1. Effecting sound, meaning and emotion
Elements of Poetry

2. Element 1: Lines A single line in a poem
“To a Snowflake”
1 Hello little snowflake
2 Where are all your friends?
3 Should I expect a lot of them
4 before the morning ends?
5 I love it when you come to me
6 and you all fall down together,
7and I get dressed to visit you,
8 toasty warm in cold, cold weather.
A single line in a poem
Often organized into stanzas (paragraphs)
2 lines alone are a couplet

3. Element 2: Rhyme and Rhyme Scheme
Words Rhyme when they have the same sound
Poems often use this at the end of lines
Rhyme scheme is the pattern of the rhyme
Rhyme adds a musical sound to the poem

4. “Ten Minutes Till the Bus”
Rhyme
“Ten Minutes Till the Bus”
Ten whole minutes
Till the bus,
Scads of time,
What’s the fuss?
Two to dress,
One to flush
Two to eat,
One to brush,
That leaves four
To catch the bus,

5. Element 3: Rhythm
Pattern of beats, or stressed/unstressed syllables in a poem
Poets use words that some parts are emphasized and others are not

6. The yellow parts are the stressed parts
“Windy Nights”
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
/ = Unstressed U = Stressed

7. beside the white chickens.
Element 4: Free Verse
Not using regular rhythm or rhyme
Sounds natural, like a conversation
“The Red Wheelbarrow”
so much depends upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens.

8. Element 5: Alliteration
Repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of words, several times
Makes poetry musical and more interesting

9. “Surf” Lillian Morrison
Waves Want to be wheels, They jump for it and fail fall flat like pole vaulters and sprawl arms outstretched foam fingers reaching.

10. Element 6: Imagery Words that appeal to the 5 senses
Are “word pictures” Make you imagine
Helps the reader experience things in a fresh way. Helps reader identify/make a connection

11. Imagery
“There is a Thing” There is a thing beneath the stair with slimy face and oily hair that does not move or speak or sing or do another single thing but sit and wait

12. Element 7: Simile
Comparing two things that are not very similar using “like” or “as”
This makes you think about things in a new way
Used to surprise the reader

13. Red = Simile Blue = ??
“The World” The trees are like the hair of the world. The city is like the heart of the world. The wind is a flute player playing in the night. The cars beeping horns are like buttons beeping inside the earth. Each bird is like a single piccolo sing away and the grass, just like me, being buried under the snow.

14. Element 8: Metaphor
A direct comparison between two unlike things without using “Like” or “As”
The poet describes the thing as if it really were the comparison
“He is a rock”
“she was a snake”
“The earth was a marble, easily shaken”