Poetry

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Poetry
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How To Read a Poem

• 1. Whenever possible, read a poem out loud at
  least once.
• try to HEAR the poem with your ears
• and UNDERSTAND it in your mind
• and FEEL it in your heart

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• Pay attention to punctuation.
• Stop briefly at semicolons or after periods.
• Pause at commas,
• Look for sudden shifts in thoughts - after dashes
• If a line doesnt end with punctuation, dont
  make a full stop. Pause briefly and continue to
  the end of a sentence.

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• Read in a normal voice as if you were speaking
  to a friend.
• Dont ruin the music of the poem by using a sing
  song voice.

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• 4. Look up words you dont understand.
• Poetry uses few words, so every word counts.

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• 5. READ IT AGAIN!
• . . . and again, and again, if you have to.
• Examine
  
• images
• sounds
• emotions
• ideas

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• Figures of Speech
• A word or phrase that describes one thing in
  terms of another
• Not meant to be taken as literally true
• Always involves an imaginative comparison between
  two things that dont seem to be alike
• There are MANY figures of speech. For
  example...

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Simile Compares two unlike objects using the
words like, as, than, or resembles.

• He runs as fast as a deer.
• Shes like the wind.
• His eyes flashed in anger like a railroad
  crossing signal.
• Slower than molasses in January.

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• Metaphor
• A comparison of two unlike things
  - WITHOUT using the words "like," as, etc.
  where one thing becomes another

• Shes a brick and Im drowning slowly.
• The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon
  cloudy seas.
• All the worlds a stage,
• And all the men and women merely
• players.

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• Types of Metaphors
• Direct metaphor directly compares two unlike
  things (one thing is another)
• Implied metaphor implies or suggests the
  comparison between the two things
• Extended metaphor a metaphor that is extended
  or developed over several lines of writing, or
  even the entire poem.

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Personification

• Technically, personification is a metaphor, but
  we speak about it separately.
• A nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if
  it were human
• The wind whispered my name.
• The August river claps its hands

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Hyperbole

• A deliberate exaggeration used to express strong
  emotion or to create comic effect
• two socks as soft two
• as rabbits. cases
• I slipped my feet knitted
• into them with threads of twilight
• as though into and goatskin.
• from Ode to My Socks
• -Pablo Neruda

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Oxymoron

• Contradictory or opposing ideas are put together
• Loving hate
• Freezing fire
• Happy grief
• (and yes) Jumbo shrimp

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Paradox

• Much like an oxymoron, paradox is a statement
  that seems to be contradictory but reveals a
  greater truth
• The effect is that it draws the readers
  attention to what is actually being said
• Rust is ripeness, rust
• And the wilted corn-plume
• from Season
• -Wole Soyinka

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Apostrophe

• A speaker directly addresses an absent person or
  a personified quality, object, or idea.
• It is used to add emotional intensity to a poem.
• Desolate lemons, hold
• tight, in you bowl of earth,
• the light to your bitter flesh,
• Sunday Lemons
• - Derek Walcott

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RHYTHM
The rise and fall of our voices
as we stress
more strongly than others
some sounds
More specifically A musical quality made by the
repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables
or by repeating certain sound patterns
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Rhythm in a Song
' - stressed
? - unstressed
'
?
'
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death I take a look at my life and realize
theres nothing left
?
?
?
?
?
?
'
?
'
?
?
?
'
'
'
?
?
?
?
?
?
'
'
?
?
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Repetition

• to repeat something
• repetition of a line or words can give emphasis
  to those ideas
• repetition of a line or words can give emphasis
  to those ideas

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Add it together

• Rhythm Repetition Meter
• Rhythm (a pattern of stressed
  unstressed syllables)
• Repetition (repeating the pattern)
  
• Meter - Repeating a pattern of stressed
  unstressed syllables

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METER

• A REGULAR PATTERN of stressed and unstressed
  syllables
• The important thing to note is that a regular
  pattern keeps the beat of the poem, just like
  the regular beat of a song.

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Terms to know about METER

• Foot the basic unit of meter that gets repeated
  to create the rhythm
• Scanning analyzing a poem to show the meter
  (when we marked the earlier song to show rhythm,
  we were scanning the poem . . . lets look
  again)
• (scansion ex)

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Types of Metrical Feet

• iamb unstressed, stressed
• because, afraid
• trochee stressed, unstressed
• heather, silver
• anapest unstressed, unstressed, stressed
• over there, disembark
• dactyl stressed, unstressed, unstressed
• coconut, solitude

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Putting this meter stuff together . . .

• Soo when we say that Shakespeare wrote in iambic
  pentameter we mean he was stringing together 5
  iambs in every line of poetry (Try scanning
  these lines of his)
• But soft! What light through yonder window
  breaks?
• It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
• from Romeo and Juliet
• -William Shakespeare

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RHYME

• the repetition of accented vowel sounds and all
  sounds following them in words that are close
  together in a poem.

night - light snow - go talking - walking tis
of thee - liberty gleaming - streaming G -
be sitting in a tree - K-I-S-S-I-N-G
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Specifics to know about rhyme

• End rhyme
• Internal rhyme
• Approximate rhyme
• Rhyme scheme

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End Rhyme

• rhymes that appear at the end of lines
• Lets look at an example of rhyme in an
  everyday context. . .

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• GANGSTAS PARADISE - Coolio
• As I walk through the valley of the shadow of
  death
• I take a look at my life and realize there's none
  left
• 'Cause I've been brassing and laughing so long
• That even my mamma thinks that my mind is gone
• But I aint never crossed a man that didn't
  deserve it
• Me be treated like a punk, you know that's
  unheard of
• You better watch how you talking, and where you
  walking
• Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk
• I really hate to trip but I gotta lope
• As they croak I see myself in the pistol smoke
  ... fool
• I'm the kinda G that little homies want to be
  like
• On my knees in the night, saying prayers in the
  street light

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Internal Rhyme

• rhymes that are found within lines

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• As I walk through the valley of the shadow of
  death
• I take a look at my life and realize there's none
  left
• 'Cause I've been brassing and laughing so long
• That even my mamma thinks that my mind is gone
• But I aint never crossed a man that didn't
  deserve it
• Me be treated like a punk, you know that's
  unheard of
• You better watch how you talking, and where you
  walking
• Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk
• I really hate to trip but I gotta lope
• As they croak I see myself in the pistol smoke
  ... fool
• I'm the kinda G that little homies want to be
  like
• On my knees in the night, saying prayers in the
  street light

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Approximate Rhyme

• when two words are alike in some sounds but
  dont rhyme exactly (a.k.a. slant rhymes)

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• As I walk through the valley of the shadow of
  death
• I take a look at my life and realize there's none
  left
• 'Cause I've been brassing and laughing so long
• That even my mamma thinks that my mind is gone
• But I aint never crossed a man that didn't
  deserve it
• Me be treated like a punk, you know that's
  unheard of
• You better watch how you talking, and where you
  walking
• Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk
• I really hate to trip but I gotta lope
• As they croak I see myself in the pistol smoke
  ... fool
• I'm the kinda G that little homies want to be
  like
• On my knees in the night, saying prayers in the
  street light

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Rhyme Scheme

• the pattern of rhymes in a poem
• a letter of the alphabet for each rhyme

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• As I walk through the valley of the shadow of
  death a
• I take a look at my life and realize there's none
  left a
• 'Cause I've been brassing and laughing so long
  b
• That even my mamma thinks that my mind is gone
  b
• But I aint never crossed a man that didn't
  deserve it c
• Me be treated like a punk, you know that's
  unheard of c
• You better watch how you talking, and where you
  walking d
• Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk
  d
• I really hate to trip but I gotta lope
  e
• As they croak I see myself in the pistol smoke
  ... fool e
• I'm the kinda G that little homies want to be
  like f
• On my knees in the night, saying prayers in the
  street
• light f
• Gangstas Paradise

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• Kiss Me by Mat Slocum (Recorded by Sixpence None
  the Richer)
• Kiss me out of the bearded barley.
• Nightly, beside the green, green grass.
• Swing, swing, swing the spinning step.
• You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress.
• Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight.
• Lead me out on the moonlit floor.
• Lift your open hand.
• Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance,
• Silver moons sparkling.
• So kiss me.
• Kiss me down by the broken tree house.
• Swing me upon its hanging tire.
• Bring, bring, bring your flowered hat.
• Well take the trail marked on your fathers map.

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Alliteration

• the repetition of the same or similar letters in
  several words

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Twists of wires, worn-out tires,
Paper bags and broken bricks. The silken, sad,
uncertain rustling of the curtains.
Hector the Collector -Shel Silverstein
The Raven -Edgar Allan Poe
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Assonance

• Repetition of similar vowel sounds that are
  followed by different consonant sound, especially
  in words that are close together in a poem
• Then the miner, forty-niner, soon began
• to droop and pine,
• from Clementine
• -Percy Montross

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Consonance

• The repetition of final consonant sounds (when
  used at the ends of lines, consonance creates
  approximate rhymes)
• And straightway, like a bell,
• Came low and clear
• The slow, sad murmur of far distant seas
• Whipped by an icy breeze
• from The Shell
• - James Stephens

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Onomatopoeia

• the use of a word whose sound imitates or
  suggests its meaning

whisper
rattle
tick-tock
buzz
rumble
sizzle
hissed
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REFRAIN

• A refrain is a phrase or line that is repeated
  often in a poem.
• It may be a verse

I wanna rock n roll all night and party
everyday
They been spending most their lives living in
the gangsta's paradise
Oh, my darling, oh, my darling, oh, my darling
Clementine, You are lost and gone forever,
dreadful sorry, Clementine.
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ETC.
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Allusion

• A reference to a statement, a person, a place,
  or an event from literature, history, religion,
  mythology, politics, sports, science, or pop
  culture.

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Imagery

• Language that appeals to any one of the five
  senses

sight
smell
hearing
touch
taste
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Images

• Images are pictures created by using sensory
  details
• Silence. Not a leaf stirs.
• No sign of light only pathetic sobs
• And scraping of slippers and sighing
• And tears in the pauses.
• The Weeping Garden
• -Boris Pasternak

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Imagery in Action

• Heres a song with lots of sensory details . . .

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Irony

• a contrast between expectation and reality
• between what is said and what is really meant
• between what is expected to happen and what
  really does happen
• between what appears to be true and what is
  really true

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PUN
A play on...

• multiple meanings of a word or
• words that sound alike but have different
  meanings

What has four wheels and flies?
A garbage truck!
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Motto for a Dog House

• I love this little house because
• it offers, after dark,
• A pause for rest, a rest for paws,
• A place to moor my bark.
• -Arthur Guiterman

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Connotation

• An association that a word calls to mind in
  addition to its dictionary meaning.
• Home and Domicile
• While both of these words have the same
  definition, home gives a reader a feeling of
  warmth and security generally a warm fuzzy kind
  of word
• Domicile, however, is associated with distance,
  structure, and being cold

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Denotation

• A words exact, specific meaning the dictionary
  definition
• home (n.) 1. A place where one lives a
  residence. 2. A dwelling place together with
  the family that lives there.
• domicile (n.) 1. A home, dwelling place, or
  legal residence.

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Diction

• Word choice, an essential part to a writers
  style
• May be described as being
• informal/plain or formal/elevated
• homies acquaintances
• sad bereaved
• love adore

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Speaker

• The voice speaking to us in the poem
• Not necessarily the poet!

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Tone

• Attitude the poet conveys about a subject.

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Stanza

• A group of lines in a poem set off by space to
  form a single unit it sort of looks like a
  paragraph
• Couplet 2-line stanza
• Quatrain 4-line stanza
• Cinquain 5-line stanza
• Octave 8-line stanza

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Couplet (just in case you missed it)

• Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
• I am his Highness dog at Kew
• Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?
• -Alexander Pope

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THEME
A main idea in a work of literature.
Not the subject, but the idea conveyed about the
subject
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Symbols Symbolism

• A person, place, or thing that has meaning in
  itself . . .
• and also stands for something beyond itself

I am a universal symbol for freedom.
This shape is also a symbol for peace.
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FREE VERSE

• Poetry without a regular meter or a rhyme scheme
• You are like my oldest pair of dungarees
• I love you
• My mother hates you
• And you fit so well
• Impression
• -Maureen Ziochowich

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Ballad

• A song that tells a story
• Use simple language, a great deal of repetition,
  and have a regular rhythm/rhyme scheme which make
  them easy to memorize

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Lyric

• A poem that expresses deep emotion or thoughts
• Expresses the observations and feelings of a
  single speaker
• Does not tell a story
• Has a musical quality

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Blank Verse

• Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
  (each line has five iambs feet that have an
  unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
  syllable)
• Major form of Shakespeares plays and English
  epics

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Sonnet

• 14 line lyric poem that is usually written in
  iambic pentameter and that has one of several
  rhyme schemes.
• Shakespearean Sonnet has three quatrains
  concluding with a couplet.
• Shakespearean Sonnets usually have the rhyme
  scheme abab cdcd efef gg

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Haiku

• 3-line Japanese verse form with 17 syllables
  (5-7-5). It is designed to arouse a specific
  emotion or moment of discovery.

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Epic

• A long narrative poem about the adventures of a
  hero
• Includes elements of myth, legend, folk tale, and
  history.
• The Odyssey coming soon to a classroom near
  you!!