Poetry Structures & Forms

What are STRUCTURES of poetry? Structures refer to TYPES of poems. Just like the structure of a building, the structure of the poem is its framework.

Limerick Limerick – a humorous verse of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba.

Limerick Example There was an old man with a beard Who said, “It’s just how I feared! Two owls and a hen Four larks and a wren Have all built their nests in my beard.” - Anonymous

Sonnet Sonnet – a poem of 14 lines usually written in iambic pentameter Iambic Pentameter -- Ten syllables in each line with five pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables The rhythm in each line sounds like: ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM

Sonnet Example Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. --William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Narrative Poem Narrative Poem – tells a story/has a plot

Narrative Poem Example 'Tis eight o'clock,—a clear March night, The moon is up,—the sky is blue, The owlet, in the moonlight air, Shouts from nobody knows where; He lengthens out his lonely shout, Halloo! halloo! a long halloo! From “The Idiot Boy” by William Wordsworth

Free Verse Free Verse – poetry that has no regular rhythm or rhyme scheme

Free Verse Example The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. “Fog” by Carl Sandburg

What are FORMS of poetry? Forms of poetry are the building blocks that make up a poem. Examples of forms: stanzas, literary devices, and rhyme scheme

Stanza A stanza is a group of lines forming the basic meter in a poem. It is like a paragraph in poetry. A stanza is also known as a verse.

How many stanzas are in this poem? The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. “Fog” by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes on little cat feet The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. “Fog” by Carl Sandburg Stanza 1 Stanza 2

Literary Devices Literary devices are specific techniques authors use to express ideas. Examples of literary devices: alliteration, onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor, personification, imagery

Examples of Literary Devices The fog comes on little cat feet. What literary device is used? How do you know? What is the meaning?

Rhyme Scheme Rhyme scheme refers to the ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem. Rhyme scheme is identified with letters. Example: ABAB

Rhyme Scheme Example There was an old man with a beard Who said, “It’s just how I feared! Two owls and a hen Four larks and a wren Have all built their nests in my beard.” *Label the pattern of rhyme in this poem using letters.

Rhyme Scheme Example There was an old man with a beard A Who said, “It’s just how I feared! A Two owls and a hen B Four larks and a wren B Have all built their nests in my beard.” A