The Elements of Poetry

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The Elements of Poetry

• Prepared by
• Paula F. Landreneau, Reading Facilitator

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What is poetry? How do we know?

• Lets begin a Circle Map to define poetry in
  context as we go through this workshop.

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What do poets have to say about poetry?

• Poetry by Eleanor Farjeon
• A Word by Emily Dickinson

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Poetryby 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?

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A Word By Emily Dickinson A word is dead When it
is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to
live that day.
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What is Poetry?

• Poetry is a type of literature in which the
  sound and meaning of language are combined to
  create ideas and feelings.

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There are three broad categories of poetry.

• 1. Narrative
• 2. Dramatic
• 3. Lyric

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Poetry

• Lyric poems paint a picture and include most
  short poems.
• Narrative poems tell a story. Epics (long poems)
  and ballads are two types of narrative poetry.
• In dramatic poetry the storys characters act out
  the story. Many plays are written as dramatic
  poetry.

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The Reason for the PelicanJohn Ciardi

• The reason for the pelican
• Is difficult to see
• His beak is clearly larger
• Than there's any need to be.
• It's not to bail a boat with-
• He doesn't own a boat.
• Yet everywhere he takes himself
• He has that beak to tote.

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• It's not to keep his wife in-
• His wife has got one, too.
• It's not a scoop for eating soup.
• It's not an extra shoe.
• It isn't quite for anything.
• And yet you realize
• It's really quite a splendid beak
• In quite a splendid size.

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• Haiku
• Pelicans at sea
• Giant cups with wings
• Fish peek out each side

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Humorous Poetry

• Humorous poetry is sometimes put in a separate
  category, however, poems that make us laugh can
  be classified as narrative, lyric, or dramatic
  poetry.
• Listen to Jack Prelutsky read one of his poems.

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Narrative Poems

• The Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore
• Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
• Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
• There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly
  Anonymous

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Narrative Poems

• Paul Reveres Ride by Henry Wadsworth
  Longfellow
• The Creation by James Weldon Johnson
• Sick by Shel Silverstein

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The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow

• From Part III Hiawathas Childhood
• By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
• By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
• Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
• Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

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Common Elements of Poetry

• Rhythm in poetry means the flow of sound. This
  pattern of rhythm in a poem is called meter.
• Poets often use the sounds of words to create
  effects. The most common method is to use words
  that rhyme. Rhyme commonly refers to end-rhyme.

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Rhythm and Rhyme in an excerpt from ALICE by
Shel Silverstein

• She drank from a bottle called DRINK ME
• And up she grew so tall,
• She ate from a plate called TASTE ME
• And down she shrank so small.
• And so she changed, while other folks
• Never tried nothin at all.

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Free verse doesnt rhyme or necessarily have
rhythm.

• Zebra
• By Judith Thurman
• white sun
• black
• fire escape
• morning
• grazing like a zebra
• outside my window.
• Crickets by Valerie Worth
• I Dreamd in a Dream by Walt Whitman

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Common Elements of Poetry

• Poets also achieve effects by using words that
  have similar sounds but do not rhyme.
• Repetition of the same first sounds in words is
  called alliteration.
• Consonance occurs when the same consonant sound
  is repeated.
• The repetition of an internal vowel sound is
  called assonance.

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Four SeasonsAnonymous

• Spring is showery, flowery, bowery,
• Summer hoppy, choppy, poppy.
• Autumn wheesy, sneezy, freezy.
• Winter slippy, drippy, nippy.

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The Hippopotamusby Jack Prelutsky

• The huge hippopotamus hasnt a hair
• on the back of his wrinkly hide
• He carries the bulk of his prominent hulk
• rather loosely assembled inside.
• The huge hippopotamus lives without care
• at a slow philosophical pace,
• as he wades in the mud with a thump and a thud
• and a permanent grin on his face.

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Lets look at the way poets use sound devices in
more poems

• Sea Shell by Amy Lowell
• Waters Edge by Lillian Morrison
• The Muddy Puddle by Dennis Lee

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Common Elements of Poetry

• Imagery refers to the sensations that the poets
  language creates. These sensations, or images,
  are often thought of as being like pictures.
• Imagery appeals to the senses of sight, hearing,
  smell, touch, taste. Poets also employ images of
  motion and heat and cold.

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Imagery of Color
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Figures of Speech

• It is raining cats and dogs.
• The young boy must be 15 feet tall.
• The trees whispered their secrets to the wind.

• After the brisk run, she was as limp as a rag
  doll.
• Her angry eyes were darts waiting to be thrown.

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Common Elements of Poetry

• Poets also create images by comparing things that
  ordinarily have little in common through the use
  of simile and metaphor.
• Metaphors and similes, along with idioms, are
  called figures of speech. In a figure of speech,
  the meaning is different from the literal meaning
  of the words.

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Common Elements of Poetry

• When a poet gives an inanimate object or an
  abstraction the characteristics of a human, he is
  using a type of figurative language called
  personification.
• To make a point a poet may exaggerate. When this
  exaggeration is beyond belief it is called
  hyperbole.

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Common Elements of Poetry

• Poets use words that imitate the sounds that they
  describe. This poetic device is called
  onomatopoeia.
• Repetition of words, phrases, or sentences are
  used to produce a cumulative effect. Frequently,
  the structure of the phrases rather than the
  phrases themselves are repeated.

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I Love the Look of Words by Maya Angelou

• Popcorn leaps, popping from the floor
• of a hot black skillet
• and into my mouth.
• Black words leap,
• snapping from the white
• page. Rushing into my eyes. Sliding
• into my brain which gobbles them
• the way my tongue and teeth
• chomp the buttered popcorn.

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• When I have stopped reading,
• ideas from the words stay stuck
• in my mind, like the sweet
• smell of butter perfuming my
• fingers long after the popcorn
• is finished.
• I love the book and the look of words
• the weight of ideas that popped into my mind
• I love the tracks
• of new thinking in my mind.

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Types of Poems

• Certain types of poems, for example, the
  acrostic, cinquain, couplet, diamante, haiku, and
  limerick, have a set structure.
• An acrostic presents a word spelled out
  vertically.
• A cinquain has five lines with 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2
  syllables.

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Types of Poems

• A couplet is simply two lines with end-rhyme.
• Diamante is a diamond shaped poem using nouns,
  adjectives, and gerunds to describe a topic or
  opposing topics.

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Types of Poems

• Haiku is a Japanese form of three unrhymed lines
  of 5, 7, and 5 syllables usually expressing
  images of nature.
• A limerick has five lines with an aabba rhyme
  scheme, with 8 or 9 syllables in lines 1, 2, and
  5 and 5 or 6 syllables in lines 3 and 4. Often
  limericks are humorous.

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Types of Poems

• Concrete poems, sometimes called shape or pattern
  poems, form a picture or visual image.

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Making Meaning

• Consider
• 1. Point of view (the narrative perspective
  who is telling the story or expressing the
  feeling)
• 2. Voice (authors style or expression of
  self)
• 3. Mood (authors attitude toward the subject)