1. Poetry
A poem is a collection of spoken or written words that expresses ideas or emotions in a powerfully vivid and imaginative style. A poem is comprised of a particular rhythmic and metrical pattern. In fact, it is a literary technique that is different from prose or ordinary speech, as it is either in metrical pattern or in free verse. Writers or poets express their emotions through this medium more easily, as they face difficulty when expressing through some other medium. It serves the purpose of a light to take the readers towards the right path. Also, sometimes it teaches them a moral lesson through sugar-coated language.

2. Poetry
Whether telling a story, capturing a single moment, or describing nature in a completely new way, poetry is the most musical of all literary forms.
The following terms will help you discuss the variety of Poetry you will encounter in this unit.

3. Poetry
Narrative poetry: tells a story with characters, a setting and a plot
Lyric Poetry: expresses thoughts and feelings
Form: describes the structure of a poem. Some poems are written in regular groups of lines called stanzas. Others, like Haiku, follow strict syllable and line counts.
Rhythm, rhyme, and sound devices- such as alliteration and onomatopoeia, give poetry a musical quality.
Figurative Language: such as simile, metaphor, and personification – allows the poet to draw vibrant and creative comparisons.

4. Narrative Poem
Ballad - A type of narrative poem in which a story often talks about folk or legendary tales. It may take the form of a moral lesson or a song.
Distinguishing Features of Ballads:
mostly rely on simple and easy-to-understand language, or dialect from its origin.
Stories about hardships, tragedies, love, and romance are standard ingredients of the ballad.
recurrence of certain lines at regular intervals.
Ballads seldom offer a direct message about a certain event, character, or situation.
Example “Tam Lin” (Unknown)
Scottish traditional ballad
” ‘O I forbid you, maiden all,
That wears gold in your hair,
To come or go by Carterhaugh
For young Tam Lin is there.”

5. Rhythm, rhyme, and sound devices
Alliteration -It is a stylistic device in which a number of words, having the same first consonant sound, occur close together in a series.
Consider the following examples:
“But a better butter makes a batter better.”
“A big bully beats a baby boy.”
In our daily life, we notice alliteration in the names of different companies:
Dunkin’ Donuts
PayPal
Best Buy
Coca-Cola

6. Rhythm, rhyme, and sound devices
Onomatopoeia - is defined as a word which imitates the natural sounds of a thing. It creates a sound effect that mimics the thing described, making the description more expressive and interesting.
Common Examples of Onomatopoeia
The buzzing bee flew away.
The sack fell into the river with a splash.
The books fell on the table with a loud thump.
He looked at the roaring
The rustling leaves kept me awake.

7. Form
Haiku -A haiku poem has three lines, where the first and last lines have five moras, and the middle line has seven. The pattern in this Japanese genre is The mora is another name for a sound unit, which is like a syllable, though there is a difference. As the moras cannot be translated into English, they are modified, and syllables are used instead. The lines of such poems rarely rhyme with each other
“Autumn moonlight— a worm digs silently into the chestnut.” (Autumn Moonlight, by Basho)

8. Form
Stanza -In poetry, a stanza is a division of four or more lines having a fixed length, meter, or rhyming scheme;
ex: The Eagle, by Alfred Lord Tennyson
“He clasps the crag with crooked hands: Close to the sun it lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, it stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.”

9. Form
Refrain is a verse, a line, a set, or a group of lines that appears at the end of stanza, or appears where a poem divides into different sections. Refrain is purely a poetic device, and the most important function that a refrain may serve in poetry is to lay emphasis and create rhythm.
Example: Annabel Lee (By Edgar Allan Poe)
“It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know …
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my Annabel Lee …”
The poet is using refraining line “In a kingdom by the sea.” This appears in the second line of each stanza, and recurs in the final line of the third stanza, drawing readers’ attention, and contributing to its meter and rhythm.

10. Figurative Language
Simile -that makes a comparison, showing similarities between two different things. Simile introduces vividness into what we say. Authors and poets utilize simile to convey their sentiments and thoughts through vivid word pictures
Common Examples of Simile
Our soldiers are as brave as lions.
Her cheeks are red like a rose.
He is as funny as a monkey.
The water well was as dry as a bone.
He is as cunning as a fox.

11. Figurative Language
Metaphor -that makes an implicit, implied, or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated, but which share some common characteristics. In other words, a resemblance of two contradictory or different objects is made based on a single or some common characteristics.
Common Speech Examples of Metaphors
Her voice is music to his ears. (This implies that her voice makes him feel happy)
He saw the soul of dust when passing through the dust storm.
Chaos is the breeding ground of order.
War is the mother of all battles.
Her dance is a great poem.
A new road to freedom passes through this valley of death.
night owl
early bird

12. Figurative Language
Personification - a thing – an idea or an animal – is given human attributes. The non-human objects are portrayed in such a way that we feel they have the ability to act like human beings.
Common Examples of Personification
Look at my car. She is a beauty, isn’t she?
The wind whispered through dry grass.
The flowers danced in the gentle breeze.
Time and tide wait for none.
The fire swallowed the entire forest.

13. Figurative Language
Sensory Imagery -represent objects, actions, and ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical senses. Its function is to generate a vibrant and graphic presentation of a scene that appeals to as many of the reader’s senses as possible. It aids the reader’s imagination to envision the characters and scenes in the literary piece clearly.
Imagery Examples in Literature:
Example #5: Goodbye Mr. Chips (By James Hilton)
“Brookfield he had liked, almost from the beginning. He remembered that day of his preliminary interview—sunny June, with the air full of flower scents and the plick-plock of cricket on the pitch. Brookfield was playing Barnhurst, and one of the Barnhurst boys, a chubby little fellow, made a brilliant century. Queer that a thing like that should stay in the memory so clearly.”