1. The Elements of Poetry
Every aspect of a poem– including line, white space, and language – is purposeful and creates the overall effect of the poem.
Poets say more with less words.
Poetry is hard to define. Even poets argue among themselves about what makes a poem a poem. There are some common characteristics, however, that we can use to help us differentiate between poetry and prose.
The poem has some meaning, image or emotion it wants to share with the reader. These three things are shown by the above four. That makes a poem!

2. Imagery The poet paints images with words for the reader.
These images help the reader to visualize the poem.
Tools for Imagery
Sensory
Details
Figurative
Language

3. Sensory Details
Painting images with the five senses:

4. Sundays too my father got up early
Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Let’s look at the sensory details in beginning of “Those Winter Sundays”
In “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden has caused us to experience several senses.
“…blueblack cold” certainly makes us feel how cold it was.
When the father’s hands are described as “cracked hands that ached” we can feel the roughness.
He describes the cold “splintering and breaking.” We can hear the trees and ice crack.
And then the rooms “were warm” when the boy got up. We know how that feels on a cold day.
When the boy fears “the chronic angers of that house” and when he speaks “indifferently to him” we know what emotions the boy is feeling.

5. Figurative Language Painting images with comparisons.
You should be familiar with these comparisons as metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, and more.

6. Similes Comparisons using like or as.
The river is peaceful, like a sleeping newborn.
The river is as peaceful as a sleeping newborn.
Making the connection requires background knowledge for the metaphor/simile to be meaningful to the reader.
Metaphors and similes compare something in the poem to something familiar outside the poem.

7. The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city
Carl Sandburg
The fog comes 
on little cat feet. 
  
It sits looking 
over harbor and city
on silent haunches 
and then moves on.
How are metaphors used in the poem, “Fog”
This is an example of metaphors and personification...

8. Metaphors “It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!”
Direct comparisons that do NOT use like or as.
Metaphors
“Oh, bright angel, speak again!”
“It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!”
Making the connection requires background knowledge for the metaphor/simile to be meaningful to the reader.
Metaphors and similes compare something in the poem to something familiar outside the poem.
Romeo, “Romeo and Juliet”, William Shakespeare

9. Comparison made by giving human traits to non-human things.
Personification
Comparison made by giving human traits to non-human things.
the clock’s hands
the table’s legs

10. The Vacuum
The house is quiet now
The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,
Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth
Grinning into the floor, maybe at my
Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.
I’ve lived this way long enough,
But when my old woman died her soul
Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can’t bear
To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust
And the woolen mice, and begin to howl
How does Howard Nemerov personify a vacuum in the beginning of this poem?

11. Hyperbole
Comparisons using exaggeration, usually with humor

12. Onomatopoeia Written words that are comparable to sounds Wind Song
By Lilian Moore
When the wind blows the quiet things speak.
Some whisper, some clang, some creak.
Grasses swish. Treetops sigh.
Flags slap and snap at the sky.

13. Poetic Form
Any type of writing must have something to hold it together and give it shape.
Form is the term used to describe the poem’s structure.
Tools for Structure
Techniques
Forms

14. Stanzas A stanza in poetry is like a paragraph in prose.
The author organizes the poem by grouping lines into 1 or more stanzas.
Stanzas are named by the number of lines they contain:
2 lines = couplet 3 lines = tercet
4 lines = quatrain 5 lines = cinquain
6 lines = sestet lines = octave
Analogy: Stanza is to poem as ____________ is to story.
We can often see the structure of the poem by the author’s use of stanza.

15. Rhythm Rhythm is the beat of a poem.
It is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

16. Rhyme
Exact rhyme words have the exact same ending sounds, like cat and hat
Slant rhyme words sound similar, but aren’t exact, like one and down.

17. Practice… There was an old man from Peru, da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
He awoke in the night
da da DUM da da DUM
with a terrible fright,
and found that it all was quite true. A B
Let’s look at the following limerick and see if we can identify the rhythmic and rhyming pattern
Rhyming Pattern is AABBA
Rhythmic pattern is the stressed and unstressed-da DUM da da DUM da da DUMA

18. You try it… We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.

19. Repetition
Repetition of initial consonant sounds in a poem is called alliteration.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Repetition of other consonant sounds is called consonance.
All mammals named Sam are clammy
Repetition of vowel sounds is called assonance.
Hear the mellow wedding bells

20. The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city
Carl Sandburg
The fog comes 
on little cat feet. 
  
It sits looking 
over harbor and city
on silent haunches 
and then moves on.
How is repetition used in the poem, “Fog”?
This is an example of metaphors and personification...

21. Analyzing a poem through close reading
Read it once silently and again aloud. What do you think is happening in the poem? Jot down your first impressions.
Read again slowly. What elements of poetry can you find (sensory detail, figurative language, structure techniques and form)? Mark your text! What new ideas are your getting about the poem’s meaning?
Read it again with new awareness of the poet’s craft. What’s the big idea? What do you think he/she is trying to express about life? What questions do you have?

22. Analyze this poem using the close reading steps on the previous slide.
Fueled
by a million
man-made
wings of fire-
the rocket tore a tunnel
through the sky-
and everybody cheered,
only by a thought from God-
the seedling
urged its way through the thickness of black-
and as it pierced
the ceiling of the soil-
and launched itself
up into outer space- no
one
even
clapped
Fueled
By Marcie Hans
Analyze this poem using the close reading steps on the previous slide.