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PoetryReading and writing

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Poetry Basics

Poetry is writing that is imaginative and condensed by using words chosen for their sound and meaning, with phrases that may have a certain pattern made with rhythm and rhyme.A poet is someone who writes poetry.

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Poetry BasicsWhat do you know about poetry?

What do you want to learn about poetry?

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Poetry Basics

Poems are meant to be heard. Listen as I read some poems to you.

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Poetry Basics

Now watch and listen to this poem by Maya Angelou.

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou

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A free bird leapsOn the back of the windAnd floats downstream till the current endsAnd dips his wingIn the orange sun raysAnd dares to claim the sky.

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But a caged bird that stalksDown his narrow cageCan seldom see throughHis bars of rageHis wings are clipped andHis feet are tiedSo he opens his throat to sing.

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The caged bird singsWith a fearful trillOf things unknownBut longed for stillAnd his tune is heard On the distant hillFor the caged birdSings of freedom.

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The free bird thinks of another breezeAnd the trade winds soft through the sighing treesAnd the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawnAnd he names the sky his own.

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But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreamsHis shadow shouts on a nightmare screamHis wings are clipped and his feet are tied So he opens his throat to sing.

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The caged bird singsWith a fearful trillOf things unknownBut longed for stillAnd his tune is heard On the distant hillFor the caged birdSings of freedom.

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou

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Poetry Basics

• Stanza: One of the divisions of a poem, composed of two or more lines

• *Hint: stanzas are similar to paragraphs because there is a space in between them on the page.

• Stanzas are usually characterized by a common pattern of meter, rhyme, and number of lines.

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Poetry Basics

Stanzas: This is Just to SayI have eatenThe plumsThat were in the icebox

And which You were probablySavingFor breakfast

Forgive meThey were deliciousSo sweetAnd so cold--William Carlos Williams

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Poetry Basics• Rhyme: words that sound alike: Yes, Less• End rhyme: words at the end of a line of a

poem that sound alike, such as: There once was a fellow named jack Who jumped up and down in a sack.

• Rhyme Scheme: is the pattern of end rhymes in a poem. They are labeled with letters like abacaba and so on.

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Poetry Basics

Rhyme Scheme:

12345678

How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes1If you have to dry the dishes2(Such an awful, boring chore)3If you have to dry the dishes4(‘Stead of going to the store)5If you have to dry the dishes6And you drop one on the floor—7Maybe they won’t let you8Dry the dishes anymore.

--Shel Silverstein

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Poetry Basics

Rhyme Scheme:

1234

Arrows1I shot an arrow toward the sky,2It hit a white cloud floating by.3The cloud fell dying to the shore,4I don’t shoot arrows anymore.

--Shel Silverstein

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Poetry Basics

• Meter: a rhythm pattern in a poem.

DreamsHold fast to dreams

For if dreams dieLife is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly

Hold fast to dreams for when dreams goLife is a barren fieldFrozen with snow--Langston Hughes

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Poetry Basics

Couplet: Two lines of a poem together, with the same rhythm and same rhyme at the end.

I do not like green eggs and hamI do not like them, Sam I am.

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Poetry Basics

• Some poems have a motif, or something that repeats throughout the poem.

• Let’s read a few poems that repeat the phrase “I don’t know” and then try to write one ourselves.

• We can use rhyme, stanzas, and anything else we learned today.