you feel or felt.
The readers have to understand the depth of what you were going through. A poem is
essentially about the emotions of the poet.
A way to get past the barrier of writing about emotions is to take ordinary things from your
daily life and write down whatever feeling words come to your mind when you see the object.
Such a list will come in handy and is a good way to practice.
The Mood:
How do you want to portray your thoughts, ideas and feelings via this poem? Do you want to
make it a serious poem, or a funny one, a sarcastic one or an irreverent one? The mood can
often help you convey the feelings more effectively.
Once you have your feeling words in place, you can choose different moods of the poem and
try to write a sentence or two that contains the theme and the feeling in these various moods.
Which mood do you like the best? Which mood conveys what you feel about the subject more
effectively?
The Style:
Choose a style of writing the poem from among several from classical to the modern
contemporary styles of writing poetry, there are many to choose from. Pick a style which is
easier for you to work with. Most modern poets often use the free verse style of poetry.
Although, to the beginner, this style may not have a formal structure and sound easy to write
in, look closely at the work of popular free verse poets and you will find a basic form lurking
somewhere.
An exercise to try out at this juncture is to write down your thoughts about something or
someone in free verse and then trying to see if you can put those lines into another wellknown structure or style of writing poetry. Perhaps a few changes here and there and it might
do the trick. Try doing that with two or three styles and find one which you are more
comfortable with. This process will help you revise your work and find your style at the same
time.
The Audience:
Who are you writing for? The audience of the poem can help you choose the language, the
style and the words to be used in your piece. Experiment with forms and words to find your
unique Voice as a poet.
Read out your poem to a few of your friends, relatives, and neighbors etc who fit in with your
description of your target audience. Ask for their feedback and what they felt about the poem.
Dont take negative feedback or criticism to heart it is in fact a learning experience all the
way. Try and try till you get it just right.
Other Helpful Tips:

It makes sense to study the forms and styles used by poets across the world to
become more familiar with structure, format, rhythm, rhyme and meter along with
several other elements used in poetry.
A dictionary or a thesaurus is very handy to have. Often, a search for meanings of
words can help you take a jump off to another wonderful dimension within your
poetry.
Keep a journal, notebook or a diary where you record your thoughts, feelings and
experiences, even dreams. You may never know where they may lead you off to.
Attend as many poet / poetry groups as you can. This helps you get your work read
and critiqued by other people and can provide you with valuable insights on your
work.
And to conclude, (and this is perhaps the best tip of all), dont be afraid to edit and rewrite. Dont take all the criticism personally. Keep a good sense of humor while
showing your work. Keep working at it till you feel it is just right and every single word
is exactly where it should be.

By Madhavi Ghare
Published: 4/18/2007