Introduction to Poetry

“In a poem the words should be as

pleasing to the ear as the meaning is
to the mind.” -- Marianne Moore
 The Human Brain
•Divided into 2 parts
•Each half has its
own function

Right Brain:
Left Brain: Creativity
Logic Emotions
Reality
To clarify . . .

When you
are looking
at big puffy
clouds . . .

Your right brain tells

you, “Hey! That one
looks like a bunny.”
While your left brain tells you . . .
It’s a cloud,
Stupid!
 So, which half do you use when
studying poetry?
Here are a few hints:
• Poetry requires creativity
• Poetry requires emotion
• Poetry requires an artistic quality
• Poetry requires logic
 For the Left Brain:
Recognizing certain
devices used within a
poem will give the left
brain something to
concentrate on.

We’ll start with the sound devices:

 The repetition of sounds

First Snow
Snow makes whiteness where it falls.
The bushes look like popcorn balls.
And places where I always play,
Look like somewhere else today.
By Marie Louise Allen
 The beat

When reading a poem out loud, you may notice a sort of “sing-
song” quality to it, just like in nursery rhymes. This is
accomplished by the use of rhythm. Rhythm is broken into
seven types.

•Iambic •Monosyllabic
•Anapestic •Spondaic
•Trochaic •Accentual
Less
•Dactylic Most Common
Used
These identify patterns of stressed and
unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.

That means one syllable is pronounced stronger, and one

syllable is softer.

iambic: unstressed
stressed
anapestic:
trochaic:
dactylic:
 The length of a line of poetry,
based on what type of rhythm is
used.
The length of a line of poetry is measured in metrical
units called “FEET”. Each foot consists of one unit of
rhythm. So, if the line is iambic or trochaic, a foot of
poetry has 2 syllables. If the line is anapestic or
dactylic, a foot of poetry has 3 syllables.
(This is where it’s going to start sounding like geometry class, so
you left-brainers are gonna love this!)

Each set of syllables is one foot, and each line is measured by

how many feet are in it. The length of the line of poetry is
then labeled according to how many feet are in it.

1: Monometer 5: Pentameter
2: Dimeter 6: Hexameter
3: Trimeter 7: Heptameter
4: Tetrameter 8: Octameter

*there is rarely more than 8 feet*

 She Walks in Beauty
Reading this poem
˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ I.
She walks in beauty, like the night
out loud makes the
rhythm evident.
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
Which syllables are
And all that’s best of dark and bright
more pronounced?
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Which are naturally
Thus mellowed to that tender light
softer?
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
II.
One shade the more, one ray the less, Count the syllables in
Had half impaired the nameless grace each line to
Which waves in every raven tress, determine the meter.
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
III.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, Examination of this poem
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, reveals that it would be
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, considered iambic tetrameter.
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
 Now try this one:

• First, count the syllables.

• Second, divide by two. Remember these
groups of two are called feet.
• Third, label the meter.
• Fourth, listen carefully to the rhythm. Is it
a rising rhythm or a falling rhythm?
 The repetition of the initial
letter or sound in two or
more words in a line.
To the lay-person, these are called “tongue-twisters”.
Example: How much dew would a dewdrop drop if a
dewdrop did drop dew?
Let’s see what
this looks like

Alliteration
Alliteration
in a poem we
are familiar She Walks in Beauty
I.
with. She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

Alliteration
These examples use the beginning sounds of
words only twice in a line, but by definition,
that’s all you need.
 Words that spell out sounds;
words that sound like what they
mean.
Examples: growl, hiss, pop, boom, crack, ptthhhbbb.
Let’s see what
this looks like Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
in a poem we Frozen snow and brittle ice
are not so Make a winter sound that’s nice
Underneath my stamping feet
familiar with And the cars along the street.
yet.Onomatopoeia Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
by Margaret Hillert

Several other words

not highlighted could
also be considered as
onomatopoeia. Can
you find any?
 Using the same key word or
phrase throughout a poem.

This should be fairly

self-explanatory,
but . . .
at risk of sounding like
a broken record . . .
 Valued Treasue
by Chris R. Carey
Time to spend; Time will eventually
time to mend. show us the truth.
Time to hate; Time is a mystery;
time to wait. time is a measure.
Time is the essence; Time for us is
time is the key. valued treasure.
Time will tell us Time to spend;
what we will be. time to mend.
Time is the enemy; Time to cry . . .
time is the proof. Time to die.
So, which is the repeated key word or
phrase?
 Valued Treasue
by Chris R. Carey
Time to spend; Time will eventually
time to mend. show us the truth.
Time to hate; Time is a mystery;
time to wait. time is a measure.
Time is the essence; Time for us is
time is the key. valued treasure.
Time will tell us Time to spend;
what we will be. time to mend.
Time is the enemy; Time to cry . . .
time is the proof. Time to die.
So, which is the repeated key word or
phrase?

Fairly obvious, huh?

 The repetition of one or more phrases
or lines at the end of a stanza.

It can also be an entire stanza that

is repeated periodically
throughout a poem, kind of like a
chorus of a song.
 A comparison between two
usually unrelated things using
the word “like” or “as”.

Examples:
Joe is as hungry as a bear.
In the morning, Rae is like an angry lion.
 An emerald is as green as
Flint grass,
By Christina A ruby red as blood;
A sapphire shines as blue
Rosetti as heaven;
A flint lies in the mud.

A diamond is a brilliant
stone,
To catch the world’s
desire;
An opal holds a fiery spark;
But a flint holds fire.
 An implied comparison between
two usually unrelated things.
Examples:
Lenny is a snake.
Ginny is a mouse when it comes to standing up for herself.

The difference between

a simile and a metaphor is
that a simile requires either
“like” or “as” to be included
in the comparison, and a
metaphor requires that
neither be used.
When it comes to using a metaphor device in
poetry, a poet can either make the entire poem a
metaphor for something, or put little metaphors
throughout the poem:
The
• TheNight
followis a Big Black Cat
The Night is a big black cat
The moon is her topaz eye,
The stars are the mice she hunts at night,
In the field of the sultry sky.

By G. Orr Clark
• ing poem is one big metaphor.
 An exaggeration for the sake of
emphasis.
Examples:
I may sweat to death.
The blood bank needs a river of blood.
 Giving human characteristics to
inanimate objects, ideas, or
animals.

Example:
The sun stretched its lazy
fingers over the valley.
 A word or image that signifies
something other than what is
literally represented.
Examples:
Dark or black images in poems are often used to
symbolize death.
Light or white images are often used to symbolize life.
 Sensory Language and Visual
Imagery
• Since most poems express emotions and ideas, a
writer must SHOW what is being written about.
Poets and song writers use visual imagery and
sensory language to show ideas.
• Sensory language is using words that appeal to the
five senses. Showing what something sounds,
smells, tastes, looks, and feels like.
• Visual imagery is “painting a picture with words.”
Visual imagery uses aspects of sensory language,
specifically sight, to recreate images, ideas and
emotions. Strong verbs and specific adjectives/
adverbs are used.
Using words to create a picture
in the reader’s mind.
 Blue- personification
Green- visual imagery

• “The Round” by Stanley Kunitz

• Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked Veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me…
 Is this a poem?

• l(a
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
Is this a poem?
 Coming Up by Ani DiFranco
• Our father who art in a penthouse
Sits in his 37th floor suite
And swivels to gaze down
At the city he made me in
He allows me to stand and
Solicit graffiti until
He needs the land I stand on
I in my darkened threshold
Am pawing through my pockets
The receipts, the bus schedules
The urgent napkin poems
The matchbook phone numbers
All of which laundering has rendered
Pulpy and strange
Loose change and a key
Ask me
Go ahead, ask me if I care
I got the answer here
I wrote it down somewhere
I just gotta find it
 The answer ?
• They are all poems.

• A poem should have a subject, a

goal, a tone, and a flow. It
should contain specific,
condensed word choice and
literary devices like metaphor,
simile and imagery.
 Type and Form

• There are MANY different types or

forms of poems. Some fit a specific
format and some fit a specific theme.
Some examples of format poems:

• Acrostic: a word or set of words is written

down the page and each line starts with
that letter.
• Sonnet: 14 lines of iambic pentameter,
with a specific rhyme scheme and
intro/conclusion style.
• Sestina: Each stanza must use the
same end words as the first stanza, but
in a different pattern each time.
• Haiku- A three line poem with specific syllable
lengths of 5-7-5.
• Limerick- Usually a funny poem with a
AABBA rhyme scheme and specific syllable
length.
• Villanelle- A poem where certain lines are
repeated to make more of a refrain
• Pantoum: Each stanza reuses different lines in
a specific pattern from the previous stanzas.
 Examples
• “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare
• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
 Haiku:

• Falling to the ground,

• I watch a leaf settle down
• In a bed of brown.
 Limerick:

• There once was a lady named Cager,

Who as the result of a wager,
Consented to fart
The entire oboe part
Of Mozart's quartet in F-major.
 Free Verse
• Poems without a specific rhythm or beat are
called Free Verse.
• Invented in the 1800s by Walt Whitman
• Usually Non-rhyming
• Line breaks and line lengths are up to the
poet.
• It is the most popular form used by
contemporary poets today.
 Poetry that follows no rules. Just about
anything goes.
This does not mean that it uses no devices, it just means that this
type of poetry does not follow traditional conventions such as
punctuation, capitalization, rhyme scheme, rhythm and meter, etc.

Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
No Rhyme
No Rhythm
No Meter
It sits looking
over harbor and city This is
free verse.
on silent haunches
and then, moves on.
 Types of poems written
based on themes:
• Elegy: A poem about something lost
• Ode: A poem celebrating something
• Road: A poem about a time of travel
• Metaphor: The whole poem is a metaphor
• Object Obsession: A poem written about
an object
• Narrative: A poem that tells a story
• Ballad: A narrative poem with a
refrain, usually about love
• Prose: A poem written more like a
paragraph
 Examples
• ELEGY
• "My Immortal“ by Evanescence
• I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal

This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
 “ODE to Guitar Hero” by Josh
Lefeber
• Easy Mode has become just like breathing.
• Medium like riding a bike.
• Hard can be like taking a calc test.
• Expert almost like a chance of winning the lottery.

• Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and Orange.

• The colors of the frets on your neck.
• The boring black guitar oh so plain.
• The whammy bar at the base.
 A Metaphor : “TIME” by Pink Floyd

• Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
 How to Analyze a Poem
• Reading
• Literal meaning and theme
• Title
• Tone
• Structure
• Sound and rhythm
• Language and imagery
Poetry should be read aloud!