how poetry works

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How Poetry Works

Rhyme, metre and structure



Aims

• To look at the basic ‘mechanics’ of poetry or ‘how it works’ so not at what the poem is about

• To understand that poetry has rules, and poets know about these rules (sometimes they deliberately break them!)



Activity 1

• Read aloud these lines from the poem by Robert Graves called ‘Familiar Letter to Siegfried Sassoon’ written in July, 1916 (this is just the beginning part)

MS 141, Box 85: University of Buffalo



Activity 1

• S.S. = Siegfried Sassoon

• Mametz Wood = part of the Battle of the Somme

• Fricourt = near Mametz Wood

• Apres la guerre = French ‘after the war’




Activity 1

• When you read the poem did you notice any words that rhymed?

• Did it feel like ‘music’? Were there beats in the line?




Rhyme

• Rhyme is important to poetry, but not all poetry rhymes.

• In the Graves’ poem we had ‘day’ rhyming with ‘way’ and ‘there’ with ‘guerre’

• When we find rhyme in a poem we tend to describe it like ‘abab’ or ‘ababcc’ etc.

• What does this mean?



Rhyme scheme

AABB

• Here we can see what we mean• We have noted at the end of the first line the letter ‘A’ (so this stands for the ‘sound’ day) – the next line ends with way, which rhymes so we also label that A• Line 3 starts a new rhyme (there does not rhyme with way or day) so we label this B• Line 4 rhymes with there but not day or way so we also label this B• And so on …



Rhyming Scheme

• How would we note the rhyme in this poem?



Was rhyme important to the poets?

•Yes! Here we can see Wilfred Owen writing an early version of his poem ‘Disabled’ - this is his actual handwriting!• See how he starts to note the rhyme scheme on the right – ‘abacbcb’ and so on



‘Beats’• When we read out the poem by Robert Graves

we asked about ‘beats’, as if it was music• Read it again below and see if you can hear

something like – ‘da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum’

• Can you hear the ‘dum’ part is more stressed than the ‘da’?

DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM

• So this poem (throughout) has four beats (four ‘dums’) to each line, or as we would say four stresses



Four/Five/Six stresses?

• Not all poems have four stresses to the line. Some have five, some have more, some mix them up.



• Read out the lines from Vera Brittain’s poem. • How many beats or stresses are there?

DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM



• Not all poets keep to regular stresses!• Here we can see a few lines from David Jones’s poem ‘In Parenthesis’ (part 7)• Jones is describing a soldier (’72 Morgan) who has had his head cut off by a shell, and the head sits there like the cat in Alice in Wonderland• However the stresses (da dums) are different for the lines• So, stress is important, and we should know how to find it, but - NOT ALL poets keep to stress patterns- WHEN YOU READ a poem try to read it naturally (don’t just look for the da-dums!)



Was stress important to the poets?

• The fact that they use it suggests so …

• This is part of a letter written by Robert Graves to Wilfred Owen written in early 1918, discussing Owen’s poem ‘Disabled’ (which Graves liked). He says:

‘For instance you have a foot too much inIn the old days before he gave away his knees’

• The poem is about a soldier being disabled (losing his legs) so is Graves just making a sick joke about having too many feet?



A ‘foot’

• A ‘foot’ is just another word for the beat or measure we’ve been looking at up to now

• So ‘da dum’ is a foot, but so is ‘dum da’ or ‘da da dum’ (and so on)

• So what Graves is saying to Owen is that in this line of the poem there are too many beats, stresses, and so on …



Was Graves Right? Here we have two versions by Owen

‘In the old times, before he threw away his legs’

How many stresses are there here? Five or six?

‘In the old times, before he smashed his knees’

What about here? Five or six stresses?



Structure

• It is often important how poems are structured

• For example, how many lines are there in the poem, how are the lines ‘grouped’, etc



Look at this version of ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ by Wilfred Owen.

Even when writing the poem he made sure it was broken into two ‘chunks’.

We call each chunk a ‘stanza’.

Now count the lines. How many are there in the top stanza? How many are there in the second stanza?

Why?



Summary

So we now know about:

• Rhyme schemes (abab etc)

• Beats/stresses/foot (which we put together and call ‘metre’)

• The structure of poems

• We also know the poets knew about all of this!



Owen´s ´Disabled´

• Subject: what is the poem about?• Action: what happens in the poem?• Theme : What themes or ideas does the poem explore?

Why might it have been written?• Imagery: what descriptive, sensory detail can you find?• Figurative language: what roles do similes, metaphor

and symbolism play?• Structure: how has the poem been structured? What

does the layout contribute to the meaning of the poem?• Tone: what feelings are evoked by the poem?



Rhythm and rhyme

• What can rhythm in a poem do?

• What is syllable stress?

• What is emphatic stress?

• Define metre

• What is a foot?

• Name two possible effects of rhyme in a poem

how poetry works

Documents

graves poem

owens poem

david joness poem

vera brittains poem

robert graves

b line

poetry rhymes

line ends