English 11: Poetry Notes Mr. Boskovich

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 - 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 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 4 The beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem 4 Rhythm can be created by meter, rhyme, alliteration and refrain.

METER  Meter: A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.  Meter occurs when the stressed and unstressed syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern.  When poets write in meter, they count out the number of stressed (strong) syllables and unstressed (weak) syllables for each line. They they repeat the pattern throughout the poem.

METER cont. 4 FOOT - unit of meter. 4 A foot can have two or three syllables. 4 Usually consists of one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables. 4 TYPES OF FEET The types of feet are determined by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables. (cont.)

METER cont. TYPES OF FEET (cont.) Iambic - unstressed, stressed Trochaic - stressed, unstressed Anapestic - unstressed, unstressed, stressed Dactylic - stressed, unstressed, unstressed

METER cont. Kinds of Metrical Lines 4 monometer=one foot on a line 4 dimeter=two feet on a line 4 trimeter =three feet on a line 4 Tetrameter=four feet on a line 4 pentameter=five feet on a line 4 Hexameter=six feet on a line 4 heptameter=seven feet on a line 4 Octometer=eight feet on a line

FREE VERSE POETRY 4 Unlike metered poetry, free verse poetry does NOT have any repeating patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. 4 Does NOT have rhyme. 4 Free verse poetry is very conversational - sounds like someone talking with you. 4 A more modern type of poetry.

Types of Rhyme: 4 Words sound alike because they share the same ending vowel and consonant sounds. 4 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

END RHYME 4 A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line 4 I wandered lonely as a cloud A 4 That floats on high o'er vales and hills, B 4 When all at once I saw a crowd, A 4 A host, of golden daffodils; B 4 Beside the lake, beneath the trees, C 4 Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. C

Masculine & Feminine Rhymes Feminine Rhyme: a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and the other unstressed (e.g. waken or stolen) Masculine Rhyme: a rhyme of two syllables, as unstressed and then stressed (e.g. produced, reduced)

NEAR RHYME 4 a.k.a imperfect rhyme, close rhyme 4 The words share EITHER the same vowel or consonant sound BUT NOT BOTH ROSE LOSE á Different vowel sounds (long “o” and “oo” sound) á Share the same consonant sound

ONOMATOPOEIA 4 Words that imitate the sound they are naming

ALLITERATION 4 Consonant sounds repeated at the beginnings of words 4 All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain - preface to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

CONSONANCE 4 Similar to alliteration EXCEPT... 4 The repeated consonant sounds can be anywhere in the words “ s ilken, s ad, un c ertain, ru s tling.. “

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?

ASSONANCE cont. Examples of ASSONANCE: 4 Which is the bliss of solitude 4 And dances with the daffodils  They stretched in never-ending line - William Wordsworth “Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep.” - Shakespeare

REFRAIN 4 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”  - on your smartphone or laptop, look up what Futurism and Nude Descending a Staircase. How might these allusions provide a strong mental image for the reader? How might they enhance the beauty/aesthetics of the poem?

Allusion continued

Allusion Continued: Brueghel’s Landscape with Fall of Icarus is alluded to in Auden’s “Musée de Beaux Arts”

Denotation vs. Connotation 4 Denotation: the dictionary meaning of a word. 4 Connotation: emotional associations of a word to transcend the dictionary definition

Caesura: 4 Caesura: a strong pause within a line of verse that usually occurs in the middle of a line (medial caesura), but can occur at the beginning or end of line. 4 “And they are right, I think.” 4 - Phillip Larkin

End-stopped lines: 4 A metrical line ending with a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period. 4 Then say not man’s imperfect, Heav’n in fault; 4 Say rather, man’s as perfect as he ought: 4 His knowledge measur’d to his state and place, 4 His time a moment, and a point his space.

Enjambment: 4 A run-on line that grammatically continues into the following line (antithesis of an end- stopped line). 4 That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, 4 Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now...

Metonymy: 4 A figure of speech in which a closely related term is used to replace the object or idea 4 (e.g. the crown when speaking of the Queen of England – “We have always remained loyal to the crown.”

Synecdoche: 4 A figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole. 4 “e.g. the colloquialism “Lend me a hand.” 4 - hand is a substitute for a whole person 4 The expression “counting heads or head count”

Euphony and Cacophony 4 Euphony or euphonic diction: pleasant- sounding diction predominates 4 Cacophony: unpleasant-sounding diction predominates the line, stanza, or entire poem.