POETRYPoetry is an expression of feeling and originality. Just as an artist may choose water colors or crayons to paint a picture, a musician may choose the piano or drums to create a song - you, the poet, will choose a form and method that will best convey your message.

Writing poetry is easy if you have knowledge of poetic forms and devices. Edgar Allan

Poe

Some poems follow “rules” like a haiku, concrete or the emotions poem.

Sylvia Plath

Simile - compares two unlike things, using the words like or as.

“His feet were as big as boats.”

Poetry Terms

Metaphor - compares two unlike things directly, without the use of like or as.

“Her hair is silk.”

Alliteration - the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

•Assonance- repetition of vowel sounds within words to create internal rhyming

“And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling, my

darling, my life and my bride.” (Edgar Allen Poe)

•Internal Rhyme – rhyme that occurs within a line of verse, as in “the grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother” (Dylan Thomas)

Personification - assigning human qualities to non-human things.

“The tropical storm slept for two days.”

Onomatopoeia - words that imitate sounds. “Boom. Gurgle. Bang. Plink.”

Hyperbole - an exaggeration. “I nearly died laughing.”

Symbolism - an object that means what it is and also something more. Lions often symbolize royalty.

Meter - how the beats are put together to form lines of poetry. The combinations of long and short syllables give poetry a rhythm, like music.

Rhythm - pattern of long and short syllables in a line. Some words receive greater emphasis than others. This is similar to long and short notes in music.

Lyrics - the actual words poets write.

Mood - the overall feeling the poem

creates.

INTERNAL RHYME - rhyming within a line.

“I awoke to my fat cat climbing up my back.”

RHYME - a pattern of words that contain similar sounds.

“I went to the fair with the girl with the golden hair.

STANZA - a unified group of lines in poetry. (paragraph)

VERSE - a line of poetry.

POETIC FORMSAcrostic Poetry - the first letter of each line, when read vertically, spells out a word. The word is usually the subject of the poem.

J J ust as I wake up

AA nd before I rise from bed

N N ot yet look in the mirror

II f I had a choice instead

CC ertain that fate prevails

EE very day I am at peace.

an ancient Japanese form with no rhyme. This type of poetry has three lines and it is usually about nature.

HAIKU

The dying plant bends (5)

Dripping its life to the ground (7)

It falls like a tear (5)

CONCRETE POEM - use the words and their physical formation to convey meaning.

KINDS OF POETRY

Lyric, Sonnet, Ode, Hymns, Songs, Elegies, Narrative, Ballad, Folk, Epic, Romance, Free Verse, Limerick, Haiku, Tanka, Concrete, Cinquain, Blank Verse, Villanelle, Acrostic, Epigram, Dramatic and more

Now you are ready to write your own poetry.

For your poetry book you will write - a concrete poem, a list poem, an emotion/action poem (what if...), a first/last line poem, a haiku, your own poem (any form or style with at least 12 lines), and one poem analyzed.