Introduction to Poetry

"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. "

--Kahlil Gibran

Today’s Learning Objectives:

Types of PoetryNarrative

LyricDramatic

Elements of PoetrySpeaker

Rhyme & RhythmSound Devices

Figurative Language

"To have great poets there must be great audiences

too."--Walt Whitman

Verse that tells a story.

First two stanzas of poem…

The whole idea of it makes me feel like I'm coming down with something, something worse than any stomach ache or the headaches I get from reading in bad light-- a kind of measles of the spirit, a mumps of the psyche, a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back, but that is because you have forgotten the perfect simplicity of being one and the beautiful complexity introduced by two. But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit. At four I was an Arabian wizard. I could make myself invisible by drinking a glass of milk a certain way. At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

Example:

On Turning Ten

By Billy Collins

Expresses the personal thoughts and feelings of the

speaker.

Example:maggie and milly and molly and may

by e.e. cummings maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles and may came home with a smooth round stoneas small as a world and as large as alone.

for whatever we lose (like a you or me)it's always ourselves we find in the sea

Usually has one or more characters who speak to other

characters, to themselves, or to the reader.

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

and which you were probably saving for breakfast

Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

Example:This is Just to Say

By William Carlos Williams

" Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great

and feeling souls."-- Voltaire

Every poem has a speaker, or voice, that talks to the

reader. The speaker is not necessarily the poet. It can

be a fictional person, an animal, or a thing.

The speaker is like a narrator in prose.

A line is a word or row of words that may or may not form a complete sentence.

A stanza is a group of lines forming a unit. The stanzas in a poem are separated by a space.

• Couplet: two-line stanza• Triplet: three-line stanza• Quatrain: four-line stanza• Quintet: five-line stanza• Sestet: six-line stanza• Septet: seven-line stanza• Octave: eight-line stanza

•Rhythm is the pattern of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line. Rhythm can be regular or irregular.

MOST COMMON:

• Iambic: an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable (repeat)

• Anapestic: two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable (interrupt)

• Rhyme is the repetition of the same stressed vowel sound and any succeeding sounds in two or more words.

• Internal rhyme occurs within a line of poetry.

• End rhyme occurs at the ends of lines.

• Rhyme scheme is the pattern of the end rhymes.• (ABAB, AABB, AAAA/BBBB…)

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Sonnet XVIII: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

              1Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?              2Thou art more lovely and more temperate.              3Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,              4And summer's lease hath all too short a date.              5Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,              6And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;              7And every fair from fair sometime declines,              8By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;              9But thy eternal summer shall not fade            10Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;            11Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,            12When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:            13So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,            14So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

What is the rhyme scheme of this poem?

ABAB

            13So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,            14So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

What does Shakespeare end with?A rhymed couplet

• Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words.

• Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within a line of poetry.

• Onomatopoeia is the use of a word or phrase that imitates or suggests the sound of what it describes.

• Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds. Although it is similar to alliteration, consonance is not limited to the first letters of words.

The horse gracefully galloped across the pasture.

The sassy students smiled sweetly at the teacher.

Can you think of one on your own?

Creak… BANG!Squish

HISS

Buzz

Can you think of one on your own?

Just now the lilac is in bloom, All before my little room ; And in my flower-beds, I think, Smile the carnation and the pink ; And down the borders, well I know, The poppy and the pansy blow . . . Oh ! there the chestnuts, summer through, Beside the river make for you A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep Deeply above ; and green and deep The stream mysterious glides beneath, Green as a dream and deep as death.

Examples from:First Half of First Stanza of:

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

(Café des Westens, Berlin, May 1912)

by Rupert Brooke

Another Example of Consonance:(First part of

first stanza…)It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell. With a thousand pains that vision’s face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground, And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. "Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."

Strange Meetingby Wilfred

Owen

Descriptive language that appeals to the senses--sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell. Some images appeal to more

than one sense.

• A figure of speech is a word or expression that is not meant to be read literally.• A simile is a figure of speech using a word such as

like or as to compare seemingly unlike things.• A metaphor also compares or equates seemingly

unlike things, but does not use like or as.• Personification gives human characteristics to

an animal, object, or idea.• Hyperbole refers to over exaggerations, such as

to “wait for an eternity” or to be “starving for dinner”.

Her smile was like the sunshine, emitting rays of warmth.

His eyes were as blue as the sky and as deep as an ocean.

Can you think of one on your own?

My boss is an angry sergeant who orders everyone in his sight around

constantly!

The vampire’s teeth were daggers, sinking greedily into the neck of his

prey.Can you think of one on your own?

Two Sunflowers Move in the Yellow Room.

"Ah, William, we're weary of weather,"said the sunflowers, shining with dew.

"Our traveling habits have tired us.Can you give us a room with a view?"

They arranged themselves at the windowand counted the steps of the sun,

and they both took root in the carpetwhere the topaz tortoises run.

William Blake(1757-1827)

Can you

think of

one on

your own?

"It was so cold, even the polar bears were wearing jackets."

"My best friend is so forgetful, I sometimes have to remind her what her name is!"

Can you think of one on your own?

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.  We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.  And the human race is filled with passion.  And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.  But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 

Dead Poet's Society

In Conclusion…