Poetry

Poetry is defined as the personification of human emotion.

It is also defined as a Literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given
intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; collectively or as a genre of literature.
What do you see Poetry as?

Poetic forms
There are various forms of poems and we are going to look at the main ones here.
The Ballad

The Ballad poem tell a story, like epic poems do. However, ballad poetry is often based
on a legend or a folk tale. These poems may take the form of songs, or they may contain
a moral or a lesson. Let's enjoy some beautiful imagery in the samples below.

"The Mermaid," written by an unknown author, has its roots in folklore:

Oh the ocean waves may roll,

And the stormy winds may blow,

While we poor sailors go skipping aloft

And the land lubbers lay down below, below, below

And the land lubbers lay down below.

The Sonnet

Although William Shakespeare sensationalized sonnets, the word, "sonetto" is actually Italian for

"a little sound or song." This form has grabbed poets by the heart for centuries. It began as a 14-
line poem written in iambic pentameter. Although flourishes have been made over time, the
general principle remains the same. Read up on Sonnet Examples to learn more about the
different types of sonnets. In the meantime, let's enjoy two great samples:
This is a sample, "Sonnet 116," from the master himself, William Shakespeare.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

The Lyric

A lyric poem is short, highly musical verse that conveys powerful feelings. The poet may use
rhyme, meter, or other literary devices to create a song-like quality.

Unlike narrative poetry, which chronicles events, lyric poetry doesn't have to tell a story. A lyric
poem is a private expression of emotion by a single speaker. For example, American poet Emily
Dickinson described inner feelings when she wrote her lyric poem that begins, "I felt a Funeral,
in my Brain, / And Mourners to and fro."
"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!"

Ode
An ode is a short lyric poem that praises an individual, an idea, or an event. In ancient
Greece, odes were originally accompanied by music—in fact, the word “ode” comes
from the Greek word aeidein, which means to sing or to chant. Odes are often
ceremonial, and formal in tone. There are several different types of odes, but they are
all highly structured and adhere to poetic forms.
E.g Ode to a Nightingale
 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

The Terza Rima

Italian verse form consisting of stanzas of three lines (tercets); the first and third lines
rhyming with one another and the second rhyming with the first and third of the
following tercet.

E.g

From Second Satire
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42)
My mother’s maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometimes a song of the field mouse,
That for because their livelihood was but so thin

Would needs go seek her townish sister’s house.

She thought herself endured to much pain:
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse...
The Dramatic Monologue

Dramatic monologue means self-conversation, speech or talks which includes interlocutor

presented dramatically. It means a person, who is speaking to himself or someone else speaks to
reveal specific intentions of his actions. However, in literature, it is a poetic form or a poem that
presents the speech or conversation of a person in a dramatic manner.

E.g

“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said

“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus.”

Blank Verse
Blank verse is poetry written with a precise meter—almost always iambic pentameter—but that
does not rhyme. When a poem is written in iambic pentameter, it means each line contains five
iambs—two syllable pairs in which the second syllable is emphasized.
E.g
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

Free Verse
Free verse poems will have no set meter, which is the rhythm of the words, no rhyme scheme,
or any particular structure. Some poets would find this liberating, .

The Villanelle
A French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and
third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas.
E.g
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
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
Do not go gentle into that good night.
 
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green 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 sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.