1. What is Poetry? Poetry is a genre (type/form) of literature.
Poetry is a very expressive type of literature
Every word is important and full of meaning
Poetry is written in a specific form - lines and stanzas. Other genres are not.
Other genres like fiction, nonfiction and drama (plays) are written in prose form (sentences and paragraphs)

2. The actual dictionary definition of the word.
So, how do I figure out what the poem means to me? Word choice is a key.. every word is significant
Denotation:
The actual dictionary definition of the word.
Connotation:
The way a word
makes us feel.
Words can give us different feelings when we hear them…some positive, some negative, and everything in between! See the example below - The following words and phrases all refer to "a young person," but their connotations may be quite different depending, in part, on the context in which they appear: youngster, child, kid, little one, small fry, brat, urchin, juvenile, minor. Some of these words tend to carry favorable connotations (little one), others unfavorable (brat), and still others fairly neutral connotations (child). Calling a young person a brat lets our readers know at once how we feel about the rotten kid.

3. …But does poetry have to be so serious to be good?
No, poetry can take on any mood or tone –serious, funny, etc. and still be powerful.
Poems have
Theme: the insight into life of central idea provided in a poem.
Tone: the attitude the writer takes toward the subject of the poem or the audience.
Mood: the feeling the poem creates in the reader when it is read.
There are NO rules about what the theme, tone or mood have to be like.
For example, read /listen to the poems
“Maybe Dat's Your Pwoblem Too” and
“Annabel Lee”
Can you identify the theme, tone or mood of each? Consider word choice to help.

4. POETRY FORM FORM - the appearance of the words on the page
LINE - a group of words together on one line of the poem
STANZA - a group of lines arranged together
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
Emily Dickinson

5. 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

6. How to Read a Poem How to Eat a Poem Don’t be polite. Bite in.
Read a poem slowly and more than once.
Remember that every word in a good poem is
significant to the poem’s effect. Use a dictionary
to look up unfamiliar words.
Use punctuation as a guide to the meaning of the
poem. Read the poem as you would prose, with
words grouped into thoughts instead of line by line.
4. Notice the title.
How to Eat a Poem
Don’t be polite.
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may
run
down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are. ́ ́

7. a line of a poem does not have to be a sentence can be a frag- ment of a sentence with or without punctuation With or without capital letters it can spread itself out taking time as it floats down the page.
Lines of a Poem

8. Rhyme & Rhythm
You have probably seen more traditional poetry than any other kind.
Unlike most modern poetry, traditional poetry follows certain strict patterns of rhyme and rhythm.
Whether it is traditional poetry or modern, rhyming and sound devices create the rhythmic quality we see in poetry.

9. END RHYME Hector the Collector Collected bits of string.
A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line
Hector the Collector
Collected bits of string.
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.

10. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
INTERNAL RHYME
A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
From “The Raven”
by Edgar Allan Poe

11. RHYME SCHEME
A rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme (usually end rhyme, but not always).
Use the letters of the alphabet to represent sounds to be able to visually “see” the pattern. (See next slide for an example.)
Activity: Rhyme Scheme group game

12. SAMPLE RHYME SCHEME The Germ by Ogden Nash
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ. a b c

13. Meter
Meter – a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Meter is the rhythm you hear
when a poem is read aloud.
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her;
Put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well. ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘
Clap on the accented/stressed syllables ´ and
don’t clap on the unaccented/unstressed syllables ˘.
K. Doolin Revised 11/2012

14. ONOMATOPOEIA Words that imitate the sound they are naming BUZZ
OR sounds that imitate another sound
“The silken, sad, uncertain, rustling of
each purple curtain . . .”

15. Refrain
Repetition
Refrain is when a poem repeats entire lines or more several times throughout.
Like the chorus of a song
Repetition is when a word or phrase is repeated just once or in one specific area of the poem.

16. ALLITERATION Consonant sounds repeated at the beginnings of words
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
Activity: Alliteration group game

17. CONSONANCE Similar to alliteration EXCEPT . . .
The repeated consonant sounds can be anywhere in the words
“silken, sad, uncertain, rustling . . “

18. (All share the long “a” sound.)
ASSONANCE
Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line or lines of poetry.
(Often creates near rhyme.)
Lake Fate Base Fade
(All share the long “a” sound.)

19. Hurry! Time is about to run out!
Figurative Language
Authors say things sometimes that they do not mean literally.
This is commonly called using a “figure of speech”.
There are several types of figurative language.
Hurry! Time is about to run out!

20. METAPHOR
A direct comparison of two unlike things -with out using “like” or “as”.
Examples:
Oh bright angel, speak again!” It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!”
- William Shakespeare
“All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.”

21. EXTENDED METAPHOR
A metaphor that goes several lines or possible the entire length of a work.
Read “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes on the next slide to see how Hughes extends the metaphor

22. EXTENDED METAPHOR
Mother to Son by Langston Hughes Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor- Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin‘ landin's, And turnin'corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now-- For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

23. SIMILE A comparison of two things using “like” or “as”. Examples:
“She is as beautiful as a sunrise.”
“The river is peaceful, like a new baby sleeping.”

24. Allusion
Allusion comes from the verb “allude” which means “to refer to”
An allusion is a reference to something famous.
A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave, And to our own his name we gave. From “Snowbound” John Greenleaf Whittier

25. Personification
When human like qualities are given to an animal or object.
Examples:
The video camera observed the whole scene.
The strawberries seemed to sing, "Eat me first!"

26. Hyperbole
Big exaggeration, usually with humor and often used for emphasis.
Examples:
She ordered a mile high ice cream cone.
My parents are going to kill me if I fail math!

27. Imagery Language that appeals to the senses.
Most images are visual, but they can also appeal to the senses of sound, touch, taste, or smell.
from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

28. Idiom
An expression where the literal meaning of the words is not the meaning of the expression. It means something other than what it actually says.
Ex. He let the cat out of the bag.

29. Types of Poetry
Consider sound devices, figurative language and word choice in the poems we read as we look at examples of several types of poetry.

30. FREE VERSE POETRY
Unlike metered poetry, free verse poetry does NOT have any repeating patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Does NOT have rhyme.
Free verse poetry is very conversational - sounds like someone talking with you.
Considered a more modern type of poetry.
Washed Away Nothing's changed except me and the facts And the sadness I didn't mean to start. But it feels different now you've said It's wrong, and I still can't see your point. And I think as water runs over my hands that That's really all there is or can be. The gold is wearing off the infamous ring And something wears away from around my heart. -Katherine Foreman

31. Forms of Traditional Poetry
The Ballad
The earliest forms of poetry were
often passed down through music.
A ballad is a poem that tells a story.
Ballads are usually written in quatrains
(stanzas with four lines).
They are generally quite lengthy, with many stanzas.

32. Narrative Poetry
A Poem that tells a story, and has the elements of a story.
Often Narrative poems have a rhyme scheme., but not always

33. LYRIC Generally a short poem
Usually written in first person point of view
Expresses
an emotion
an idea or
describes a scene or person
Does not tell a story
Are often very musical/rhythmic

34. Lyric Poetry Mirror I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
By Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

35. Lyric Poetry Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost UNFOLDING BUD
Naoshi Koriyama
One is amazed
By a water-lily bud
Unfolding
With each passing day,
Taking on a richer color
And new dimensions.
One is not amazed,
At first glance,
By a poem,
Which is tight-closed
As a tiny bud.
Yet one is surprised
To see the poem
Gradually unfolding,
Revealing its rich inner self
As one reads it
Again
And over again.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

36. The best form of poetry for expressing romantic or deep feelings.
Sonnet
A sonnet is a poem with fourteen lines written in a specific rhyme scheme.
The best form of poetry for expressing romantic or deep feelings.
The poet best known for writing sonnets is Shakespeare, and the form most often used is known as the Shakespearian Sonnet.

37. Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds a Admit impediments. Love is not love b Which alters when it alterations finds, a Or bends with the remover to remove. b Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark c That looks on tempests and is never shaken. d It is the star to every wandering bark, c Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. d Love’s not Time’s fool, those rosy lips and cheeks e Within his bending sickle’s compass come. f Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, e But bears it out even to the edge of doom. f If this be error and upon me proved, g I never write, nor no man ever loved. g
Quatrain
(setting up the problem)
Quatrain
(beginning to answer the problem)
Quatrain
Couplet
(problem solved)
-William Shakespeare

38. HAIKU
A Japanese poem written in three lines Five Syllables Seven Syllables
An old silent pond A frog jumps into the pond. Splash! Silence again.