Creative Writing

Quarter 1: Week 7
Poetry
What is poetry?
How does a poem vary from a prose?
Poetry
• “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its
origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity” – William Wordsworth

• T.S. Elliot claim the opposite: “Poetry is not a turning loose of

emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of
personality, but an escape from personality”.
Poetry
• The Encyclopaedia Americana defines this as the most difficult of
literary genres to write “as emotional and imaginative discourse in
metrical form– that is, the representation of experiences or ideas with
special reference to their emotional significance, in language
characterized by imagery and rhythmic sound.”
• Poetry is similar to painting and sculpture because of its use of
imagery, symbolism, simile and metaphor, and other kinds of tropes,
which creates in the reader’s mind concrete objects and pictures.
 Poetry

• It is superior to visual arts because it has the capacity to render

continuity of movement, since images created by poetry tend to
be more dynamic than the images rendered in painting and
sculpture.
• Poetry is also similar to music because of its use of rhythm and
rhyme, metrical measures, alliteration and assonance, and other
types of rhetorical figures which evokes melody and music.
Prose VS Poetry

• Using the poetic line rather than the sentence as the

primary unit
• Relying more on images than in abstractions
• Cultivating the sound of words
• Developing rhythms of languages
• Creating density by implying far more than is stated
Elements of Poetry
Elements are the distinguishing characteristics of a poetry from other genre of
writing.
 1. Imagery
• This is the term used for language and description that
appeals to the reader’s five senses ( Literary-Devices.com,
2017).
• Imagery is a language used by poets, novelists, journalist and
other writers to create images in the mind of the reader. This
improves the reader’s experience and understanding through
their senses (Softschools.com, 2018).
• Sensory images are words used to explain how something
looks, sounds, smells, feels, or taste (Lapid & Serrano, 2018).
 Concreteness
• Denotes something that is existing in a material or physical form;
real or solid; not abstract. Abstract denotes something that is
existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or
concrete existence.
• Concrete nouns include the names of flora and fauna (animals,
birds, insects, fiches etc.); it includes parts of the body (head, eyes,
nose, mouth etc.); furniture and appliances and other.
• However, one of the distinguishing characteristics of a good poet is
his or her ability to skilfully combine and concrete objects and
abstract ideas to ensure that the message or insight of his or her
poem gets conveyed.
 Structure
• Line- the words that form a single line of a poetry
• Stanza- a section of a poem named for the number of lines it
contains.
• Enjambment- when there is no written or natural pause at the end
of a poetic line, so that the word flow carriers over to the next line
• Verse-a line in traditional poetry that is written in meter
• Placement-the way words and poetic lines are placed on the page of
a poem
• Punctuation and Capitalization-in poetry, rules in capitalization and
punctuation are not always followed, instead they are at the service
of the poet’s artistic vision
 Stanza
• Monostich. A one-line stanza. Monostich can also be an entire poem.
• Couplet. A stanza with two lines that rhyme.
• Tercet. A stanza with three lines that either all rhyme or the first and
the third line rhyme—which is called an ABA rhyming pattern. A poem
made up of tercets and concludes with a couplet is called a “terza
rima.”
• Quatrain. A stanza with four lines with the second and fourth lines
rhyming.
 Stanza
• Quintain. A stanza with five lines.
• Sestet. A stanza with six lines.
• Septet. A stanza with seven lines. This is sometimes called a
“rhyme royal.”
• Octave. A stanza with eight lines written in iambic pentameter,
or ten syllable beats per line. The more lines a stanza has the
more varieties of rhyme and meter patterns. For example,
“ottava rima” is an eight-line stanza with the specific rhyme
scheme in which the first six lines have an alternating rhyme
pattern and a couplet as the final two lines.
Sound
• End Rhyme- same or similar sound at the
end of the words that finish different lines
• Rhyme Scheme-a pattern of rhyme in a
poetry
• Bat-A
• Love- B
• Cat-A
• Dove-B
So, the rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B
Sound
• Assonance- the repetition of vowel sounds within a word
• Consonance- the repetition of consonant sound within a word
• Alliteration- the repetition of consonant sound in the beginning
of a word
• Onomatopoeia- words that sound like their meaning
• Repetition- sounds, words or phrases are repeated to give
emphasis
• Rhythm- the basic beat in a line of a poetry
• Meter- the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllable (accented
and unaccented) syllables in a line , each measure of a poetry is
called foot.
Kinds of Rhythm
-these are labelled with meter
• Iambic meter (unstressed/stressed)
Ex. Tough minds do shake (2 iambs or iambic dimeter)
• Trochaic meter (stressed/unstressed)
Ex. Life is short to give up
• Spondaic meter (stressed/stressed)
Ex. Be Happy, Be Positive
Kinds of Rhythm
-these are labelled with meter
• Anapestic meter (unstressed/unstressed/ stressed)
Ex. When you give and accept gratefully, you feel blessed
• Dactylic meter (stressed/unstressed/unstressed)
Ex. Happiness galloping
Charge for the guns!" he said.
• Pyrrhic meter (unstressed/unstressed)
Ex. “To a green thought in a green shade.”
How do we measure the rhythm
of a poetic line?
- by “foot” or “meter”
Meter
• One foot= monometer
• Two feet=dimeter
• Three feet=trimeter
• Four feet=tetrameter
• Five feet=pentameter
• Six feet=hexameter
meter=foot
• 1 iambic meter/ iambic monometer= 1 foot
example: de dum
• 2 trochaic meter/ trochaic dimeter=2 feet
example: dum^ de/ dum^ de/ dum^ de
• 3 anapestic meter/ anapestic trimeter = 2 feet
example: de de dum^/ de de dum^/ de de dum^
 Make a 2 tercet with anapaestic
tetrameter:
• A poetry with two stanzas with 3 lines in each stanza, and each line has 4
anapest (de de dum^)
• Example:
De de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^
De de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^
De de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^

De de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^

De de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^
De de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^ de de dum^
Let us try!
2 quatrains with iambic pentameter each line
2 couplet with trochaic tetra meter each line
1 monostich ending with anapaestic dimeter line