POETRY STUFF

WHAT IS POETRY?

 Poetry is a literary form characterized by a strong sense of rhythm and

meter and an emphasis on the interaction between sound and sense.
 The study of the elements of poetry is called prosody.
 The Human Brain
•Divided into 2
parts
•Each half has its
Left Brain:
own function Right Brain:
Logic Creativity
Reality Emotions
To clarify . . .

When
you are
looking
at big
puffy
Your right brain
clouds . .
tells you, “Hey!
.
That one looks like
a bunny.”
While your left brain tells you . . .
 It’s a
cloud,
Stupid!
SO, WHICH HALF DO YOU USE WHEN
STUDYING POETRY?
Here are a few hints:
 Poetry requires creativity
 Poetry requires emotion
 Poetry requires an artistic quality
 Poetry requires logic
 IMAGERY & FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
 An “image” is “a word or sequence of words that refers to
any sensory experience”(Kennedy and Gioia 741).

 Figurative language uses figures of speech to convey

unique images and create some sort of special effect or
impression.

 A “figure of speech” is an intentional deviation from the

ordinary usage of language.
 SIMILE
 A simile is a type of metaphor, a figure in which an explicit
comparison is made using the comparative words like or as.
(Sometimes, one may use resembles or than as well.)
Similes are easy to spot.
 My love is like a red, red rose.
 My love was as beautiful as a rose
 My love resembles a rose.

 My love is redder than a rose.

 METAPHOR
 A metaphor also compares, but a metaphor is a bit more
sophisticated than a simile.

 For one thing, in a metaphor, the words

like or as are missing. So readers have to recognize the
comparison on their own without those easy words which
help us to spot a simile so quickly.
 METAPHOR
 The term metaphor has two meanings, a broad, more general meaning and a concise, specific
meaning.

 All figures of speech which use association, comparison,

or resemblance can generally be called types of
metaphor, or metaphorical.

 One specific figure of speech which compares two things

by saying that one IS the other is called a metaphor.

 Love is a battlefield.
 My brother is a prince.
 Cox Stadium was a slaughterhouse Friday night.
 MORE METAPHORS
 Richard was a lion in the fight.
 Her eyes are dark emeralds. Her teeth are pearls.

 But avoid Mixed Metaphors (combining two or more

incompatible images in a single figure of speech):

 Management extended an olive branch in an attempt to

break some of the ice between the company and the
workers.

IMPLIED METAPHOR
What is implied here about the speaker’s love?

 Oh, my love has petals and sharp thorns.

 Oh, I placed my love into a long-stemmed vase
And I bandaged my bleeding thumb.

 And here, what is implied about the city and the subway?

 The subway coursed through the arteries of the city.

 EXTENDED
 METAPHOR
This kind of metaphor may run through an entire work.
 Sometimes a poet will use an extended metaphor throughout a poem
rather than simply as one single figure of speech in a poem.
 DEAD METAPHOR
 A dead metaphor has been so used and overused that it has lost its power
to surprise, delight, or effectively compare.

A cliché is a dead metaphor, a phrase so often repeated that it no longer

has force:

 He hit the nail on the head.

 She was cool as a cucumber.
 Jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
 This PowerPoint show is crystal clear.

 Avoid the use of clichés in your own writing!

 PERSONIFICATION
Another kind of comparison is called personification. Here,
animals, elements of nature, and abstract ideas are given
human qualities.

John Milton calls time “the subtle thief of youth” (599). Homer refers to
“the rosy fingers of dawn” (599).
Other examples of personification
 The stars smiled down on us.

– An angry wind slashed its way across the

island.
 OXYMORON
Oxymoron - two contradictory terms are placed
side by side, usually for an effect of intensity:
 darkness visible (John Milton)
 burning ice
 Blinding brightness

People often enjoy joking sarcastically by

declaring certain pairs of words to be oxymorons:

military intelligence
 HYPERBOLE
Hyperbole (hy per bo lee) is intentional
exaggeration or overstating, often for dramatic
or humorous effect: Your predicament saddens
me so much that I feel a veritable flood of tears
coming on.
 UNDERSTATEMENT
The intentional understatement is used for effect
also: “Thank you for this Pulitzer Prize: I am
pleased.”

Another kind of understatement called Litotes

occurs when a negative is used to state a positive:
“When I won the Pulitzer Prize, I was not unhappy.”
 APOSTROPHE

 A person or thing which is absent is addressed:

“What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman” (Ginsberg 599).

“Oh sun, I miss you, now that it’s December.”
 METONYMY

 In this figure (m’ tawn ni’mee) one thing is replaced by another thing
associated with it:

 The Crown is amused (“The Crown” is the Queen).

 The White House is furious (“The White House” is the President).

 SYNECDOCHE
 Here, (sin nec duh kee) a part represents the whole:
 All hands on deck!
 Lend me your ears.
 Let’s buy one hundred head of cattle!
 ALLUSION
 Referring to some thing famous that shows a comparison.

 [The mantis shrimp] is Ghengis Khan bathed in sherbet ice

cream.
 PARADOX
 a statement that appears to be self-contradictory or silly but
may include a latent truth.

 Your enemy’s friend is your enemy.

 I am nobody.
 “What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.”
George Bernard Shaw
 “I can resist anything but temptation.” Oscar Wilde
 “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
George Orwell
 OTHERS YOU MAY WANT TO
 Onomatopoeia – sounds likeKNOW.
the word (buzz, pop, sizzle)
 Pun – play on words (Ask for me tomorrow and you will find me a
grave man.)
 Idiom – only an idiot would take it literally (Raining cats and dogs)
 Allegory - a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a
hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one (Animal Farm)
 Analogy – comparison to show a deeper meaning (men and ants are
alike)
 Alliteration – Repetition of first letter (Peter Piper picked…)
 Assonance – Repetition of a vowel sound (rain in Spain)
 Consonance – Repetition of a consonant sound not at the beginning of
the words (I’ll look to like if looking liking move. –this is both
alliteration and consonance)
ALSO, YOU SHOULD LOOK
AT THE SOUND OF THE
LANGUAGE USED…
 EUPHONY

 “good sound”
 Refers to language that is smooth and musically pleasant to the ear
 “Many consider “cellar door” one of the most euphonious phrases in
English.”
 CACOPHONY

 harsh sounds
 The clash of discordant sounds within a sentence or phrase.
 A familiar feature of tongue twisters but can also be used to poetic effect.
 It is language that is discordant and difficult to pronounce.

“Player Piano”
“never my numb plunker fumbles.”
-John Updike
WHAT FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE DO YOU
SEE HERE?

 In Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

“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.”
 Poetry that follows no rules. Just about
anything goes.
This does not mean that it uses no devices, it just means
type of poetry does not follow traditional conventions s
punctuation, capitalization, rhyme scheme, rhythm and m
Fog by: Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet. No Rhyme
No Rhythm
No Meter
It sits looking
This is
over harbor and city
free verse.
on silent haunches
and then, moves on.
 The repetition of
sounds
Example: hat, cat, brat, fat, mat,
sat
My Beard
by Shel Silverstein
My beard grows to my toes,
I never wears no clothes,
I wraps my hair
Around my bare,
And down the road I goes.
 RHYME SCHEME
 Give a letter to each new rhyming word and each time in the
poem that rhyme is used, it assigned the same letter:
The Life Of A Cupcake
1. They put me in the oven to bake. • A
2. Me a deprived and miserable cake. • A
3. Feeling the heat I started to bubble. • B
4. • B
Watching the others I knew I was in trouble.

5. They opened the door and I started my • C

life.
6. Frosting me with a silver knife. • C
7. Decorating me with candy jewels. • D
8. The rest of my batch looked like fools. • D

9. Lifting me up, she took off my wrapper. • E

10. Feeling the breeze, I wanted to slap her. • E
11. Opening her mouth with shiny teeth inside.• F
12. This was the day this cupcake had died. • F
 END RHYME VS. INTERNAL
RHYME
 End rhyme = the last word in each line rhymes
 Internal rhyme = words within a line rhyme
 Using the same key
word or phrase
throughout a poem.
This should be
fairly self-
explanatory,
but
at risk of
sounding like
 Valued Treasue
by Chris R. Carey
Time to spend; time to Time will eventually show
mend. us the truth.
Time to hate; time to wait.Time is a mystery; time is
a
Time is the essence; time is measure.
the key. Time for us is valued
Time will tell us what we treasure.
will be. Time to spend; time to
Time is the enemy; time ismend.
the proof. Time to cry . . .
 The repetition of one or
more phrases or lines at
the end of a stanza.
It can also be an entire
stanza that is repeated
periodically throughout
a poem, kind of like a
chorus of a song.
 Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where The curl of my
Thislips.
is repeated througho
my secret lies. the poem.
I’m a woman
I’m not cute or built to suit a Phenomenally.
fashion model’s size
Phenomenal woman,
But when I start to tell them,
That’s me.
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
When reading a poem
out loud, you may
notice a sort of “sing-
song” quality to it, just
like in nursery rhymes.
This is accomplished by
These identify patterns of stressed and
unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
That means one syllable
is pronounced stronger,
and one syllable is
iambic:
softer.
unstresse
d
stressed
anapestic:
trochaic:
dactylic:
THE FOUR RARER POETIC
FEET:
Spondee Pyrrhic
 

Amphibrach Amphimacer
 

(the amphibrach and amphimacer are often omitted when

scanning poetry.)
IAMB

The Iambic 
foot.
By far the
most common foot
in the English
language.

It is the sound of
the human heart.
IAMBIC EXAMPLE
       
“Whose woods these are I think I
know…”
TROCHEE

The trochaic   foot.

 The trochee is the opposite
of the iamb.
TROCHEE EXAMPLE

         
“Double, double, toil and trouble, fire
burn
    
and cauldron bubble.”
 ANAPEST

 The anapestic  foot.

 The anapest is the galloping foot. Imagine a horse galloping along; hear
the sounds of its hooves beating out…
ANAPEST EXAMPLE

      
“ I will go to the lake in the
woods…”
DACTYL
 The Dactylic    foot.

 The dactylic foot is the rhythm of the waltz:

ONE two three, ONE two three, ONE two three

 DACTYL EXAMPLE

            
“Just for a handful of silver he left us be.”
WHAT IS THIS?
   
You know that it
   
would be untrue,
   
You know that I
   
would be a liar,
 OTHERS…
Spondee Pyrrhic
 
Spondee and pyrrhic are called feet, even though they
contain only one kind of stressed syllable. They are never
used as the sole meter of a poem; if they were, it would be
like the steady impact of nails being hammered into a board--
no pleasure to hear or dance to. Inserted now and then,
spondee and pyrrhic can lend emphasis and variety to a
meter.
 BARELY USED ONES:
Amphibrach Amphimacer
 

 The amphibrach and amphimacer are often omitted when

scanning poetry.
 OTHER RHYTHMIC CONSIDERATIONS
INCLUDE:

 Anacursis: the extra unaccented syllable at the beginning of a line.

 Catalexis: the unaccented syllable at the end of a line.
 Enjambment: a run-on line, continuing into the next line without a pause.
 METRIC UNITS IN POETRY

 Metric feet make up lines of poetry.

 Lines of poetry make up stanzas.
 Stanzas make up cantos in much longer poems.
 KINDS OF STANZAS

Couplet = a two line stanza

Triplet (Tercet) = a three line stanza
Quatrain = a four line stanza
Quintet = a five line stanza
Sestet (Sextet) = a six line stanza
Septet = a seven line stanza
Octave = an eight line stanza
 The length of a line of poetry, based on
what type of rhythm is used.
The length of a line of poetry is measured in
metrical units called “FEET”. Each foot consists
of one unit of rhythm. So, if the line is iambic or
trochaic, a foot of poetry has 2 syllables. If the
line is anapestic or dactylic, a foot of poetry has 3
syllables.
 (This is where it’s going to start sounding like geometry class, so you
left-brainers are gonna love this!)

Each set of syllables is one foot, and each line is

measured by how many feet are in it. The length of
the line of poetry is then labeled according to how
many feet5:are
1: Monometer in it.
Pentameter
2: 6: Hexameter
Dimeter
3: Trimeter 7: Heptameter
4: Tetrameter 8: Octameter

*there is rarely more than 8 feet*

 She Walks in Beauty
Reading this poem
out loud makes
the rhythm
evident. Which
She walks in beauty, like the night
syllables are more
pronounced?
Which are
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
naturally softer?

Count the
And all that’s best of dark and bright
syllables in each
line to determine
the meter.
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light Examination of this poem

reveals that it would be
considered iambic
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. tetrameter.
POETIC
FORMS
Sonnet, Villanelle, Elegy, Ode, and Sestina
 THE SONNET
 Follows a fairly strict form
 14 lines, usually iambic
 Three kinds (Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Spenserian)
 Originated in Italy—Francesco Petrarch
 From the Italian word sonnetto = little song
 Love = original topic of the sonnet

 Shifted form when adapted by the English

 Sonnet was very popular during the Renaissance period and had a
revival with the 19th century romantic poets.
 Modern perspective: easily comprehended and balances the narrative
with the lyric.
 ITALIAN/PETRARCHAN
SONNET
Divided into two sections
Octave (how many lines?)
Sestet (how many lines?)
Meter = usually iambic pentameter
Rhyme scheme (usually these two)
 Abbaabba/cdcdcd
 Abbaabba/cdecde
 SONNET 28
1. Alone, and lost in thought, the desert glade

2. Measuring I roam with lingering steps and slow;

3. And still a watchful glance around me throw,

4. Anxious to shun the print of human tread:

5. No other means I find, no surer aid

6. From the world's prying eye to hide my woe:

7. So well my wild disordered gestures show,

8. And love-lorn looks, the fire within me bred,

9. That well I think each mountain, wood and plain,

10. And river knows, what I from man conceal,

11. What dreary hues my life's fool chances dim.

12. Yet whatever wild or savage paths I've taken,

13. Wherever I wander, love attends me still,

14. Soft whispering to my soul, and I to him.

 ENGLISH/SHAKESPEAREAN
SONNET
 Theory: originated by Shakespeare? No—adapted.
 Brought to England in the 16th century by Thomas Wyatt and the Earl
of Surrey.
 three quatrains and the couplet is the defining feature
 Meter = is usually iambic pentameter = light/heavy emphasis
 Rhyme scheme
 abab/cdcd/efef/gg

 NOTE: Spenserian Sonnet

 Format: three quatrains and a couplet; rhyme scheme =
abab/bcbc/cdcd/ee
 SONNET 18
1. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4. And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
5. Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8. By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

11. Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

12. When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st:

13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
 TIPS FOR ANALYZING
 Consider:
SONNETS
 What happens? Break it down--what is being said in each unit?
 Where are the shifts? THINK FORM!
 Who is the speaker?
 Whom is the speaker addressing?
 Is there a problem and solution? A theme and a comment? A
question and an answer? What are they?
 What imagery is used?
 What senses does the imagery correspond to?
 How does the imagery contribute to the poem’s overall
meaning/theme?
 Are any of the recurring images symbolic? If so, what do they
mean?
 SAMPLES TO IDENTIFY—
GOOD TIMES!
Identify as Italian or English.
 How do you know this?

Identify as modern or older.

 What clues do you have?
 Think diction, detail, imagery, syntax, and tone

Explain what the poem is about, develop

a statement of theme, and cite at least
one line as evidence.
 OZYMANDIAS
1. I met a traveler from an antique land
2. Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
3. Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
4. Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
5. And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
6. Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
7. Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
8. The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

9. And on the pedestal these words appear:

10. “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
11. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
12. Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
13. Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
14. The lone and level sands stretch far away.
 THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND
SOON
1. The world is too much with us; late and soon,
2. Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
3. Little we see in Nature that is ours;
4. We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
5. This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
6. The winds that will be howling at all hours,
7. And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
8. For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

9. It moves us not.--Great God! I’d rather be

10. A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

11. So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

12. Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

13. Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

14. Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.

 HALF A DOUBLE SONNET
1. Their ordeal over, now the only trouble
2. Was conveying somehow to a boy of three
3. That for a week or two he’d be seeing double.
4. Surely he wouldn’t recall the surgery
5. Years later, but what about the psychic scars?
6. And so, when the patch came off, they bought the toy
7. He’d wanted most. He held it high. “Two cars!”
8. He cried; and drove himself from joy to joy.
9. Two baby sisters…One was enough of Clare,
10. But who could complain?—considering that another
11. Woman had stepped forward to take care
12. Of the girls, which left him all alone with Mother.
13. Victory! Even when he went to pee,
14. He was seconded in his virility.
 THE VILLANELLE
 Definition: a French verse form which utilizes repetition of lines and rhymes.
 History
 Originally an Italian rustic song
 Form today = French poet, Jean Passerat (d. 1602) influenced English writers…Oscar Wilde.

 Structure:
 19 lines
 Five tercets (which are??)
 One Quatrain
 Rhyme Scheme: aba/aba/aba/aba/aba/abaa
 REFRAIN ELEMENTS

 1st line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the second and
fourth stanzas.
 3rd line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of third and fifth
stanzas.
 These two refrain lines are repeated as a couplet in the last two lines of the
quatrain.
 So…song-like in quality, but not in narrative due to its circular nature.
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD
NIGHT (PG. 12)

Read Dylan Thomas’ poem.

Whom does the poem address? What is
the speaker saying?
Villanelles are some times criticized as
elaborate exercises in trivial wordplay.
 Defend Thomas’s poem against this charge.
 In other words, how does the form support the meaning of
the poem?
 “DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD
NIGHT” BY DYLAN THOMAS
Do not go gentle into that good night, sight
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. gay,
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
they And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Do not go gentle into that good night. Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I
pray.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Do not go gentle into that good night.
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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

 THE ELEGY

Definition: a reflective poem that laments

the loss of something or someone (or loss
or death more generally).
History
 Greek & Roman = elegiac meter
 Dactylic hexameter (stressed, unstressed, unstressed syllables) =
“marginal” & nursery rhymes
 Elizabethan Times = certain love poems
 17th Century Shift = focus on loss
 Change in form
 STRUCTURE OF THE ELEGY

No set metrical form (no pattern, cadence, or

repetition)
Public lament that “sets out the circumstances and
character of a loss.”
 Mourns for the person, lists his/her virtues, and seeks consolation beyond
the momentary event = grief is a public one
Structure relies on “slowly evolving customs and
decorums.”
Can have elegiac tone! “American Pie” = the song!
 PASTORAL ELEGY

Definition: A serious formal poem in

which a poet grieves the loss of a dead
friend.
Poet-mourner figures himself and the
individual mourned as shepherds
Dead shepherd traditionally given a
Greek name
Highly conventional

 ANALYSIS

Using “O Captain! My Captain!”

complete the following tasks:
 Identify the type of elegy.
 How do you know this?
 Quote and explain three qualities of an elegy that
the poem possesses.
 Analyze the tone of the piece.
 You cannot say “sad.”
 Homework: Compare/Contrast Whitman’s Elegy with
A.E. Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young.”
 THE ODE
 Definition: a relatively long, serious, and usually meditative lyric poem that treats a
noble or otherwise elevated subject in a dignified and calm manner.
 History: Ancient Greece; originally a choral poem intended to be sung at a public
event
 Dramatically changed during the Romantic movement.
 Structure:
 Regular/Pindaric (rare, typically characterized by a ceremonious or
even exalted tone)
 Irregular/Cowleyan (no pattern; rhyme scheme and stanza at the
poet’s discretion.)
 Horatian (equal length stanzas having the same rhyme and meter.)
 COMPONENTS OF AN ODE
(REGULAR)
Trifold Stanzaic
 Strophe = sung while the chorus danced in one direction
 Antistrophe = sung while the chorus danced in the
opposite direction
 Epode = sung while standing still

Meter = strophe and antistrophe have

the same meter
“rule of thumb”—starts with an “O”
 ODE VS. ELEGY
Both the Ode and Elegy seek to elevate a
subject.
How are they different?
What components of the structure of each
style of poetry helps to elevate the
subjects?
SOME OTHER FORMS THAT YOU MIGHT NEED TO
KNOW…
 Lyrical – Musical quality
 Ballad – Lyrical poem that tells a story
 Epic – Long poem that is a story
 Epitaph – poem for a tombstone