“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” - Robert...

POETRY 101

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”

- Robert Frost

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What will you learn?

• Major types of poetry and how they differ from each other

• Key Poetic Elements and how to identify them within a selected poem

SONNET

HAIKU

SESTI

NA

BLANK V

ERSE

LIM

ERIC

K

VILLA

NEL

LEODE

ELEG

Y

IMAGERY

RHYME

ONOMATO

POEIA

ALLIT

ERATION

SIM

ILE

CAESURA

ENJA

MBM

ENT

DICTI

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MET

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Why study poetry?Poetry is a language. It has been written, spoken, and read for thousands upon thousands of years. Poetry can evoke emotion, memories, and bring light to new and old ideas. All poetry has been written by real people with real feelings and thoughts. Everybody can read poetry, and everyone can write it. There are messages within poetry about life, love, struggle, happiness, sadness, fear, and fearlessness. Poetry can represent something important, or it can mean absolutely nothing at the same time. Poetry is what you make of it. However, until you have a small background of information on the different types of poetry and the different key poetic elements, reading through and understanding poetry can prove to be quite difficult.

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Poetry 101

Let’s get started, shall we?

Types of Poetry

Key Poetic Elements

Quiz

Types of PoetryClick on the type of poetry and explore its meaning and other cool stuff.

SONNETSESTINA

BLANK VERSE

LIMERICKVILLANELLE

ODEELEGY

HAIKU

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Types of Poetry

Sonnet“The sonnet is one of several forms of poetry originating in Europe, mainly Great Britain and Italy and commonly have 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound.”

Example Sonnet

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Types of Poetry

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest, Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

EXAMPLE SONNET14 Lines

10 Syllables per Line

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Types of Poetry

Haiku

“A Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five

syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons.”

Example Haikumenu

Types of Poetry

The RoseDonna Brock The red blossom bends and drips its dew to the ground. Like a tear it falls

EXAMPLE HAIKUNo Rhyme

Lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables eachTraditionally about Nature

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Types of Poetry

Sestina

“A poem with six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet, all stanzas having the same six words at the line-ends in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern, and with all six words appearing in the closing three-line envoi.”Example Sestina

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Types of Poetry

Here in this bleak city of Rochester,Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow,"Not all of them polite, the wayward mindBasks in some Yucatan of its own making,Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon islandAlive with lemon tints and burnished natives,

And O that we were there. But here the nativesOf this grey, sunless city of RochesterHave sown whole mines of salt about their land(Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snowComes down as if The Flood were in the making.Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind

An ark sets forth which is itself the mind,Bound for some pungent green, some shore whose nativesBlend coriander, cayenne, mint in makingRoasts that would gladden the Earl of RochesterWith sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.It might be well to remember that an island

Was blessed heaven once, more than an island,The grand, utopian dream of a noble mind.In that kind climate the mere thought of snowWas but a wedding cake; the youthful natives,Unable to conceive of Rochester,Made love, and were acrobatic in the making.

Dream as we may, there is far more to makingDo than some wistful reverie of an island,Especially now when hope lies with the RochesterGas and Electric Co., which doesn't mindSuch profitable weather, while the nativesSink, like Pompeians, under a world of snow.

The one thing indisputable here is snow,The single verity of heaven's making,Deeply indifferent to the dreams of the natives,And the torn hoarding-posters of some island.Under our igloo skies the frozen mindHolds to one truth: it is grey, and called Rochester.

No island fantasy survives Rochester,Where to the natives destiny is snowThat is neither to our mind nor of our making.

"Sestina d'Inverno" by Anthony Hecht

EXAMPLE SESTINA

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Types of Poetry

Blank Verse“Blank Verse is poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, meaning each line is written in five beats and the accents alternate. Blank verse is often unobtrusive and the iambic pentameter form often resembles the rhythms of ordinary speech. William Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse. “

Example of Blank Versemenu

Types of Poetry

Excerpt from MacbethbyWilliam Shakespeare

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

EXAMPLE BLANK VERSE

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No Rhyme

Iambic Pentameter

Types of Poetry

Limerick

“A kind of humorous verse of five lines, in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter, form a rhymed couplet.”

Example Limerickmenu

Types of Poetry

Limerickby Mark Twain

A man hired by John Smith and Co.Loudly declared that he’d tho.Men that he sawDumping dirt near his doorThe drivers, therefore, didn’t do.

EXAMPLE LIMERICK

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5 lines

1st, 2nd, and 5th line rhyme with each other

3rd and 4th line form couplet

Types of Poetry

Elegy

“A poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.”

Example Elegymenu

Types of Poetry

On September the nineteenth 1586 in London TowerWhen the bloom of his young life was decaying like a flowerDying in the cool winds of the early FallIn words his tragic life he did recall.

Chidioch Tichborne to something beautiful to gave lifeIn his farewell elegy to Agnes his wifeAn elegy still read and popular todayTrue greatness can be slow for to meet decay.

Chidioch Tichborne (1558-1586)by Francis Duggan

Accused as being in a failed plot to murder Elizabeth England's QueenHis best days as a poet he had not seenHung drawn and quartered a brutal way to dieSuch a death to justice surely gives the lie.

Executed in his twenty eight year even in those times that was youngBut he did not remain as one unsungHis gift of life may have been snatched from him in his primeBut his life story and his elegy have withstood the test of time.

EXAMPLE ELEGY

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Sad or depressing

A memory

Types of Poetry

Ode

“In modern use, a lyric poem, rhymed or unrhymed, typically addressed to some person or thing and usually characterized by lofty feeling, elaborate form, and dignified style.”

Example Odemenu

Types of Poetry

Ode to Sir Lucius Gray and Sir H. Morisonby Ben Jonson

It is not growing like a treeIn bulk, doth make man better be;Or standing long an Oak, three hundred year,To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear.A Lily of a dayIs fairer far, in MayAlthough it fall and die that night;It was the plant and flower of light.In small proportions we just beauties see;And in short measure, life may perfect be.

EXAMPLE ODE

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Can rhyme if wanted

Normally dedictation to someone or something

Types of PoetryVillanelle

“A 19-line poem of fixed form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.”Example Villanellemenu

Types of Poetry

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night,

Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night,

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Nightby Dylan Thomas

EXAMPLE VILLANELLE

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Six stanzas

Each stanza is three lines each

Key Poetic Elements

Click on the term to learn what it means and to see examples.

IMAGERYRHYME

ONOMATOPOEIAALLITERATION

SIMILE

CAESURA

ENJAMBMENT

DICTION

METAPHOR

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Key Poetic Elements

Imagery

“The use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas.”

Example of Imagerymenu

Key Poetic Elements

From the family tree of old school hip hop Kick off your shoes and relax your socks The rhymes will spread just like a poxCause the music is live like an electric shock

--Beastie Boys "Intergalactic" From Hello Nasty

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Words which evoke emotion or any of the senses of the reader

Let’s the reader see the image

Key Poetic Elements

Rhyme

“Correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words, esp. when these are used at the ends of lines of poetry.”

Example Rhymemenu

Key Poetic Elements

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.All the King's horses, And all the King's menCouldn't put Humpty together again!

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Key Poetic Elements

Onomatopoeia

“The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named, such as ‘pop’, ‘fizzle’, ‘oozes’. It sounds like it is read.”

Example of Onomatopoeiamenu

Key Poetic ElementsCrack an Eggby Denise Rodgers

Crack an egg.Stir the butter.Break the yolk.Make it flutter.Stoke the heat.Hear it sizzle.Shake the salt,just a drizzle.Flip it over,just like that.Press it down.Squeeze it flat.Pop the toast.Spread jam thin.Say the word.Breakfast's in .

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Words that sound, in real life, just as they are read

Key Poetic Elements

Alliteration

“The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.”

Example of Alliterationmenu

Key Poetic Elements

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

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Key Poetic Elements

Simile

“A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind.”

Example of Similemenu

Key Poetic ElementsA Red, Red Roseby Robert Burns

O My Luve's like a red, red rose,That's newly sprung in June;O My Luve's like the melodieThat's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,So deep in luve am I;And I will luve thee still, my dear,Till a' the seas gang dry, my dearWhile the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,And fare thee weel, awhile!And I will come again, my luveTho' it ware ten thousand mile!

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Uses the word “like” or “as” as comparison words

Key Poetic Elements

Caesura

“A pause near the middle of a line.”

Example of Caesuramenu

Key Poetic Elements

An Essay on Manby Alexander Pope

Know then thyself II, presume not God to scan;The proper study of Mankind II is Man.Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise, and rudely great:

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Notice the pauses right in the middle of the lines

Key Poetic Elements

Enjambment

“The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line of verse into the next line without a pause.”

Example of Enjambmentmenu

Key Poetic Elements Treesby Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

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Notice how the yellow words begin on one line and continue on to the next line without any pause or punctuation

Key Poetic Elements

Diction

“The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.”

Example of Dictionmenu

Key Poetic Elements

The Road Not TakenBy Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

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Diction is simply the word choice that the writer decides to use

Key Poetic Elements

Metaphor

“A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.”

Example of Metaphormenu

Key Poetic Elements

“All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely playersThey have their exits and their entrances.”

William Shakespeare

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Notice how Shakespeare compares the world to a stage

Quiz Time

Now Let’s see what you have learned. The goal is to answer four out of five questions correctly.

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#1

A ____________ is a term used to compare two things using the words “like” or “as”.

A. MetaphorB. CaesuraC. DictionD. Simile

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#1

WRONG, try again

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#1

Wrong, try again

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#1

Wrong, try again

TRY AGAINmenu

#1

THAT IS CORRECT! GREAT JOB!

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#2

Which type of poetry is this an example of?

Without flowing wine A. LimerickHow to enjoy lovely B. SonnetCherry blossoms? C. Haiku

D. Ode

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#2

Wrong, try again

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#2


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#2

Wrong, try again

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#3

Click on the enjambment in the following poem.Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry upLike 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 sagslike a heavy load.

Or does it explode? menu

#3

Wrong, try again

TRY AGAINmenu

#3


NEXT QUESTIONmenu

#3

Wrong, try again

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#4

A caesura is ______________?

A. A comparison of two things that are not alike.B. A poem that has no rhyme.C. When the poet uses iambic pentameter in the fir

st line.D. A pause or break in the middle of a line of poetry.

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#4

Wrong, try again

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#4


NEXT QUESTIONmenu

#5What type of poetry is the following poem?There is another skyby Emily Dickinson

There is another sky,Ever serene and fair,And there is another sunshine,Though it be darkness there;Never mind faded forests, Austin,Never mind silent fields -Here is a little forest,Whose leaf is ever green;Here is a brighter garden,Where not a frost has been;In its unfading flowersI hear the bright bee hum:Prithee, my brother,Into my garden come!

A. Limerick

B. Sonnet

C. Blank Verse

D. None of the above

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#5

Wrong, try again

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#5


FINISH menu

EXCELLENT JOB!

You now have a pretty solid knowledge base on the types of different poetry and some of the key poetic elements.

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“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” - Robert...

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