What usually comes to your mind?

POETRY
Poetry defined…
 Poetry is derived from the Greek word
“poiesis” which literally translates to “a making
or creating”.
 Poetry is a literary art where the evocative
and aesthetic qualities of a language are
brought out in lieu, or together with the
language’s apparent meaning.
 Poetry is the emotional and imaginative
discourse in metrical form.
Fun Facts about Poetry
 Mahabharata is the longest poem in the world.
It is an Indian epic poem which is about 1.8
million words.
 The oldest written poem, believed to be 4,000
years old, is the Epic of Gilgamesh originating
from Babylon. It tells the story of a king named
Gilgamesh, who was half- god and half- man.
 George Macdonald wrote a two- word poem
called ‘The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs’. It
simply reads: ‘Come Home.”
Fun Facts about Poetry
 The poem ‘I Have a Rendezvous with Death’ by
Allan Seeger, was John F. Kennedy’s favorite
poem.
 On the famous poet Emily Dickenson’s
gravestone are the words ‘called back’ which
she chose herself.
 Metrophobia is the name for a fear of poetry.

 Metromania denotes the compulsion to write

poetry.
Poetry vs. Verse

 The term poetry can be “applied to the many

forms in which human beings have given
rhythmic expression to their most intense
perceptions of the world, themselves and the
relation of the two.
 Verse is the metrical line as a basic unit of

poetry.
 Poetry is being reserved for verse of high

merit.
Poetry vs. Prose
According to Stephen Minot, there are 5
fundamental characteristics that distinguish
poetry from prose:
a. Using poetic line rather than the sentence as
the primary unit.
b. Relying more on images than in abstractions.
c. Cultivating the sound of words.
d. Developing rhythms of language
e. Creating density by implying far more than
what is stated.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- SPEAKER

 The poem’s speaker is the created narrative

voice of the poem.
 The poet reveals the identity of the speaker

such as the choice of words, focus of attention

and attitudes which also indicate the age,
perspective, and identity of the speaker.
 Whose ‘voice’ speaks to us?

 The poet can be a possible speaker in the

poem.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- SPEAKER

 Also, the speaker can be a persona, or

fictitious character: not the poet but the poet’s
creation.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- AUDIENCE

 The person or people to whom the speaker is

speaking.
 The speaker can address another character in

the poem
 The speaker can address a character who is

not present or is dead

 The speaker can address you as the reader
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- CONTENT

 The content of the poem is the subject or the

idea or the thing that the poem concerns or
represents.
 It is the subject of the poem.

 It answers the question “what?”

 What is the poem all about?

 What happens in the poem?

ELEMENTS OF POETRY- THEME

 Relates to the general idea or ideas continuously

developed throughout the poem.
 It refers to a larger, more universal or more
general message- a big idea- as well as
something that you could take away from the work
that you
 could apply to life.
 E.g. Purity- subject
“Purity is vulnerability”- theme
 Generally, a theme has to be extracted as a
reader explores the passage of a work.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- STRUCTURE

 The structure of the poem varies with the

different types of poetry.
 The structure of many different types of poetry

results in groups of lines on the page which

enhance the poem’s composition.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- STRUCTURE

I. Line
 A line is a unit of language into which a poem

is divided, which operates in principles which

are distinct from and not necessarily coincident
with grammatical structures.
 Although the word for a single poetic line is

verse, that term now tends to be used to signify

poetic form more generally.
 ELEMENTS OF POETRY- STRUCTURE

II. Enjambment
 Is the running- over of a sentence or phrase
from one poetic line to the next, without terminal
punctuation.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- STRUCTURE

III. End- stopped line

 Is a feature in poetry in which the syntactic unit

(phrase, clause, or sentence) corresponds in

length to the line.
 Its opposite is enjambment, where the sentence

runs on into the next line.

ELEMENTS OF POETRY- STRUCTURE

The young woman says, “July is over,

but you don’t have to go on and
on about it. There’s always August.”
 Lines 1 and 3 use and end- stop

 Line 2 uses an enjambment.

 End- stop tends to slow down the pace

 Enjambment picks it up
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- STRUCTURE

IV. Stanza
 A grouped set of lines within a poem, usually

set off from other stanzas by a blank line or

indentation.
 Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical

schemes, though stanzas are not strictly

required to have either.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- SHAPE AND FORM

 Basically, the actual shape of the poem can

vary dramatically from poem to poem.
 Shape is one of the main things that separate

prose and poetry.

 Poetry can take on many formats but one of

the most inventive forms is for the poem to take

on the shape of its subject.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- SHAPE AND FORM

 A form is a pattern for making the poem.

 Some poems come with rules about the number

of lines, line length, rhyme schemes, meter,

refrain.
 Some poems such as the ode and the elegy

can only be written about specific themes.

ELEMENTS OF POETRY- SHAPE AND FORM

TWO FORMS IN POETRY

 Structured poem

- has predictable patterns of rhyme, rhythm,

line- length and stanza construction.

 Free verse

- the poet experiments with the form of the

poem.
- the rhythm, number of syllables per line and

stanza construction does not follow a pattern.

ELEMENTS OF POETRY- TONE

 The tone is the attitude of the poet towards the

audience.
 This refers to the intellectual and emotional

attitude of the poet towards his or her

intended audience.
 These attitudes are oftentimes only implied in

the poem but can be inferred or deduced by a

well- informed reader.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- TONE

 Serious or humorous, formal or casual, intimate

or distant, solemn or flippant, somber or
cheerful, ironic or poignant, deferential or
condescending
 According to Sidney Lanier, tone or tone color

is a musical quality of language, that the

sounds words produce have certain qualities
corresponding to what is referred to in music
as timber.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- MOOD

 Refer to the emotional and intellectual attitudes

of the author towards his or her subject matter
in a given literary work.
 Acceptance, defiance, joyous, celebratory,
ironic, pathetic, fierce, bitter etc.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

 Poetry has spoken before it was written, and

rhyme, the coincidence of sounds, has
prehistoric origins, probably related to
religious ritual, celebration, and memory
training. (John Lennard).
 Rhyme is a type of echoing which utilizes a

correspondence of sound in the final accented

vowels and all that follows of two or more
words, but the preceding consonant sounds
must differ.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

 Rhyme refers to the repetitive occurrence of

identical or similar sounding words usually
found at the end of lines in poems.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME
1. End Rhyme
- Occurs between words at the end of lines and

is the most common type of rhyme in classical

and traditional poetry.
- End rhymes are the basis of rhyme schemes in

fixed forms of poetry like the sonnet or the

villanelle.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

1. End Rhyme
First, a poem must be magical
Then musical as a sea gull.
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird’s flowering.
It must be slender as bell,
And it must hold fire as well.
(First, A Poem Must Be Magical by Jose Garcia Villa)
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME
2. Internal Rhyme
- Occurs at some place after the beginning but

before the end of each line, or within a line

between a middle word and its end word, or
even between middle words in different lines.
- Internal rhyme is more common in modern and
contemporary poetry.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

2. Internal Rhyme
In Burnham Park
I walk
with nobody to talk to
but myself.
Shadows
of my own making
stalk me in silence,
repeating everything
I do
(Baguio, the Return by Ralph Semino Galan)
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME
3. Beginning Rhyme
- Occurs in the first syllable or first few syllables of
several lines.
- It is found rarely in Literature.

Why should I have returned?

My knowledge should not fit into theirs.
I found untouched the desert unknown. . .
( Noah’s Raven by W.S. Merwin)
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME
4. Eye Rhyme
- Is also known as visual rhyme or printer’s rhyme.
- It occurs when the words appear to rhyme on
the printed page because of the similarity of
their terminal letters, but do not sound the same
at all when read aloud.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME
5. Eye Rhyme
Alas, how can I interpret my mood?
They took away the language of my blood.

(Muted cry by Trinidad L. Tarrosa- Subido)

ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME SCHEME

 Refers to the way a poet deliberately

arranges the terminal words or syllables of
certain stanzas or entire poems to form a set
pattern.
 This is deployed to establish balance and

relieve poetic tension, manage the rhythmic

flow, as well as emphasize important ideas.
 The rhyme scheme functions both as structural

units of sound and suggestive units of sense.

ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEMES

1. Alternate Rhyme
- Also known as open rhyme or cross rhyming.

- An alternate rhyme consists in the repeated

alternation of two different rhymes in a series
of four or more lines that can be schematically
diagrammed as abab.
- The sound effect created by alternating rhymes
is that of a reverberation or an echo in a set
pattern.
 ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, But being spent, the worse, and worst
Old Time is still a-flying; Times still succeed the former.
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying. Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, For having lost but once your prime,
The higher he’s a-getting, You may forever tarry.
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting. (To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick)
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEMES

2. Enclosed Rhyme
- Is also known as enclosing rhyme.

- It refers to the rhyme scheme abba, where the

first and fourth lines of the quatrain rhyme, as
well as the second and third lines.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

2. Enclosed Rhyme
When I, in love with Folly and with Pride,
Denounced my God and kin with words of fire,
Transformed my clean surroundings into mire,
Destroyed my idols, threw the cross aside,

(Repentance by Francisco Icasiano)

ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEMES

3. Chain Rhyme
- Is also known as interlocking rhyme or chain
verse.
- It is a rhyme scheme I which the poet uses the
last rhyme of the previous stanza and repeats
it as the first rhyme of the next stanza.
- This set of pattern is most apparent in the
Spenserian sonnet that has the rhyme scheme
abab, bcbc, cdcd, dede, ff.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME
3. Chain Rhyme
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washéd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise."
"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."

(Sonnet 75)
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEMES

4. Monorhyme
- Is a rhyme scheme in which all the lines of the

poems have an identical rhyme.

- This is quite common in Arabic, Latin and Welsh

poetry.
- It is also the rhyme scheme of the traditional
Tagalog fixed poetic form known as diona.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEMES

4. Monorhyme
Never ask of money spent,
where the spender thinks it went.
Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What he did with every cent.
(The Hardships of Accounting by Robert Frost)
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEMES

5. Couplet
- Refers to a couple of lines in poetry that

usually rhyme (aa) and have the same meter.

- William Shakespeare ends each of his sonnets

with concluding couplet that provides the poetic

punch or summary of the poem’s theme.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEMES

5. Couplet
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this grieves life to thee.
(Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare)
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEMES

6. Triplet
- Is a tercet in which all three lines follow the

same rhyme that can be schematically

diagrammed as aaa, bbb, ccc, and so on.
- Triplets are extremely rare; they are more

traditionally deployed sparingly in verse of

heroic couplets or other couplet verses to add
extraordinary emphasis.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY- RHYME

6. Triplet
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see

That brave vibration each way free,
Oh how that glittering taketh me!
(Upon Julia’s Clothes by Robert Herrick)