1. Exploring Poetry

2. Basic Question: What is poetry? A type of literature that expresses ideas, feelings, or tells a story in a specific form (usually using lines and stanzas). Here are some types 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

3. Sound devices used in poetry Rhythm-- The beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem; this can be achieved by using alliteration (light/lemon), assonance (vowel rhyme date/fade) consonance (milk/walk the ending consonants rhyme but the vowels at the beginning don’t) Meter – pattern of stressed/unstressed syllables; the order can also be unstressed/stressed; there are specific terms for the type of feet the poet is using. Iambic-- unstressed/stressedDactyllic – stressed, unstressed, unstressed Trochaic – stressed/unstressed Anapestic- unstressed, unstressed, stressed Spondaic – stressed, stressed

4. Sound devices (con’t.) Metrical Line terms:  monometerone foot on a line  dimetertwo feet on a line  trimeter three feet on a line  tetrameterfour feet on a line  pentameterfive feet on a line  hexametersix feet on a line  heptameterseven feet on a line  octometereight feet on a line To find your metrical line in a poem you have to use some math….count up the syllables in the line then divide that number by 2. This will give you your meter… Let’s try an example together…. Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

5. Types of Poetry Narrative – as in fiction, a narrative poem tells a story with characters, plot, and a setting There are two specific types of narratives; an epic (The Illiad) and a ballad which is like a song Dramatic – tells a story using a character’s own thoughts or spoken statements; think a dramatic monologue such as Hamlet’s Lyric– express feelings of a single speaker and is the most common type of poem

6. Types of Poetry (con’t.) Poems are also categorized by their structure, or form; here are a few types Haiku – three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables; the Tanka has five unrhymed lines of five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables. Both use imagery to convey a single vivid emotion. Free verse- has no set rhythm or rhyme and sounds like normal speech Sonnet – 14 line lyric poem with formal patterns of rhyme, rhythm, and structure; there are two types Shakespearean and Petrarchean

7. Homework Assignment 1 st two pages from your packet Due Monday