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Poetry

Do and Dont

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Sentimentality

Do not take shortcuts to emotions

Sentimentality undermines sophisticatedpoetry

The-Blind-Puppy-On-The-Freeway

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Self-Pity

Have we heard it before?

Self-pity is unavoidable, but it makes pitifulpoetry

Work for objectivity and perspective

I-Bleed-I-Die-For-You Poetry

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Clear As Mud

Purposely vague

Ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity

Playing games with your reader Shyness cause?

Just dont know lack of insight

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Sound

Subtlety in Sound End rhyme or enjambment End forces a stop Enjambment doesnt

Invaded and invader,I went overhand on that flat sky.

Punctuation . = STOP ,= Pause = no pause

Rhyme Schemes or True or Slant Cat/Hat or dreams/times

Free Verse Sound should enhance the meaning

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Images

Poetry may deal with abstractconcepts, but does so with concretenouns Love = Abstract Rose = Concrete

Most poetry is rooted in concretedetails

Images = descriptive details

An image is any concrete detail

Perceived with the five senses

Not always symbolic or of fig. language

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Other Uses for Images

Symbol = image exists as part of thepoem

Simile = linking of elements

Metaphor = implies a relationship

Shortened and compressed moreimpactful, transformation

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Images

Literal Image = green grass

Comparison = grass + wheat = grassis like wheat is like

Simile = happiness + green grass =Happy as the grass was green as

Metaphor = I + Prince = I was prince

of the apple towns Symbol = apple picking + life/death

= After apple picking

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The Rural Carrier Stops to Kill aNine-Foot Cottonmouth

Lord God, I saw the son-of a bitch uncoilIn the road ahead of me, uncoil and squirmFor the ditch, squirm a hell of a long time.Missed him with the car. When I got back to him, he was allBut gone, nothing left on the road, but the tip endOf his tail, and that disappearing into Johnson grass.I leaned over the ditch and saw him, balled up now, hissI aimed for the mouth and shot him. And shot him again.

Then I got a good strong stick and dragged him out.He was long and evil, thick as the top of my arm.There are things in this world a man can't look at without

Wanting to kill. Don't ask me why. I was calmEnough, I thought. But I felt my spineSquirm, suddenly. I admit it. It was mine.

--T. R. Hummer

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Narrative Poetry

Poetry that tells a series of events using poetic devices such as rhythm,rhyme, compact language, and attention to sound. In other words, anarrative poem tells a story, but it does it with poetic flair! Many of thesame elements that are found in a short story are also found in anarrative poem.

character - Can be the speaker or other/s setting - Use what you know. Is it relevant? conflict - You need some. Dont think grandiose plot - You need events

Speaker - Narrator Choose carefully. You are not necessarily in need of retelling an entire novel

length story, we arent all Homers. You can retell an event one glimpse into a moment of time

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Form Poetry

Stanza: in metered verse are normally of uniformed length andseperated by a space.

Couplets: Two metered and rhymed lines.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Triplet: Three lined stanzas

Hell pinch my pinky until he mouse starts squeaking. The floorlamp casts a halo around his big, stuffed chair.

Be strong Be tough! It is my father speaking. From Michael Ryans Milk the Mouse

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Form x2 Quatrain: Four lined stanza. Closest to the paragraph of a prose. The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. From Roethkes My Papas Waltz

Sonnet: 14 lined, metered and rhymed poem. When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then my state(Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;For thy sweet love remembered such wealth bringsThat then I scorn to change my state with kings. Shakespeares Sonnet 29

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Haiku

Haiku: Small verse consisting of3 lines in which the syllables fall asfollows 5-7-5

If it really isthe last suit you'll ever wear,It'll get smelly.Men in Black by Dave

Of all the gin jointsin all the world, she goes towar-torn Morocco Casablanca by Tim

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Rhyme Scheme Rhyme Scheme: A regular, reoccurring use of rhyme in a poem. Usually labeled with corresponding

letters Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumblingAnd floundering like a man in fire or lime.--Dim, through the misty panes and thick green lightAs under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.Wilfred Owen Dulce Et Decorum Est

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Figurative Language

Hyperbole

If I fail this test Ill DIE!!!

Metaphor I was the well that fed the lake

Simile

She jumped like a cat

Symbolism

Duh

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Bedtime Denise Levertov

We are a meadow where the bees hum,Mind and body are almost one

As the fire snaps in the stoveAnd our eyes close,

And mouth to mouth, the coversPulled over our shoulders,

We drowse as horses drowse afield,

In accord; though the fall cold

Surrounds our warm bed, and thoughBy day we are singular and often lonely

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Fog Carl Sandburg

THE FOG comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches 5and then moves on