Literary Terms Presentation:Introduction to Poetry

• Poetry is literature in its most intense, most imaginative and most rhythmic forms. William Wordsworth explained poetry as: “The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings…recollected in tranquility.”

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

• Any form of writing that is not poetry is considered prose.

• There are many different forms of poetry. Some common examples of poetry include: Haiku, limerick, ode, sonnet, ballad, cinquain, quatrain, and free verse.

• A line is a single “sentence" of a poem Above the windy trees          I seek the sun the leaves block

out          I climb          I fall...          black The poem above has five lines.

• Punctuation of poetry is up to the poet. Letters at the beginning of a line can be capitalized or lowercase. Periods, commas, and/or semicolons can be used at the poets’ discretion.

• A stanza is a section or division of a poem. A

grouping of lines.

• A haiku is a poem that originated in Japan. It captures the moment and creates an image. Most haikus are about nature. The lines of this poem are broken up into syllables. Haikus are arranged by 5-7-5 syllables respectively.

• • The cold winter wind (5 syllables)•     writes its message in shivers (7 syllables)•     on the drifting snow (5 syllables)• Georgian Tashjian

• A limerick is a nonsense poem. This type of poem has a definite pattern. It is a five line stanza rhyming aabba in which lines one, two, and five rhyme and lines three and four rhyme separately. Limericks first appeared in 1820. Edward Lear popularized the limerick by writing the Book of Nonsense.

• There was an old dog named Perry       He was certainly hairy       He had grey hairs and white       It was quite a fright       Perry was really quite scary. 

• Miss Mudd

• An ode is a poem that is meant to praise something or someone.

Oh shoes, I love you    you're strong and you're stylish     you have a good…sole     I would have blisters if it weren't for

you     Oh shoes, you're the best. 

Miss Mudd

• A sonnet is a fourteen line poem. It originated in Italy. There are two types of sonnets: an Italian and Shakespearean (English). We are going to learn the Shakespearean form. The rhyme scheme of a sonnet is abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

• A ballad is a type of narrative poetry, usually tragic or violent. Ballads usually tell of unhappy love affairs, war, murders, outlaws and criminals or disasters. the stanza of the ballad is usually four lines rhyming abcb.

• a cinquain is a five line stanza. a cinquain consists of five unrhymed lines. It is arranged in syllables in order of two, four, six, eight, two.

  Listen…        With faint dry sound,         Like steps of passing ghosts,         The leaves, frost-crisped, break from the tress        And fall. 

Adelaide Crapsey

• A quatrain is a stanza of four lines, rhymed or unrhymed.

• • The tumult of my fretted mind (a)•         Gives me expression of a kind; (a)•         But it is faulty, harsh, not plain-- (b)•         My work has the incompetence of

pain. (b)•                                  Anna Wickham

• Another common poem, which can be written any way you'd like is called a free verse. This type of poem does not rhyme, does not have a meter, follow any type of lines rules or syllabication rules as well. Free verse often has Irregular line lengths.

I’m FREE!

Today we shall rhyme and have a great time!

• A common misconception about poetry is that it all has to rhyme; in fact, this is untrue! Yes, most poetry does tend to rhyme or follow a rhythm but it is not necessary, to be considered poetry.

• What is rhyme? Rhyme is the identical sound

between words. (Old/cold) (enough/rough)

• Most forms of rhyme used in poetry are end rhyme. This type of rhyming occurs at the end of the line.

• • I dare not ask ask a kiss, •           I dare not beg a smile, •           Lest having that, or this, •           I might grow proud the while.• Robert Herrick

• An internal rhyme is within the lines of the poem. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I

pondered weak and weary. Over many a quaint and curious volume of

forgotten lore, while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly

there came a tapping. Edgar Allan Poe

• A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes in a poem, usually indicated by letters of the alphabet. (aabb)

• Rhythm is the patterned flow of sound of

poetry. Rhythm is based on meter, which is the combination of accent and number of syllables in a word.

• An eye rhyme is when looking at a poem it looks, to the eye, that it would rhyme, but, upon reading you'll notice the words do not in fact rhyme.

• • If these delights thy mind may move, • Come live with me and be my love.

• A ______________ rhyme is a rhyme consisting of _______ _______________. (sending and blending)

• • An exact rhyme, also known as a true rhyme is

when accented syllables and all succeeding sounds are identical. (Creature, feature).

• Meter is the fixed or nearly fixed pattern of accented and unaccented syllables in the lines of a stanza that produces its rhythm.

• Assonance is the close repetition of middle vowel sounds

between different consonant sounds. (fade/pale) • Consonance is the close repetition of identical consonant sounds

before and after differing vowels. (leave/love, short/shirt)• There are many different ways to add emotion and feeling to

your poem. Being very detailed is one way.