Introduction to Poetry

Poetry is the most misunderstood form of writing. It is also arguably the purest form of writing. Poetry is a sense of the beautiful; characterized by a love of beauty and expressing this through words. It is art. Like art it is very difficult to define because it is an expression of what the poet thinks and feels and may take any form the poet chooses for this expression. Poetry is not easily defined. Often it takes the form of verse, but not all poetry has this structure. Poetry is a creative use of words which, like all art, is intended to stir an emotion in the audience. Poetry generally has some structure that separates it from prose.

The basic unit of poetry is the line. It serves the same function as the sentence in prose, although most poetry maintains the use of grammar within the structure of the poem. Most poems have a structure in which each line contains a set amount of syllables; this is called meter. Lines are also often grouped into stanzas. The stanza in poetry is equivalent or equal to the paragraph in prose. Often the lines in a stanza will have a specific rhyme scheme. Some of the more common stanzas are:
Couplet: a two line stanza
Triplet: a three line stanza Quatrain: a four line stanza Cinquain: a five line stanza

Meter is the measured arrangement of words in poetry, the rhythmic pattern of a stanza, determined by the kind and number of lines. Meter is an organized way to arrange stressed/accented syllables and unstressed/unaccented syllables.

Whose woods / these are / I think /I know

Rhyme is when the endings of the words sound the same. Read the poem with me out loud.

Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And save some part Of a day I had rued.

Rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming words at the end of each line. Not all poetry has a rhyme scheme. They are not hard to identify, but you must look carefully at which words rhyme and which do not.

Dust of Snow Poems of more than one stanza often repeat the same rhyme scheme in each stanza. by Robert Frost A B A B C D C D

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And save some part Of a day I had rued.

Repetition is the repeating of a sound, word, or phrase for emphasis.

Inside

(I get ready) Inside the car (I go to school) Inside the school (I wait for the bell to ring)

Inside the house

Whenever you describe something by comparing it with something else, you are using figurative language. Figurative language is any language that goes beyond the literal meaning of words in order to furnish new effects or fresh insights into an idea or a subject. The most common figures of speech are simile, metaphor, and alliteration. Figurative language is used in poetry to compare two things that are usually not thought of as being alike.

A simile is a figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as.

The clouds looked like cotton candy.

Grandpa was as stubborn as a mule Tom's head is as hard as a rock.

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.

Clouds are cotton candy.

They are fluffy. They are stubborn. They are hard.

Grandpa was a mule.

Tom is a rock.

Alliteration is the repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables, as in "on scrolls of silver snowy sentences" (Hart Crane). Modern alliteration is predominantly consonantal. To find an alliteration, you must look the repetitions of the same consonant sound through out a line. Silvery _ _ snowflakes fall _ silently _ Softly _ sheathing all with moonlight Until _ sunrise _ slowly _ shows _ Snow _ softening _ swiftly.
Now you try the one in your packet.

Imagery is an appeal to the senses. The poet describes something to help you to see, hear, touch, taste, or smell the topic of the poem.

Fog The fog comes on little cat feet. SEE, HEAR SEE

It sits looking over harbor and city

on silent haunches and then moves HEAR, SEE, on. FEEL Carl Sandburg
Now do the poem in your packet.

An exaggerated statement used to heighten effect is a hyperbole. It is not used to mislead the reader, but to emphasize a point. Ive told you a million times not to leave the dirty glass on the table.

The exaggeration in the number of times.

In your packets, write two more hyperbole. Have your partner check them.

An idiom is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words. This can make idioms hard for students to understand.

A day late and a dollar short. This idiom means it is too little, too late.

Write two more examples of idioms to share with the class.

The formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to is called an alliteration. It is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, such as animal noises like "oink" or "meow", or suggesting its source object (these are the more important ones), such as "boom", "click", "bunk", "clang", "buzz", or "bang".

SOUND OF NATURE
by Marie Josephine Smith Ticking, ____ tocking. ____ Head is rocking. Tippy toeing. Quietly. ____ Snap, ____ crack. Crushing branch. Helter, skelter. Run for shelter. ____ ____ Pitter, patter. Rain starts to fall. Gathering momentum. Becomes a roar. ____ Thunder booms.

A figure of speech, which gives the qualities of a person to an animal, an object, or an idea is called personification. It is a comparison, which the author uses to show something in an entirely new light, to communicate a certain feeling or attitude towards it and to control the way a reader perceives it. A brave handsome tree fell with a creaking rending cry.

The author is giving a tree the human quality of bravery and the ability ot cry.

Free verse is just what it says it is - poetry that is written without proper rules about form, rhyme, rhythm, and meter. In free verse the writer makes his/her own rules. The writer decides how the poem should look, feel, and sound.

Winter Poem

By Nikki Giovanni
once a snowflake fell on my brow and i loved it so much and i kissed it and it was happy and called its cousins

and brothers and a web

of snow engulfed me then i reached to love them all

and i squeezed them and they became

a spring rain and i stood perfectly still and was a flower

Haiku is one of the most important forms of traditional Japanese poetry. Haiku is, today, a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three metered lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. Each Haiku must contain a kigo, a season word, which indicate in which season the Haiku is set. For example, cherry blossoms indicate spring, snow indicate winter, and mosquitoes indicate summer, but the season word isn't always that obvious.

In the next three haikus, try to guess the theme.

Fog

Haikus By Paul McCann

Rain
Tip-tap goes the rain. As it hits the window pane I can hear the rain.

On the mountain top The fog fell down thick and fast It was like pea soup. Hail

They fell in showers. Like diamonds upon the ground Big hailstones were found.

The theme of these three poems is weather in late autumn or early winter.

The simplicity of the limerick quite possibly accounts for its extreme longevity. It consists of five lines with the rhyme scheme a a b b a. The first, second, and fifth lines are trimeter, a verse with three measures, while the third and fourth lines are dimeter, a verse with two measures. Often the third and fourth lines are printed as a single line with internal rhyme. Old Man with a Beard Edward Lear There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!' A A B B A

A narrative poem, often of folk origin and intended to be sung, consisting of simple stanzas and usually having a refrain. The Ballade Of The Mistletoe Bough by Ellis Parker Butler
I am standing under the mistletoe, And I smile, but no answering smile replies For her haughty glance bids me plainly know That not for me is the thing I prize; Instead, from her coldly scornful eyes, Indifference looks on my barefaced guile; She knows, of course, what my act implies But look at those lips! Do they hint a smile?

I stand here, eager, and beam and glow, And she only looks a refined surprise As clear and crisp and as cold as snow, And asStop! I will never criticize! I know what her cold glance signifies; But Ill stand just here as I am awhile Till a smile to my pleading look replies But look at those lips! Do they hint a smile? Just look at those lips, now! I claim they show A spirit unmeet under Christmas skies; I claim that such lips on such maidens owe Asomethingthe custom justifies; I claim that the mistletoe rule applies To her as well as the rank and file; We should meet these things in a cheerful guise But look at those lips! Do they hint a smile?

Some might consider the study of poetry old fashioned, yet even in our hurried lives we are surrounded by it: children's rhymes, verses from songs, trite commercial jingles, well written texts. Any time we recognize words as interesting for sound, meaning or construct, we note poetics.