Transcript The Elements of Poetry

What is poetry?
How do we know?
Poetry
by Eleanor Farjeon
What is Poetry? Who knows?
Not a rose, but the scent of the rose;
Not the sky, but the light in the sky;
Not the fly, but the gleam of the fly;
Not the sea, but the sound of the sea;
Not myself, but what makes me
See, hear, and feel something that
prose
Cannot: and what it is, who knows?
These Characteristics are:
(1)It should look like a poem, meaning that lines don’t run to the
margins. Some lines are not even sentences.
(2)There are usually some musical devices that give the poem a
song-like, lyrical quality.
(3)Images are conveyed through sensory details and figurative
language.
(4)The poem has some form to hold it together. Some poems
actually have a prescribed form like haikus and sonnets.
(5) The poem has some meaning, image or emotion it wants to
share with the reader. These three things are shown by the
above four. That makes a poem!
Imagery
 Imagery is the senses the poem evokes
in the reader. Imagery puts the reader in
the poem. It helps the reader to “see”
the poem.
 The tools of imagery are
1. Senses : sound, sight, touch, smell, taste,
and emotion.
2. Figurative language : metaphor, simile,
personification, hyperbole, etc.
1- Sensory details
Sensory details touch the five senses. They
make the poem vivid to the reader.
Let’s look at the sensory details in the poem
“Those Winter Sundays.”
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden
2- Figurative Language
Figurative language is words not meant to
be taken literally. The words are symbolic.
We know these images as metaphor,
simile, personification, hyperbole, and
others.
Because the poet is comparing a less
familiar object to a common one, the
comparison makes the familiar image
stronger.
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.”
He's as hairy as a gorilla.
Peter laughs like a hyena.
Mr. John is as wise as an owl.
Allow me, it's as easy as ABC.
Because I was embarrassed my face was
as red as a ripe tomato.
The world is like
She got a neck like
a stage.
a pipe.
A Red, Red Rose
-Robert Burns (1759~1796)
O My Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O My Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel, awhile!
And I will come again, my luve
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile!
time is money
time is a thief
you are my sunshine
he has a heart of stone
America is a melting pot
the sun played hide and seek with the
clouds
opportunity knocked on the door
the vines wove their fingers together to
form a braid
The house sat proudly on the land, its
windows were eyes watching over its
kingdom.
The pen ran quickly over her page,
jumping from word to word as though
rushing to finish a race
The Vacuum
The house is quiet now
The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,
Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth
Grinning into the floor, maybe at my
Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.
I’ve lived this way long enough,
But when my old woman died her soul
Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can’t bear
To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust
And the woolen mice, and begin to howl
Because there is old filth everywhere
She used to crawl, in corner and under the stair.
I know now how life is cheap as dirt,
And still the hungry, angry heart
Hangs on and howls, biting at air.
2- Rhythm
Rhythm in poetry means the flow of sound.
This pattern of rhythm in a poem is called
meter.
Rhythm is the beat of a poem. It is the pattern
of stressed and unstressed syllables.
It is the control of sounds in a poem.
Alice
She drank from a bottle called DRINK ME
tall
And up she grew so ______,
She ate from a plate called TASTE ME
small
And down she shrank so _______.
And so she changed, while other folks
all
Never tried nothin’ at ________.
Marks
Linda Pastan
My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I am average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
L (a leaf falls)
one oneliness
l
iness
點仔膠，黏著腳，叫阿爸，買豬腳，
豬腳圈，滾爛爛，餓鬼子仔流嘴涎
小皮球，香蕉油，滿地開花二十一，二五六，
二五七，二八、二九、三十一、三五六、...
三輪車，跑得快，上面坐個老太太，要五毛，
給一塊，你說奇怪不奇怪…。
 1. The baby was like an octopus, grabbing at all the
cans on the grocery store shelves.
 2. As the teacher entered the room she muttered under
her breath, "This class is like a circus!"
 3. The giant’s steps were thunder as he ran toward
Jack.
 4. The pillow was a cloud when I put my head upon it
after a long day.
 5. I feel like a limp dishrag.
 6. Those girls are like two peas in a pod.
 7. The fluorescent light was the sun during our test.
 8. No one invites Harold to parties because he’s a wet
blanket.