Preparing for Poetry

What are your thoughts on Poetry?

Why do people read and write poetry?

What are your personal experiences with poetry?

Do you enjoy it or dislike it? Why?

Strategies for Reading Poetry

1. Read the lines according to punctuation 2. Paraphrase 3. Identify the speaker 4. Draw inferences 5. Use your senses

Poetic Form

The structure of the poem; how it appears



Stanza- a group of lines that are meant to be read as a unit; paragraph within a poem



Couplet- pair of rhyming lines

Hippopotamus The giant city bus Looks like a hippopotamus That lumbers down the busy street With rounded nose and rubber feet.

It swallows people whole While charging them a toll, Then carries them about Until it stops and spits them out.

Couplet Stanza By Douglas Florian

Elements of Poetry

Rhyme

Repeated sounds at the end of the words The cat sat on a mat – cat, sat and mat rhyme because the –at sound is repeated at the end of the words.

Rhyme Scheme A pattern of regular rhyming words in a poem. It is indicated by lower case letters. Each rhyme has a different letter. You have seen this written as: aabb or abab

Hector the Collector Collected bits of

string

.

Collected dolls with broken heads And rusty bells that would not

ring

.

What is the rhyme scheme of the above stanza?

What is the rhyme scheme of the poem below?

The Germ by Ogden Nash A mighty creature is the g

erm

, Though smaller than the pachyd

erm

.

His customary dwelling pl

ace

Is deep within the human r

ace

.

His childish pride he often pl

eases

By giving people strange dis

eases

.

Do you, my poppet, feel inf

irm

?

You probably contain a g

erm

.

Alliteration

The repeating of beginning sounds in several words in a line of poetry.

Alliteration

Science has spoiled my supper.

Mickey is a mighty mouse “but the big man must have been blessed”

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which something is described as though it were something else – compares two unlike things without using ‘like’ or ‘as’. It is a direct comparison of two unlike things.

Metaphor

“All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.” My father is a hurricane Life is a journey Love is the wildcard of existence.

Simile

A figure of speech that uses “like” or “as” to make a direct comparison between two unlike objects.

Simile

Jessica is as sour as vinegar.

A sapphire shines as blue as heaven Hatred is as dark as a thundercloud Your love flows through my veins like the Nile River flows through the sands of Eygpt.

Personification

The type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics The flowers danced in the gentle breeze The fire swallowed the entire forest The first rays of morning tiptoed through the meadow

Personification

The wind yells at the night sky

The ocean danced in the moonlight The candle flame danced in the dark

Hyperbole

The deliberate exaggeration or overstatement

Hyperbole

"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." "If I've told you once, I've told you a million times." "She is one-hundred feet tall."

Onomatopoeia

The use of a word whose sound makes you think of its meaning

swish splash drip

Onomatopoeia

SYMBOLISM

When a person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself also represents, or stands for, something else.

= Innocence = America = the path you take or follow through life = Peace

Sara Teasdale in her poem Wild Asters develops a number of striking symbols: “In the spring, I asked the daisies If his words were true, And the clever, clear-eyed daisies Always knew.

Now the fields are brown and barren, Bitter autumn blows, And of all the stupid asters Not one knows.” In the above lines, “spring” and “daisies” are symbols of youth. “Brown and barren” are symbols of transition from youth to old age. Moreover, “Bitter autumn” symbolizes death.

Theme:

An ingredient of a literary work, which

gives the work unity

. The theme provides an answer to the question "What is the work about?" Each literary work carries its own theme(s). Unlike plot, which deals with the action of a work,

theme concerns itself with a work's message

or contains the general idea of a work.

Love and friendship are frequently occurring themes in literature.

Acquainted with the Night I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street,

The theme of Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" is loneliness.

But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.