Transcript Form
What Are Elements of Poetry?
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Form
A poet is like a sculptor.
A sculptor uses tools to shape wood, stone, or metal.
A poet uses words to shape a poem.
Form
Read this poem aloud. How do the lengths of the lines influence the sound of the poem?
The short lines give emphasis to words like
worm
and
stone .
Stay beautiful but dont stay down underground too long Dont turn into a mole or a worm or a root or a stone from “For Poets” by Al Young Short lines may also cue readers to speed up.
Form
To help shape their writing, poets ask: 1. How long should the lines be?
2. Should I group the lines into stanzas?
3. Should I follow established forms or experiment with new forms?
The poet’s purpose is to give the words a pleasing shape on the page and to help convey meaning.
Form Quick Check
How does the shape of this experimental poem help you understand its meaning?
One end wipes out mistakes.
My Favorite Pencil The other captures ideas, making sure that people get the point.
[End of Section]
Forms of Poetry
Could you write a poem by listing four or five things found in your classroom?
You could if you were writing a
catalog poem
— free verse that lists the poet’s thoughts or feelings on a subject.
Forms of Poetry
A catalog poem is a list: On the first day of school, I see shoes. My classmates wear big shoes, small shoes, smelly shoes—shoes built for running and moving. I see desks. . . .
Other kinds of poems • tell stories • express feelings • honor someone or some event • remember someone
Forms of Poetry
Tell a story Express feelings formally Express thoughts and feelings in free verse Mourn the loss of someone or something You will read many of these forms in this collection.
Forms of Poetry Quick Check
What is the form of this poem?
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, . . .
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, . . .
from “I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman [End of Section]
Tone Tone
reflects a poet’s attitude toward a subject.
Imagine you are writing a poem about the man in this picture. What would be your tone, or attitude?
Tone
To determine a poem’s tone, ask: How do the • words • images • sounds make you feel?
cold?
spooked?
adventurous?
curious?
A poet carefully chooses every word and detail to help you understand and share his or her attitude.
Tone Quick Check
What is the tone of this passage from “The Highwayman”?
And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A highwayman comes riding— Riding—riding— A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn door.
by Alfred Noyes [End of Section]
Imagery
You can think of a poet as an artist who uses words the way a painter uses paint.
clouds like tufts of wool the rock’s wrinkled face . . . a carpet of red sand
The poet’s words create images, or pictures, in the reader’s mind.
Imagery
Listen to this excerpt from “The Highwayman.” What images do you see?
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding. . . .
by Alfred Noyes
Imagery
Is this how you imagined the scene?
Imagery
Images in poetry focus on
all
of the senses.
sight sound taste touch smell He rode with a jeweled twinkle. . . .
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn yard.
They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.
He scarce could reach her hand. . . .
. . . his hair like moldy hay. . . .
Imagery Quick Check
Beclouded The sky is low, the clouds are mean, A traveling flake of snow Across a barn or through a rut Debates if it will go.
A narrow wind complains all day How some one treated him; Nature, like us, is sometimes caught Without her diadem.
by Emily Dickinson (edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson) Find examples of images in this poem that appeal to different senses.
[End of Section]
Figurative Language
Poets also use
figures of speech
dissimilar things.
—language that helps make startling connections between What connections are made in the following lines from “The Railway Train”?
I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks. . . .
by Emily Dickinson
Figurative Language
A train is compared to a horse.
Figurative Language
A
simile
is a comparison of two unlike things using the word like, as, or resembles. There came a wind like a bugle. . . .
• How are these very different things alike? • What meaning does the poet want us to make from this connection?
Figurative Language
A
metaphor
compares two unlike things without using like, as, or resembles. Stars are great drops Of golden dew from “Harlem Night Song” by Langston Hughes
Figurative Language
An
extended metaphor
is a comparison that continues through many lines or the entire poem.
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.
by William Shakespeare
Figurative Language Quick Check
What figure(s)
of speech
are used in these lines from a poem about a young horse?
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray, Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes.
from “The Runaway” by Robert Frost [End of Section]
A few more definitions…
• Alliteration – is the use of two or more words that begin with the same consonant sound. EX: Susie sells silly string at the soda stand. • Personification – gives objects and animals the ability to act like people.
EX: The Breeze whispered a lullaby through the pines.
• Onomatopoeia – use of words to represent a real sound. EX: hiss, moo, buzz
Analyze Elements of Poetry Your Turn
• What makes poetry different from prose?
Include different elements as examples.
• Identify an element of poetry that you would like to understand better, and explain why.
[End of Section]
The End
Become familiar with stanzas, rhyming words and rhyme schemes (rhyme patterns).
Most writing is composed using paragraphs. Poetry is composed of stanzas. A stanza is a paragraph like grouping of lines.
Rhyming words are words that make the same end vowel sound (blue/shoe) or the same end vowel and consonant sound (cat/rat).
The rhyme scheme in a poem can be represented by letters. For example, call the first line a. Every other line that rhymes with the first line is also represented by the letter a. The first line that does not rhyme with a is b. Every line that rhymes with b is also b. The patterns continues, using new letters to represent each new sound at the end of a line. Continues into other stanzas.
The following short poem illustrates the labeling of a rhyme scheme.
There once was a big brown cat That liked to eat a lot of mice.
He got all round and fat Because they tasted so nice.
a b a b