Poetry Notes

What is poetry? Poetry (noun) - writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.

POINT OF VIEW IN POETRY POET The poet is the author of the poem. SPEAKER The speaker of the poem is the “narrator” of the poem.

POETRY FORM FORM LINE STANZA when we were still first rate ANIMALS Have you forgotten what we were like then when we were still first rate and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth it's no use worrying about Time but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves and turned some sharp corners the whole pasture looked like our meal we didn't need speedometers we could manage cocktails out of ice and water I wouldn't want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days Frank O’hara

KINDS OF STANZAS 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

RHYTHM The beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem

METER A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. when the stressed and unstressed syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern.

METER cont. FOOT - unit of meter. A foot can have One, two or three syllables. Usually consists of one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables. Most Common: IAMBIC

FREE VERSE POETRY does NOT have any repeating patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. Does NOT have rhyme. very conversational - A more modern type of poetry.

Types of Rhyme: Words sound alike because they share the same ending vowel and consonant sounds. Internal rhyme: A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.” – E.A. Poe Activity: Rhyme group game

END RHYME A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line I wandered lonely as a cloud A That floats on high o'er vales and hills, B When all at once I saw a crowd, A A host, of golden daffodils; B Beside the lake, beneath the trees, C Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. C

ONOMATOPOEIA Words that imitate the sound they are naming e.g. buzz, plop, moo, etc.

ALLITERATION Consonant sounds repeated at the beginnings of words All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain - preface to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass Activity: Alliteration group game

CONSONANCE Similar to alliteration EXCEPT . . . The repeated consonant sounds can be anywhere in the words “silken, sad, uncertain, rustling . . “

ASSONANCE Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line or lines of poetry. (Often creates near rhyme.) “on a proud round cloud in white high night” What vowel sounds are repeated in this e.e. cummings’ line?

“Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep.” ASSONANCE cont. Examples of ASSONANCE: Which is the bliss of solitude And dances with the daffodils They stretched in never-ending line William Wordsworth “Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep.” - Shakespeare

REFRAIN A sound, word, phrase or line repeated regularly in a poem. “Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

Allusion Allusion – a reference, explicit or implicit to something in literature or history “and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or”

Diction: Denotation vs. Connotation Denotation: the dictionary meaning of a word. Connotation: emotional associations of a word to transcend the dictionary definition

Caesura: Caesura: a strong pause within a line of verse that usually occurs in the middle of a line “And they are right, I think.” - Phillip Larkin

End-stopped lines: A metrical line ending with a dash or closing parenthesis Then say not man’s imperfect, Heav’n in fault;  Say rather, man’s as perfect as he ought:  His knowledge measur’d to his state and place,  His time a moment, and a point his space.

Enjambment: A run-on line that grammatically continues into the following line (antithesis of an end-stopped line). That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now...

Tone: The attitude of the poet toward the reader, audience, or subject matter of a literary work. _______________ yet ________________

Shift or “Volta” a turn or change in the poem; this could be the speaker’s attitude or any other change detected in the poem.