ELEMENTS OF POETRY

Prepared by Miss Jenny Lou C. SasoyFaculty, UE-Caloocan EHSD

POETRY• It is the art of expressing oneself in verse.• It uses few words to convey its message.• It is meant to be read aloud.• It uses imagery or figures of speech to express feelings or create a mental picture or idea.

Lines

• A single line in a poem.

• Often organized into stanzas.

"Chartless“Emily Dickinson

1 I never saw a moor,2 I never saw the sea, 3 Yet I know how the heather looks 4 and what a wave must be.

5 I never spoke with God,6 nor visited in Heaven,7 Yet I am certain of the spot 8 as if the chart were given.

This poem has 8 lines organized into 2 stanzas.

STANZA• It is the group of

lines.• Couplet – 2 lines• Triplet – 3 lines• Quatrain – 4 lines• Quinrain – 5 lines• Sestet – 6 lines• Octet – 8 lines

• It develops and emphasizes one idea.

“First and Last” by David McCord

A tadpole hasn’t a pole at all, And he doesn’t live in a hole in the wall.

You’ve got it wrong: a polecat’s not A cat on a pole. And I’ll tell you what:

A bullfrog’s never a bull; and how Could a cowbird possibly be a cow?

A kingbird, though, is a kind of king, And he chases a crow like anything.

Four Stanzas in COUPLETS.

RHYME AND RHYME SCHEME• Words rhyme if they

sound alike.• Poems often use

rhymes at the end of lines.

• Rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes in a poem.

• Poets use rhymes to add a musical sound to their poems.

TYPES OF RHYMEALLITERATION – repetition of the initial consonant

sound. She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

CONSONANCE – repetition of the intermediate or final consonant sound.

• Tick tock, flip flop, singing longingASSONANCE – repetition of vowel sound.

• Hear the mellow wedding bells, Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

RHYTHM• Pattern of beats or a series of stressed and

unstressed syllables in poem.• Poets create rhythm by using words in which

parts are emphasized or not emphasized.

“Windy Nights” By Robert Louis Stevenson

Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high,

All night long in the dark and wet, A man goes riding by.

Late in the night when the fires are out, Why does he gallop and gallop about?

METER

• It is the measure of a line in a poetry.

FOOT

• It is the grouping of two or more syllables making up a basic unit of meter.

TYPES OF METRICAL FOOT• IAMBIC foot consists of unaccented syllable followed by an

accented. It can be heard in such words as "because, hello, Elaine". • TROCHAIC foot consists of an accented syllable followed by an

unaccented. These are trochaic words: answer, Tuesday, Albert. • DACTYLIC foot consists of an accented syllable followed by two

unaccented syllables. You can hear the dactylic beat in these words: beautiful, silently, Saturday.

• ANAPESTIC foot consists of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. These words are anapestic: cavalier, tambourine, Marianne.

• SPONDAIC foot consists of two accented syllables. • PYRRHIC foot consists of two unaccented syllables.

MOOD• The feeling that a poem

creates in a reader.• It can be positive or

negative.• Mood can be made with

the length of the sentences, chosen words, and word sounds.

“Poor” by Myra Livingston

I heard of poor. It means hungry, no food. No shoes, no place to live, Nothing good.

It means winter nights And being cold, It is lonely, alone. Feeling old.

Poor is a tired face. Poor is thin. Poor is standing outside Looking in.

Short words and lines create a serious mood.

These words create the feeling of sadness.

TONE• It is the attitude a writer takes towards the

subject or audience of the poem.

“The Crocodile” How doth the little crocodileImprove his shining tail, And pour the water of the Nile On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!

The subject of the poem are crocodiles. The writers attitude towards crocodiles is that they are dangerous.

IMAGERY• Language that

appeals to the 5 senses.

• Are “word pictures”.

• Helps the reader to experience familiar things in a fresh way using the senses.

“There is a Thing” by Jack Prelutsky

There is a thing beneath the stair with slimy face and oily hair that does not move or speak or sing or do another single thing but sit and wait beneath the stair with slimy face and oily hair.

These are image words

FIGURES OF SPEECH• A mode of expression in which words are used

out of their literal meaning or out of their ordinary use in order to add beauty or emotional intensity or to transfer the poet's sense impressions by comparing or identifying one thing with another that has a meaning familiar to the reader.

SIMILE• A figure of speech in which two fundamentally

unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by like or as.

• "Good coffee is like friendship: rich and warm and strong."(slogan of Pan-American Coffee Bureau)

• "You know life, life is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We're all of us looking for the key."(Alan Bennett, Beyond the Fringe, 1960)

• "When Lee Mellon finished the apple he smacked his lips together like a pair of cymbals."(Richard Brautigan, A Confederate General From Big Sur, 1964)

METAPHOR• A figure of speech in which an implied comparison

is made between two unlike things that actually have something in common.

• "Between the lower east side tenementsthe sky is a snotty handkerchief."(Marge Piercy, "The Butt of Winter")

•

"The streets were a furnace, the sun an executioner."(Cynthia Ozick, "Rosa")

PERSONIFICATION• A figure of speech in which an inanimate object

or abstraction is given human qualities or abilities.

The wind stood up and gave a shout.He whistled on his fingers and

Kicked the withered leaves aboutAnd thumped the branches with his hand

And said he'd kill and kill and kill,And so he will! And so he will!(James Stephens, "The Wind")

ONOMATOPOEIA• The use of words that imitate the sounds

associated with the objects or actions they refer to.• "Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-

dong. The little train rumbled over the tracks."("Watty Piper" [Arnold Munk], The Little Engine That Could)

• "Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng! An alarm clock clanged in the dark and silent room."(Richard Wright, Native Son, 1940)

• "I'm getting married in the morning!Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime."(Lerner and Loewe, "Get Me to the Church on Time," My Fair Lady)

HYPERBOLE• A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used

for emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement.

• “I had to walk 15 miles to school in the snow, uphill” • “you could have knocked me over with a feather”