Type and FormThere are MANY different types or forms of poems. Some fit a specific format and some fit a specific theme.Some examples of format poems:Acrostic: a word or set of words is written down the page and each line starts with that letter.Sonnet: 14 lines of iambic pentameter, with a specific rhyme scheme and intro/conclusion style. Sestina: Each stanza must use the same end words as the first stanza, but in a different pattern each time.

More Formats Haiku- A three line poem with specific syllable lengths of 5-7-5. Limerick- Usually a funny poem with a AABBA rhyme scheme and specific syllable length.Villanelle- A poem where certain lines are repeated to make more of a refrain Pantoum: Each stanza reuses different lines in a specific pattern from the previous stanzas.

Types of poems written based on themes:

Elegy: A poem about something lostOde: A poem celebrating somethingRoad: A poem about a time of travelMetaphor: The whole poem is a metaphorObject Obsession: A poem written about an objectNarrative: A poem that tells a storyBallad: A narrative poem with a refrain, usually about loveProse: A poem written more like a paragraph

Poetic expression is hard to define and even harder to label since in itself it can comprise so many styles, ideas, lengths and forms.

We will focus on these poetic aspects:

Idea and EmotionType and FormStyle of the Line Concise Word Choice

In my experience, students tell me they write for their own enjoyment. In other words, most students tell me they like to write poetry.

Therefore, I ask you: Why is this so? Why do some teens write and/or read poems?

Idea and EmotionPoetry is the one type of writing that truly comes from an emotional response to an image, an event or experience, or a memory. Most poets say they are inspired to write a poem."A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words.”-Robert Frost“If you know what you are going to write when you’re writing a poem, it’s going to be average.” –Derek Walcott

Emotion- Some poets begin writing a poem for an emotional release.

Idea- Some poets begin writing a poem because they are inspired by something they’ve experienced.

Let’s get emotional for a moment:

What are typical emotions and topics shown in poetry?

Are there bad poetry topics?

Keep this in mind (as well as your notebook): What does a poem need to look like and contain to be a poem?

Do most poems rhyme?

Are poems about emotions?

Are poems a certain length?

What is the goal of a poem?

Can poets ignore grammar rules like capital letters and punctuation?

Can poems be funny?

What types of word choice or language do you see in poems?

IS THIS A POEM?

A Supermarket In Californiaby Allan Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15306

Is this a poem?

Coming Up by Ani DiFranco

Our father who art in a penthouseSits in his 37th floor suiteAnd swivels to gaze downAt the city he made me inHe allows me to stand andSolicit graffiti untilHe needs the land I stand onI in my darkened thresholdAm pawing through my pocketsThe receipts, the bus schedulesThe urgent napkin poemsThe matchbook phone numbersAll of which laundering has renderedPulpy and strangeLoose change and a keyAsk meGo ahead, ask me if I careI got the answer hereI wrote it down somewhereI just gotta find it

Is This A Poem??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY2VYg-qKWU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG24ohpacDk

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 fairAnd 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.

Is This A Poem?

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk endsAnd before the street begins,And there the grass grows soft and white,And there the sun burns crimson bright,And there the moon-bird rests from his flightTo cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows blackAnd the dark street winds and bends.Past the pits where the asphalt flowers growWe shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,And watch where the chalk-white arrows goTo the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,For the children, they mark, and the children, they knowThe place where the sidewalk ends

Is this a poem?

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The answer ?They are all poems.

When you write a poem, it should have a subject, a goal, a tone, and a flow. It should contain specific, condensed word choice and literary devices like metaphor, simile and imagery.