Poetic Patterns

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Poetic Patterns

• Stanzas, Rhyme Rhyme Scheme

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STANZA

• A division of a poem consisting of a series of
  lines arranged together in a usually recurring
  pattern of meter and rhyme.

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THINGS TO KNOW

• / is used to indicate a new line when one has
  run out of room when a poem is being re-written.
• Angels we have heard on high, / Sweetly
  singing or the plains.

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COUPLET

• Two line stanza.
  
  We wear the mask that grins
  and lies, / It hides our cheeks and shades our
  eyes (Paul Laurence
  Dunbar, We Wear the Mask)

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TERCET/TRIPLET

• Three line stanza.
• I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what
  I assume you shall assume, / For every atom
  belonging to me as good belongs to you.
• (Walt Whitman, Song of Myself)

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QUATRAIN

• Four line stanza.
  Out there
  things can happen / and frequently do / to people
  as brainy / and footsy as you. (Dr. Seuss,
  Oh, the Places Youll Go!)

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CINQUAIN

• Five line stanza.
  
  You said you
  would not / Forget me - those were but words /
  All that still remains / Is the moon which shone
  that night / And now has come again.
  
  (Fujiwara no Ariie, Shiknokinshu)

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SESTET/SEXTAIN

• Six line stanza.
  
  Hoarse,
  booming drums of the regiment, / Little souls who
  thirst for fight, / These men were born to drill
  and die. / The unexplained glory flies above
  them, / Great is the battle-god, great, and his
  kingdom - / A field where a thousand corpses
  lie.
  (Stephen Crane, War Is Kind)

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You get the picture

• Septet Seven line poem.
• Octave Eight line poem.

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Rhyme Rhyme Scheme

• A rhyme occurs when there is a correspondence in
  sound of two or more words or lines of verse.
  
  Out there things can
  happen / and frequently do / to people as brainy
  / and footsy as you.

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Rhyme Rhyme Scheme

• Rhyme scheme is the arrangement of rhymes in a
  stanza or a poem. The first line is always
  marked with the letter A. If the end of the
  next line rhymes with the first, then it would be
  assigned an A. If it changes it would receive a
  B.

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Rhyme Scheme Example
Because I could not stop for Death (A) He
kindly stopped for me (B) The Carriage held
but just Ourselves (C) And Immortality. (B)
We slowly drove He knew no haste (D) And I
had put away (E) My labor and my leisure
too, (F) For His Civility (B) from
Because I could not stop for Death by Emily
Dickinson
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Can you mark the rhyme scheme?

• I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by Wordsworth
• I wandered lonely as a cloud
  ______
• That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
  ______
• When all at once I saw a crowd,
  ______
• A host, of golden daffodils
  ______
• Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
  ______
• Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
  ______