1. Poetic Forms and Devices
English 3 / Fall 2014

2. Types of Poetry
Blank verse: Iambic pentameter – think Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Free verse: Free verse is a form of poetry that does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech. Think Langston Hughes, Slam, etc.
Narrative: Poetry that tells a series of events using poetic devices such as rhythm, rhyme, compact language, and attention to sound. It usually follows the same plot diagram as story-telling.
Ballad: A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music and usually with a refrain.
Concrete: Poem based on the spacing of words. The pattern of the letters illustrates the meaning of the poem. It does not have to rhyme and can be of any length.

3. Poetic Devices

4. What are poetic devices?
A “poetic device” is any technique used in poetry that helps to improve the effectiveness of the poem.
Many literary devices used in short stories and novels are also used in poems, such as metaphors, similes, imagery, personification, etc. However, some devices are especially useful in poetry.
Be familiar with the following terms and forms as we study various poems:
Allusion
Assonance
Consonance
Enjambment
Irony (verbal, dramatic, and situational)
Onomatopoeia
Rhyme (end, internal, and slant)
Sonnet
Stanza

5. Alliteration
Repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes;
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”
-William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

6. Allusion Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
A figure of speech that makes a reference to a place, person, or something that happened.
This can be real or imaginary and may refer to anything, including paintings, opera, folk lore, mythical figures, or religious manuscripts.
The reference can be direct or may be inferred, and can broaden the reader’s understanding.

7. Assonance and Consonance
Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds within words
From nose to toes, the body began to sag.
Sleeping, weeping ships of Crete.
Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds within or at the ends of words
“… while the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched, ground?”
--Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

8. Enjambment
The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal (ending) punctuation.
Example: William Carlos Williams “Between Walls”
the back wings        of the        hospital where        nothing        will grow lie        cinders        in which shine        the broken        pieces of a green        bottle 

9. Irony
The contrast between appearance and reality, or between what is expected and what actually happens.
Verbal: the meaning of a statement is the opposite of what is said
Example: Sarcasm
Dramatic: the audience knows something character(s) on stage don’t know
The deaths of Romeo & Juliet
Situational: the actual outcome of a situation is not what is expected
Trexler analyzes his own psychiatrist in E.B. White’s “The Second Tree from the Corner”

11. Onomatopoeia
A figure of speech in which the sound of a word imitates its sense – words that sound like what they mean (for example, “choo-choo,” “hiss,” or “buzz”).
Gathering Leaves (by Robert Frost)
Spades take up leaves No better than spoons And bags full of leaves Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise Of rustling all day Like rabbit and deer Running away.

12. Rhyme End: rhyming of words at the end of a line
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep” -Robert Frost
Internal: rhyming of words within a single line
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary” Edgar Allan Poe
Slant: sounds of words are similar but not identical
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all” -Emily Dickinson
Eye: words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently
Slaughter / Laughter Bough / Rough Good / Food

13. Poetic Forms
(the structure of poetry)

14. Stanza Group of lines that creates a basic unit of form in poetry
Couplet – 2 consecutive, often rhymed lines of poetry
Quatrain – stanza of 4 lines
Sestet – stanza of 6 lines
Octave – stanza of 8 lines

15. Poetry is written in ‘closed’ or ‘open’ form.
Open form poetry is characterized by the lack of pattern. The content creates the form. Punctuation, line breaks, and white spaces become very important in open form poetry.
Free verse poems
Concrete poems
Shaped poems
Closed form poetry is characterized by recognizable patterns. The content fits into the form.
Rhyme patterns
Sonnets

16. Free Verse (Open Form) You Fit Into Me you fit into me
Margaret Atwood, 1971
you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye

17. The Red Wheelbarrow (William Carlos Williams)
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

18. Concrete Poems (Open Form)
Words create picture
More of a visual than a literary form
Related to pop art
I <')))><ing.
Billy Eckles

19. Lee Gately

20. Roger McGough

21. LEO PEÑA

22. Shaped Poems Words create a picture or visual pattern
Content is more important than shape (opposite of concrete poems)
Shape complements content
Content follows general grammatical rules

23. Easter Wings by George Herbert
Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poore: With Thee O let me rise, As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day Thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me. My tender age in sorrow did beginne; And still with sicknesses and shame Thou didst so punish sinne, That I became Most thinne. With Thee Let me combine, And feel this day Thy victorie; For, if I imp my wing on Thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

24. Swan and Shadow by John Hollander Dusk Above the water hang the loud
flies
Here
O so
gray
then
What A pale signal will appear
When Soon before its shadow fades
Where Here in this pool of opened eye
In us No Upon us As at the very edges
of where we take shape in the dark air
this object bares its image awakening ripples of recognition that will
brush darkness up into light
even after this bird this hour both drift by atop the perfect sad instant now
already passing out of sight
toward yet-untroubled reflection
this image bears its object darkening
into memorial shades Scattered bits of
light No of water Or something across
water Breaking up No Being regathered
soon Yet by then a swan will have
gone Yes out of mind into what
vast
pale
hush
of a
place
past
sudden dark as
if a swan
sang
Swan and Shadow
by John Hollander

25. Haiku (Closed Form) Japanese Syllabic poetry – 17 syllables total
First line: 5 syllables
Second line: 7 syllables
Third line: 5 syllables
Often a seasonal reference
Implied identification of perceiver (poet) with subject (poem)
Silent and still: then
Even sinking into rocks,
The cicada’s screech
Basho
All night this headland
Lunges into the rumpling
Capework of the wind
Richard Wilbur

26. Limerick (Closed Form)
5 line nonsense poem
First line ends in the proper name of a place or person
Rhyme scheme AABBA
Follows a specific meter
There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes
She drawled, When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez!
Ogden Nash
There was a young woman named Plunnery
Who rejoiced in the practice of gunnery
Till one day unobservant
She blew up a servant
And was forced to retire to a nunnery.
Edward Gorey

27. Sonnet (Closed Form) Italian (Petrarchan) or English (Shakespearean)
Octave (8 line stanza, ABBAABBA) – presents problem
Sestet (6 line stanza, CDECDE, CDCCDC, or CDDCDD) – resolution or meditation upon problem
English (Shakespearean)
3 quatrains (4 line stanzas, ABAB CDCD EFEF) – present similar images
Heroic couplet (2 line stanza, GG) – presents resolution
Lyric
14 lines written in iambic pentameter

28. Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.) The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary darkness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. (I think I made you up inside my head.) God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: Exit seraphim and Satan's men: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I fancied you'd return the way you said. But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.) I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)
Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath

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