POETRY TERMINOLOGY For all your poetry needs!

Day 1: Referencing Poetry  Today we are going to learn 4 terms that will help us to talk about poetry  Couplet  Quatrain  Verse  Stanza

Big and Little  BIG:  Stanza (#18): think of it as a chunk, or a group of lines. Look at the Poetry Intro packet: what would be a good example of a stanza?  LITTLE:  Verse (#7): a line of poetry. Look at the Poetry Intro packet: what would be a good example of a verse?

2,4,6,8 Who do we appreciate?  TWO:  Couplet (#3): Think of a couple: how many people are in a couple? Shakespeare is most famous for his use of couplets in his sonnets: 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 dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

How many QUARTERS in a Dollar?  FOUR:  Quatrain (#4): A stanza or poem of four lines. THE TYGER By William Blake Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire?