Poetry

Introduction

Poetry . .

1. Rhymes

2. Is boring and difficult

3. Is musical

4. Can be powerfully emotional

5. Is whatever you want it to be

6. Is a picture painted with words

7. Should be performed

8. Has a strong message

This Is Just To Say

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

1. What is your favourite food?

2. Where is your favourite food

stored?

3. If this food is meant for someone

else, when are they planning on

eating it?

4. The plums were ‘delicious’, ‘sweet’

and cold’. Which three adjectives

would you use to describe your

favourite food?

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten

the 1

that were in

2

and which

you were probably

saving

for 3

Forgive me

they were 4

so 4

and so 4

Imagery

• Poets often use imagery to

create a clear picture for the

reader.

• Similes and metaphors are the

two most commonly used forms

of imagery.

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Metaphor

I'm a riddle in nine syllables.

An elephant, a ponderous house,

A melon strolling on two tendrils.

O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!

This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.

Money's new-minted in this fat

purse.

I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.

I've eaten a bag of green apples,

Boarded the train there's no getting

off.

Alliteration

• Britain’s Biggest Bingo Bonanza!

• Super Scots Shock Sorry Swedes

• I have stood still and stopped the

sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another

street,

Rewrite the following

headlines using alliteration

1. Prices cut at Slater’s.

2. Motherwell triumph in the cup.

3. Celebrity disgraces himself.

4. Local school receives

fantastic report.

Rhyme

I know an old bloke

his name is Lord Jim

He had a wife who threw tomatoes at

him.

Now tomatoes are juicy-

And don’t injure the skin

But these ones did

They was inside a tin.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Most poems rhyme

This one doesn’t.

Rhythm

Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room

Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,

Sagged and reeled and pounded on the

table,

Pounded on the table,

Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a

broom,

Hard as they were able

Boom, boom, BOOM,

With a silk umbrella and the handle of a

broom,

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

Juxtaposition

• Putting one thing beside

another.

• Poets often put images beside

each other in an unexpected

way.

A Child Is Singing

A child is singing

And nobody listening

But the child who is singing:

Bulldozers grab the earth and

shower it.

The house is on fire.

Gardeners wet the earth and

flower it.

The house is on fire,

The houses are on fire.

Fetch the fire engine, the fire

engine’s on fire.

We will have to hide in a hole.

We will burn slow like coal.

All the people are on fire.

And a child is singing

And nobody listening

But the child who is singing.

Personification

• To give human qualities to

something which is not.

• The wind cried Mary.

• The camera loves me.

• The car engine coughed and

spluttered.

• The tropical storm slept for two

days.

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 window

and counted the steps of the sun,

and they both took root in the carpet

where the topaz tortoises run.

I am silver and exact.

I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow

immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or

dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful--

Personify the following sentences. Change the words

in parentheses to words that would describe a

human's

actions:

1.The puppy (barked) when I left for school.

2. The rain (fell) all night.

3.Hair (is) on my head.

4.The CD player (made a noise).

5.The player piano keys (moved up and down).

6.The space shuttle (took off).

7.The little arrow (moves) across the computer

screen.

Punning

• A way of using words, so that more

than one meaning comes over at the

same time.

• ‘He ate so much over the Christmas

holidays that he decided to quit cold

turkey.’

• I couldn’t quite remember how to

throw a boomerang, but eventually it

came back to me.

• Did you hear about the lonely

prisoner? He was locked in his sel.

Oxymoron

• A figure of speech that contains

two normally contradictory

terms.

• A fine mess

• Alone in a crowd

• Bittersweet

• Living dead

• Healthy tan

Identify the following

techniques

1. A comparison which uses like or as.

2. To give human qualities to something

which is not.

3. Repetition of consonants at the

beginning of words.

4. Placing unusual images beside each

other.

5. A comparison which says one thing is

another.

6. The musical beat of a poem.

7. A figure of speech that contains two

normally contradictory terms.

Slow

As a limping cow

Or a mighty bull

With its legs split in two.

Long dark night is the silence in

front of me

Limbo

Limbo like me

Limbo

Limbo like me

Louis he was King of France

before the revolution

Then he had his head chopped off

Which spoiled his constitution

• Brash with glass,

name flaring like a flag,

it squats

in the grass and weeds,

incipient Port Jackson trees:

• The older of the two with grey

iron hair

and hunched back

looking down like some

gargoyle Quasimodo

• Ah, sweet mystery;

Come to break the frozen lake

in me,

Shaking the foundations of the

very trees within me,

That the earth is the earth is

the earth.

• A child is singing

• Bulldozers grab the earth and

shower it.

• The house is on fire.

• A police man says to the tramp

asleep under a park bench:

‘You’re under a rest.’

• You never turned around to see the frowns on the

jugglers and the clowns

When they all come down and did tricks for you

You never understood that it ain't no good

You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat

Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat

Ain't it hard when you discover that

He really wasn't where it's at

After he took from you everything he could steal.

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

I never saw so sweet a face

As that I stood before:

My heart has left its dwelling-

place

And can return no more