1. Poetry is a great way to present our feelings and ideas to others.
WHY POETRY?
Poetry is a great way to present our feelings and ideas to others.

2. This is Me … On the roller coaster Up and down
My soul wrenched past my teeth
A frowning clown
In the mirey swamp
Earth held, with mud clinging.
Or flying through boisterous clouds
My heart singing.
What am I trying to say?
How will you feel for me?
If you ever take away
The words of my poetry Anna K.

3. Why poetry?
Why is it that humans have been composing poetry since humans started to use language?

6. RHYTHM

7. RHYTHM Rhythm helps a poet express feelings.
A fast rhythm is often a way of expressing happiness or excitement,
while slow rhythms often express sorrow or mournfulness.
Stop-start rhythms – ones where the rhythm stutters – can express anger or drama, while smooth rhythms often tell us that things are alright.
Rhythm gives beat and flow and feeling to poetry.

8. Listen to how rhythm gives life to this Australian classic, the opening of which tells the exciting story of a very valuable horse that had disappeared from the cattle property. Men are running around, getting ready to go looking for the horse – a colt from Old Regret, a famous racehorse.

9. THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER
‘Word’ means ‘news’ in this line.
There was movement at the station for word had got around
that the colt from Old Regret had got away.
He had joined the wild bush horses, he was worth a thousand pound,
and all the cracks had gathered for the fray…
Banjo Patterson
‘Cracks’ are top riders
The rhythm is fast – like a galloping
horse. There is a sense of urgency.

10. In Tennyson’s famous poem ‘Break, Break, Break’, the rhythm is much slower. It stops and starts. It is both sad and dramatic. Tennyson wrote this great poem on the death of a great friend.

11. BREAK, BREAK, BREAK Break, break, break,
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me…
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
How would you
describe the rhythm in
this poem?

12. ANSWER IN YOUR LITERACY BOOK
Use two or three words to describe:
The feelings aroused by the rhythm of ‘The Man from Snowy River’.
The feelings aroused by the rhythm of ‘Break, Break, Break’.
2. How does the rhythm of each poem help to give you these feelings?
3. Write the opening lines of two of your own poems with completely different rhythms.
Have a go!

13. Poems with rhythm
Magnetic poems
Poetry Activities
Poetry links

15. RHYME
There are times
When poets use rhymes.
When they do not.
Rhyme is the repetition of a similar sounding words at the end of lines. In the poem above, the first three lines rhyme with each other.

16. The Grebs When at night in bed I sleep
I hear the Grebs around me creep,