1. What Are the Forms and Characteristics
of Poetry?
Feature Menu
Forms of Poetry
The Structure of a Poem
Tone
Imagery
Figurative Language
Your Turn

2. Forms of Poetry
Poetry is a kind of musical and focused writing designed to appeal to emotion and imagination.
Could you write a poem by listing four or five things found in your classroom?
You could if you were writing a catalog poem—
free verse that lists the poet’s thoughts or feelings on a subject. 2

3. Forms of Poetry A catalog poem is a list:
On the first day of school, I see shoes. My classmates wear big shoes, small shoes, smelly shoes—shoes built for running and moving.
I see desks
Other forms of poetry
• tell stories
• honor someone or some event
• express feelings
• remember someone 3

4. Forms of Poetry You will read many of these forms in this collection.
A narrative poem, such as a ballad or an epic, tells a story.
A lyric poem expresses the speaker’s feelings.
An ode is a type of lyric poem that celebrates something, such as a person, event, or thing.
A sonnet is a lyric poem with a very specific structure and rhyme scheme.
Free verse has no regular rhythm or rhyme.
A catalog poem is free verse that lists the poet’s thoughts or feelings on a subject. 4

5. Forms of Poetry
This organizer shows another way of looking at some of the many forms of poetry.
Express feelings formally
Tell a story
Express thoughts and feelings in free verse
Mourn the loss of someone or something 5

6. Forms of Poetry Quick Check What is the form of this poem?
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it
should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his
plank or beam, . . .
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the
young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or
washing
from “I Hear America Singing”
by Walt Whitman
[End of Section] 6

7. Forms of Poetry Quick Check What is the form of this poem?
This is a catalog poem. The poet lists many different singers.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it
should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his
plank or beam, . . .
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the
young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or
washing
from “I Hear America Singing”
by Walt Whitman 7

8. The Structure of a Poem
A poet is like a sculptor. Both are concerned with structure, or form.
A sculptor uses tools to shape wood, stone, or metal.
A poet uses words to shape a poem.

9. The Structure of a Poem
Read this poem aloud. How do the lengths of the lines influence the sound of the poem?
Stay beautiful
but dont stay down underground too long
Dont turn into a mole
or a worm
or a root
or a stone
"For Poets" by Al Young. Copyright © 1968 and 1992 by Al Young. Reproduced by permission of the author.
The short lines give emphasis to words like worm and stone.
Short lines may also cue readers to speed up.

10. The Structure of a Poem To help shape their writing, poets ask:
1. How long should the lines be?
2. Should I group the lines into stanzas?
3. Should I follow established forms based on strict rules or experiment with new forms?
The poet’s purpose is to give the words a pleasing shape on the page and help them convey meaning.

11. The Structure of a Poem
A stanza is a group of lines that forms a single unit in a poem.
This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me, --
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!
“Letter to the World”
by Emily Dickinson
(edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson) 1
This poem has two stanzas. 2

12. The Structure of a Poem
Established forms follow traditional patterns and rules set by other poets who lived long ago.
This pattern may determine the poem’s
rhythm
rhyme scheme
number of lines
number of stanzas

13. The Structure of a Poem Quick Check
How does the shape of this experimental poem help you understand its meaning?
My Favorite Pencil
One end wipes out mistakes.
The other captures ideas, making sure that people get the
point.
[End of Section]

14. The Structure of a Poem Quick Check
How does the shape of this experimental poem help you understand its meaning?
My Favorite Pencil
One end wipes out mistakes.
The other captures ideas, making sure that people get the
point.
The poem looks like a pencil;
the shape of the poem imitates its subject.

15. Tone Tone reflects a poet’s attitude toward a subject.
Amazed at medical technology?
Saddened by his loss?
Inspired by his persistence?
In awe of his courage?
Imagine you are writing a poem about the man in this picture. What would be your tone, or attitude?

16. Tone To determine a poem’s tone, ask: How do the • words • images
• sounds
make you feel?
cold?
adventurous?
spooked?
curious?
A poet carefully chooses every word and detail to help you understand and share his or her attitude.

17. Tone Quick Check What is the tone of this passage
from “The Highwayman”?
And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn door.
by Alfred Noyes
[End of Section]

18. Tone Quick Check The spooky,
And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn door.
by Alfred Noyes
The spooky,
mysterious, tone is created by words like ghostly and details like the dark, cold night.

19. Imagery
You can think of a poet as an artist who uses words the way a painter uses paint.
clouds like tufts of wool
the rock’s wrinkled face a carpet of red sand
Poets use imagery, or word pictures, to put the reader’s imagination to work.

20. Imagery
Listen to this excerpt from “The Highwayman.” What images do you see?
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding
by Alfred Noyes

21. Is this how you imagined the scene?
Imagery
Is this how you imagined the scene?

22. Imagery sight Images in poetry focus on all of the senses. sound taste
touch
smell
He rode with a jeweled twinkle
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn yard.
They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.
He scarce could reach her hand
. . . his hair like moldy hay

23. Imagery
Quick Check
Beclouded
The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A traveling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.
A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.
by Emily Dickinson
(edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson)
Find examples of images in this poem that appeal to different senses.
[End of Section]

24. Imagery Quick Check Images that appeal to the senses include
Beclouded
The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A traveling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.
A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.
by Emily Dickinson
(edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson)
Images that appeal to the senses include
Sight: hanging clouds, a blowing snowflake, a barn, a crown
Sound: wind blowing

25. Figurative Language
Poets also use figures of speech—language that helps make startling connections between dissimilar things.
What connections are made in the following lines from “The Railway Train”?
I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks
"585: I Like to See It Lap the Miles” from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard University Press. Published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. Reproduced by permission of Harvard University Press and the Trustees of Amherst College.

26. Figurative Language
A train is compared to a horse.

27. Figurative Language
A simile is a comparison of two unlike things using the word like, as, or resembles.
There came a wind like a bugle
How are these very different things alike?
What meaning does the poet want us to make from this connection?

28. Figurative Language
A metaphor compares two unlike things without using like, as, or resembles.
Stars are great drops
Of golden dew
"Harlem Night Song" from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Reproduced by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. and electronic format by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Incorporated.

29. Figurative Language Quick Check
What figure(s) of speech are used in these lines from a poem about a young horse?
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray,
Like a shadow against the curtain of
falling flakes.
“The Runaway” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company; copyright © 1951 by Robert Frost. Reproduced by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
[End of Section]

30. Figurative Language Quick Check
What figure(s) of speech are used in these lines from a poem about a young horse?
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray,
Like a shadow against the curtain of
falling flakes.
“The Runaway” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company; copyright © 1951 by Robert Frost. Reproduced by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Like a shadow is a simile. It uses like to compare the colt and a shadow.
Curtain is a metaphor. It compares snow to a curtain, without using like, as, or resembles.

31. Analyze Forms and Characteristics
of Poetry?
Your Turn
What makes poetry different from prose? Include specific characteristics as examples.
Identify a form or characteristic of poetry that you would like to understand better, and explain why.
[End of Section]

32. The End