How Poetry Works

William Wordsworth sees good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”

The careful and ingenious manipulation of the lines of a poetic rendition, taking into consideration the effects of the combination of and systematic variation in the flow of sound, and the restriction of the amount of words to the fewest possible, guarantees good poetry

Form - the appearance of the words on the page Line - a group of words together on one line of the poem Stanza - a group of lines arranged together

A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.

Couplet = a two line stanza Triplet (Tercet) = a three line stanza Quatrain = a four line stanza Quintet = a five line stanza Sestet (Sextet) = a six line stanza Septet = a seven line stanza Octave = an eight line stanza

Imagery – any writing which is descriptive, and helps the reader to visualize a scene and so to experience the poet’s experience. We have both aural and visual imagery

Sound Effects – With the use of special sound patterns and sound imagery, certain sound effects can be created

Rhythm – the beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem Rhythm can be created by meter, rhyme, alliteration and refrain.

Meter – A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Meter occurs when the stressed (strong) and unstressed (weak) syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern.

A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.

Unlike metered poetry, free verse poetry does NOT have any meter or rhyme

Blank verse poetry: Written in lines of iambic pentameter, but does NOT use end rhyme. Example: Shakespeare

To be or not to be that is the question

Onomatopoeia: The use of words whose sounds suggest their meanings. The most simple examples are words which are the names given to actual sounds. For example, some bells ring, tinkle, clang; a cat mews, a lion roars and cars screech. There can also be a splash of water and a booming of a gun

Alliteration: The use of a succession of the same consonant, usually at the beginning of successive words. - Man makes money; money makes many men mad - Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full dazzling!

Consonance: The repeated consonant sounds can be anywhere in the words “And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain”

Assonance: Repeated vowel sounds in a line or lines of poetry “Slow the low gradual moan came in the snowing.”

Rhyme: This has to do with the recurring use of similar sounds, especially at the end of lines of a poem. Rhyme, like alliteration, attracts the reader’s attention to something of importance in a poem. If two lines of a poem end with “face” and “grace”, we will say that the lines exhibit end rhyme

End Rhyme: Hector the Collector Collected bits of string. Collected dolls with broken heads And rusty bells that would not ring.

Internal rhyme: The snowflakes are dancing, floating, and falling. The church bells are calling, but I will not go. I went to town to buy a gown. I took the car and it wasn’t far.

A rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme

The railroad track is miles away And the day is loud with voices speaking Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking

A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.

Forms of Poetry

A lyric poem is a relatively short, non-narrative poem in which a single speaker unfolds a state of mind or an emotional state. Lyric poetry retains some of the elements of song which is said to be its origin

Ode: This is a long lyric poem with serious theme written in an elevated style. Good examples are Wordsworth’s Hymn to Duty and Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn

Elegy: In modern usage, elegy is a ceremonial lament for the death of a particular person

Sonnet: It is the most widespread and most formal of lyric poems. Originally, the sonnet was a love poem which dealt with the lover’s sufferings and hopes Sonnet is written in a single stanza of fourteen lines

Narrative poetry gives a verbal depiction, in verse, of a series of connected events and it drives characters through a plot. It is always conveyed by a narrator.

Epic operates on a large scale, both in length and topic, such as the founding of a nation (Virgil’s Aeneid) or the start of world history (Milton’s Paradise Lost). It relies on the use of an elevated style of language, and supernatural beings take part in the action

A ballad is a dramatic folk song, initially transmitted orally, which tells a story. It is a vital form of folk poetry which was adapted for literary uses from the sixteenth century onwards.

The purpose of a didactic poem is principally to teach some lesson.