1. POeTRY

2. What is Poetry?
Poetry is the art and craft of putting feelings into special combinations of words.

3. The Importance of WOrds
Poetry is a form of expression, just like music, painting, sculpture, etc…
Poets must give careful attention to words.
Poetry demands skill.
While we can admire the feelings in a poem, we must remember that the words make the poem.
The best poets are those who find the best words and put them into the best order.

4. How do you read a poem?
Read poems several times and aloud at least once. They are meant to appeal to our ears as well as our minds.
Be aware of punctuation, especially commas and periods.
If a line of poetry does not end with punctuation, do not stop!
Read the poem in a normal voice; the poem’s music will emerge naturally.
Check meanings of unfamiliar words.

5. Poetry terms defined
Poetry – rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and allusion
Rhyme - repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following
Rhythm - musical quality by repetition of stressed/unstressed sounds
Rhyme scheme – pattern of rhyme formed by the end rhyme of each line
Example
Roses are red (A)
Violets are blue, (B)
You bake good bread (A)
And I love you. (B)

6. Meter - pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

7. Example of iambic pentameter
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
And I do love thee: therefore, go with me; 
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee, 
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, 
And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
(Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

8. stanza - group of lines in a poem that form a single unit
We were both young, when I first saw you. I close my eyes and the flashback starts- I'm standing there, on a balcony in summer air. I see the lights; see the party, the ball gowns. I see you make your way through the crowd- You say hello, little did I know That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles- And my daddy said "stay away from Juliet"- And I was crying on the staircase- begging you, "Please don't go..." And I said Romeo take me somewhere, we can be alone. I'll be waiting; all there's left to do is run. You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess, It's a love story, baby, just say yes. By Taylor Swift

9. couplet – two lines of rhyming poetry
Decorator Hermit Crab
There was a little hermit crab (A) Who thought his tank was rather drab (A) At first he didn't know what to do (B) Then decorated with pink and blue. (B) Now he is no longer crabby (C) With his new home, he's rather happy! (C)
©2001 Vanessa Pike-Russell

10. quatrain – four lines of poetry
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
-From William Blake's "The Tyger"

11. alliteration - repeated consonant sounds
Betty Botter
by Mother Goose
Betty Botter bought some butter, But, she said, the butter’s bitter; If I put it in my batter It will make my batter bitter, But a bit of better butter Will make my batter better. So she bought a bit of butter Better than her bitter butter, And she put it in her batter And the batter was not bitter. So ’twas better Betty Botter Bought a bit of better butter.

12. assonance - repeated vowel sounds
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And an in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
Excerpt from “Bells” by Edgar A. Poe

13. free verse - poetry without regular meter or rhyme scheme
Example
Running through a field of clover, Stop to pick a daffodil I play he loves me, loves me not, The daffy lies, it says he does not love me! Well, what use a daffy When Jimmy gives me roses? Flora Launa

14. narrative poem - poem that tells a story
Examples: “Annabel Lee” and “The Highwayman”

15. epic - long narrative of hero’s deeds
Examples: “The Iliad”, “The Odyssey”, “Beowulf”

16. ballad- songlike poem that tells a story
Examples: “The Highwayman” was made into a song.

17. lyric poem - expresses feelings/thoughts without telling a story

18. limerick – humorous poem with five lines; 1st, 2nd, 5th rhyme; 3rd & 4th couplet
Example:
I’m going to write a limerick, To see if I still know the trick. And I think that I do, Guess it’s stuck in like glue. Who’d’ve thought that one’d pop up so quick?

19. haiku - three-line, 17 syllables:
five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables
Examples:
I am first with five Then seven in the middle -- Five again to end.
Green and speckled legs, Hop on logs and lily pads Splash in cool water.
In a pouch I grow, On a southern continent -- Strange creatures I know.

20. sonnet - fourteen line poem about single idea, feeling, sentiment