f.

Mood – the atmosphere or emotional effect generated by the words, images, situations in a literary work (the emotional
ambience of the work), for example, melancholy, joyous, tense, oppressive and so on.
g. Tone – a term used, sometimes broadly, to denote an attitude of feeling of the speaker or author as conveyed by the language
in its artful
arrangement (for example, ironic, pensive, sly, acerbic, humorous); it describes the attitude of the narrator or persona of the
work whereas
MOOD refers to the emotional impact felt by the reader of the work Although often similar, these feelings are necessarily the
same.
h. Symbolisms – stand for something other than themselves, they bring to mind not their own concrete qualities, but the idea or
obstruction that is associated with them.
i. Images – are usually characterized by concrete qualities rather than abstract meaning; these appeal to the senses of taste, smell,
feel, sound, or sight.
j. Theme – the central or dominating idea in a literary work; it Is the topic or subject of the selection, which is sometimes stated
by a character or by the writer himself, but oftentimes, it is merely implied or suggested. (Note: The theme is not some familiar
saying or moral lesson).
Poetry is derived from a Greek word poesis meaning “making or creating.” Poetry is a kind of language that says it more
intensely than ordinary language does.
a. Gemino Abad contends that “A poem is a meaningful organization of words.”
b. T.S. Eliot categorized poetry as “The fusion of two poles of mind, emotion and thought.”
c. Manuel Viray states that “Poetry is the union of thoughts and feelings.”
d. William Wadsworth says, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recorded in tranquility.”
e. Percy B. Shelly states, “It is the record of the best and the happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”
f. Jaime G. Ang posits, “Poetry is the ‘essence’ of the creative imagination of man.”

Elements of Poetry:
1. Sense – is revealed through the meaning of words, images and symbols.
a. Diction – denotative and connotative meanings/ symbols.
b. Images and sense impression – sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, motion, and emotion.
The kinds of sense impression in poetry are categorized in mainly the following:
Visual imagery- (what the writer wants you to see); olfactory imagery – ( what the writer wants you to smell);
Gustatory imagery – (what the writer wants you to taste); tactile imagery – (what the writer wants you to feel);
Auditory imagery (what the writer wants you to hear).
c. Figure of speech – simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole, irony,
allusion, antithesis, paradox, litotes, oxymoron, onomatopoeia.
2. Sound – is the result of a combination of elements.
a. Tone color – alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, repetition, anaphora.
b. Rhythm – ordered recurrent alteration of strong and weak elements in the flow of the sound and silence: duple,
triple, running or common rhyme.
c. Meter – stress, duration, or number of syllables per line, fixed metrical pattern, or a verse form: quantitative,
syllabic, accentual, and accentual syllabic.
d. Rhyme scheme – formal arrangements of rhymes in stanza or the whole poem.
3. Structure – refers to (1) arrangements of words, and lines to fit together, and (2) the organization of the parts to form
a whole.

Considerations to Analyzing a Poem

It is important to be conscientious of various aspects of a poem for they may provide essential information or clues that can be of
help to reveal the ideas that a poetic work bears. Hereunder are some aspects as to what a reader needs to consider in analyzing a
poem.
The Author -Know who the writer of the poem is. It is also significant to know the background of the author
including his/her life experiences, writing style, and type of works he/she has developed.
 The title of the poem
Mainly, a title bears important information about a poem. Mostly, title provides a gist of what the poem is about. Thus,
it is necessary to inquire as to what the title suggests in relation to the content or theme of the poem. In analyzing this
part, you may consider these questions:
What do the title say about the poem?
What subject is revealed by the title of the poem?
How is the title connected to the entirety of the poem?
 The Persona and the Addressee
The persona refers to the one speaking in the lines of the poem. It is a requisite to determine the setting and conditions
prevailing in the lines for these are hints as to who speaks in the lines of the poem. On the other hand, the addressee is
the receiver or the one being talked to by the persona. In addition, it is the entity as to whom the message of the poem is
addressed.
 Tone, Attitudes, Motifs, and Conditions
These are mainly suggested by the words used by the writer. The prevailing emotion of the persona towards the
addressee can be discerned and elucidated by looking into the choice of words of the writer. Also, recurring motifs and
conditions are also revealed by the quality words found in the text.
 Imagery and Symbolisms
A poem appeals to the senses, thus, words may also be effective tools to create connections between the poem and its
readers making them see, hear, taste, smell, and feel whatever the poem presents. Words utilized in poetry may also be
symbolic. In this sense, words may bear other constructs aside from their literal or their ordinary meanings.
 Genre
It is requisite to know how to classify the poetic work based on its prevailing features. For this consideration, you may
inquire if the work is a kind of a dramatic, lyric, or narrative poem or taking into account the specific types like sonnet,
elegy, ode, epic, ballad, etc.

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  Structure
Look whether the poem has regular or irregular structure. Consider the length and measure of the poem. Also, do
examine the rhyming scheme and sound devices used.
 The Theme
This mainly involves the significant truth or the central idea that the writer attempt to disclose and to communicate to
its readers. Thus, this is also the meaning that readers are expected to discover as they read the entirety of the poem.
 Appeal
This pertains to your impressions about the poem. It includes your personal judgement and evaluations with regards to
the aesthetic quality, intellectual and emotional value of the poem.

Types of Poetry
1. Narrative Poetry
a. Epic – a long narrative poem of the largest proportions. A tale centering about a her concerning the beginning continuance,
and the end of events of great significance – war, conquest, strife among men who are in such position that their struggles take
on tribal or national significance.
Example: BIAG-NI-Lam-Ang by Pedro Bukaneg
b. Metrical Romance – a narrative poem that tells a story of adventure, love and chivalry. The typical hero is a knight on a quest.
c. Metrical Tale – a narrative poem consisting usually of single series of connective events that are simple idylls or home tales,
love tales, tales of the supernatural or tales written for strong moral purpose in verse form.
d. Ballad – the simplest type of narrative poetry. It is a short narrative poem telling a single incident in simple meter and stanzas.
It is intended to be sung.
e. Popular Ballad – a ballad of wide workmanship telling some simple incidents of adventure, cruelty, passion, or superstition, an
incident that shows the primary instincts of man influenced by the restraint of modern civilization.
f. Modern or Artistic – created by a poet initiation of folk ballad, makes use (sometimes with considerable freedom) of many of
its devices and conventions.
g. Metrical Allegory – an extended narrative that carries a second meaning along with the surface story. Things and actions are
symbolic.

Lyric Poetry
a. Ode – a lyric poem of some length serious in subject and dignified in style. It is the most majestic of the lyric poems. It is written in
the spirit of praise of some person or things.
Example: Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”
b. Elegy – a poem written on the death of a friend of the poet. The ostensible purpose is to praise the friend, but the death prompts
the writer to ask, “If death can intervene, so cruelly In life, what is the point of living?” By the end of the poem, however, we can
expect that poet will have come to terms with his grief.
Example: The Lover’s Death by Ricardo Demetillo
c. Song – a lyric poem in a regular metrical pattern set to music. These have twelve syllables (dodecasyllabic) and slowly sung to the
accompaniment of a guitar or banduria.
Example: Florante at Laura by Francisco Balagtas
d. Orridos (kuridos) – these have measures of eight syllables (octosyllabic) and recited to a material beat.
Example: Ibong Adarna by Jose Dela Cruz (Huseng Sisiw)
e. Sonnet – a lyric poem containing fourteen iambic lines, and a complicated rhyme.
Example: Santang Abad by Alfonso P. Santos

Carlos Angeles was born 25 May 1921 in Tacloban, Leyte. He finished his undergraduate degree in the
University of the Philippines and his work has been included in the poetry and anthologies in the United
States. His poetry collection Stun of Jewels won the Republic Heritage Award in Litertature and Don
Carlos Palanca Memorial Award in Poetry in 1964. His poem, Gabu, is said to be one of the most well-
loved Filipino poems written in English.

Gabu
By Carlos A. Angeles

The battering restlessness of the sea The waste of centuries is grey and dead
Insists a tidal fury upon the beach And neutral where the sea has beached its brine,
At Gabu, and its pure consistency Where the spilt salt of its heart lies spread
Havocs the wasteland hard within its reach. Among the dark habiliments of Time.

Brutal the daylong bashing of its heart
Against the seascape where, for miles around,
Farther than sight itself, the rock-stones part
And drop into the elemental wound.
The vital splendor misses.  For here, here
At Gabu where the ageless tide recurs
All things forfeited are most loved and dear.
It is the sea pursues a habit of shores.

Moonlight on Manila Bay

By Fernando M. Maramag (1893-1936)
(Poem, Canon) Region 2- Cagayan Valley
A light serene, ethereal glory rest,
Its beams effulgent on each cresting wave;
The silver touches of moonlight lave
The deep’s bare bosom that the breeze molests;
While lingering whispers deepen as the wavy crests

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 Roll with weird rhythm, now gay, now gently grave;
And floods of lambent light appear the sea to pave
All cast a spell that heeds not time’s behests.
Not always such the scene: the din of fight
Has swelled the murmur of the peaceful air;
Here east and west have oft displayed their might;
Dark battle clouds have dimmed this scene so fair;
Here bold Olympia, one historic night,z
Presaging freedom, claimed a people’s care.
by Bienvenido Santos (1911-1996)
Were you one of them, my brother
Whom they marched under the April sun
And flogged to bleeding along the roads we knew and loved?
March, my brother, march!
The springs are clear beyond the road
There is rest at the floor of the hill.
We were young together,
So very young and unafraid;
Walked those roads, dusty in the summer sun,
Brown pools and mud in the December rains;
We ran barefoot along the beaten tracks in the cane fields
Planted corn after the harvest months
Here, too, we fought and loved
Shared our dreams of a better place
Beyond those winding trails
March, my brother march!
The springs are clear beyond the road
There is rest at the foot of the hill
We knew those roads by heart
Told places in the dark
By the fragrance of garden hedge
In front of uncle’s house;
The clatter of wooden shoes on the bamboo bridge,
The peculiar rustling of bamboo groves
Beside the house where Celia lived.
Did you look through the blood in your eyes
For Celia sitting by the window,
As thousands upon thousands of you
Walked and died on the burning road?
SLK Week 3 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
Fernando M. Maramag (Region 2- Cagayan Valley, 1893-
1936) is considered as the country’s first important poet in English.
His works dominated The Collage Folio from the December 1910
to November 1912, and R. Dato’s Filipino Poetry (1924). He once
served as chief of publications at the Department of Justice. He
became the editor of the Rising Philippines, the Philippine
National Weekly, and the Philippine Herald, and associate editor of
the Manila Tribune in 1925. He was an excellent poet and
journalist in English. He had a rich style and deep understanding of
human nature-qualities which made his poetry appealing to all
readers. His editorial writing exerted great influence of the various
phases of the Filipino way of life, particularly in its government,
economics, education and politics according to a critic.
The March of Death
National Capital Region
If you died among the hundreds by the roadside
It should have been by the bamboo groves
With the peculiar rustling in the midnight.
No, you have not died; you cannot die;
I have felt your prayer touch my heart
As I walked along the crowded streets of America.
And we would walk those roads again one April morn,
Listen to the sound of working men
Dragging tree trunks from the forests,
Rebuilding homes- laughing again-
Sowing the field with grain, fearless of death
From cloudless skies.
You would be silent, remembering
The many young bodies that lay mangled by the roadside;
The agony and the moaning and silent tears,
The grin of yellow men, their bloodstained blades
opaque in the sun;
I would be silent, too, having nothing to say.
What matters if the winters were bitter cold
And loneliness stalked my footsteps on the snow?
March, my brother, march!
The springs are clear beyond the road
Rest, at the foot of the hill.
And we would walk those roads again on April morn
Hand in hand like pilgrims marching
Towards the church on the hillside,
Only a little nipa house beside the bamboo groves
With the peculiar rustling in the midnight
Or maybe I would walk them yet,
Remembering… rememberi
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 Bienvenido N. Santos (National Capital Region, 1911-1996) was a Filipino-American fiction, poetry, and
writer. He was born and raised in Tondo, Manila but lived in the United States for many years where he is
widely credited as a pioneering Asian-American writer. Santos received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the
University of the Philippines where he first studied creative writing under Paz Marquez Benitez. In 1941,
Santos was a government pensionado (scholar) to the United States at the University of Illinois, Columbia
University, and Harvard University. He received Rockefeller fellowship at the Writers Workshop of the
University of Iowa where he taught as a Fulbright exc

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