What is poetry?

1. “In a poem the words should be as pleasing to the ear as the meaning is to the mind.” -- Marianne Moore

2. What is poetry? “Ars Poetica” By Archibald MacLeish A poem should be palpable and mute as a globed fruit, Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown— A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds. Note: In writing, poetry titles are punctuated with quote marks or italics. The first line is used as a title for poems where the author does not give a title.

3. What is poetry? The essence: Poetry: To portray an idea using words in a unique and creative way

4. Poetry: A Definition • Length • Visual impressions • Concentrated, intense language that makes deliberate sound effects which can involve rhythm, rhyme, or other sounds • Written in lines and stanzas rather than sentences or paragraphs [prose] • Meaning is gleaned from understanding the use of metaphor, symbol, imagery, etc.

5. Structure: • Lines - a single line of poetry. • Stanzas - a group of lines set off from the other lines in a poem; the poetic equivalent of a paragraph in prose. In traditional poems, the stanza usually contains a unit of thought, much like a paragraph. • Couplet – • Tercet – • The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

6. Poetry: A Definition • Subject matter can cover the intellectually safe or the profane; the marginal or society • Fixed or free form (your book says traditional & organic) • Fixed form is a poem that may be categorized by the pattern of its lines, meter, rhythm, or stanzas; a style of poetry that has set rules. Ex: sonnet, villanelle, limerick • Free Form is a poem that has neither regular rhyme nor regular meter. Free verse often uses cadences rather than uniform metrical feet.

7. Types of Poems: fixed form Just a smattering: • Ballad (folk and literary) • Ode • Elegy • Sonnet • Villanelle • Limerick • Epic – remember Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey • Diamante • Concrete Poem • And so many more…. We’ll learn terms as we study types.

8. How do you read a poem? • Read the poem slowly and out loud to help hear the “musicality” of the poem. • Be patient; poems can be ambiguous or confusing. Talk about it with others who have read it, when possible. • Read the poem several times. • Look for punctuation in the poem telling you where sentences & thoughts begin and end. • Do not make a full stop at the end of a line if there is no period, comma, colon, semicolon, or dash there. • If a passage of a poem is difficult to understand, look for the subject, verb, and complement of each sentence. • Be alert for comparisons —for figures of speech.

9. Advice from an AP Lit prep book: • Remember that the language of poems is compact and economical, with every word of a poem carrying part of the impact and meaning. • You must bring your own experience to a poem as well as what you know about literature. • At first, read a poem sentence by sentences, not line by line. If you focus your reading on line endings and ignore a poem’s syntax, you may become confused. • Later read the poem noticing obscure language and confusing sentences while thinking about content. • Lastly, notice the structure and poetic elements of the poem.

10. Let’s try… • “The Germ” by Ogden Nash • A mighty creature is the germ, • Though smaller than the pachyderm. • His customary dwelling place • Is deep within the human race. • His childish pride he often pleases • By giving people strange diseases. • Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? • You probably contain a germ.

11. Understanding the poem: • Consider the title. • Use the footnotes, if provided. • Examine individual words. • Determine the speaker. • Establish the setting and situation. • Determine the subject. • Figure out the theme. • Identify the conventions of poetry used in the selection.

12. Looking at a Poem • Lines • End-stopped • The sentence or a thought ends at the end of each line. • My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red than her lips red. –Shakespeare • Enjambment • The running over of a sentence or a thought from one line to another. • Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove. —Shakespeare

13. Structural elements: • Rhythm: • Refers to the pattern of accented and unaccented syllables in a line. • Repetition: • Repeating of a phrase within a poem or prose piece to create a sense of rhythm. • Example: “His laugh, his dare, his shrug…” • Refrain: • Consists of a word or line or group of lines that is repeated regularly in a poem or song

14. The Sound of the Poem • Poetry depends on the sounds as well as the meanings of the words. The sound of a word canhelp create feeling and reinforce meaning, or create rhythm or music. • Alliteration: • Repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning of words. • Example: I'm just a singer of simple songs • Assonance: • Repetition of a vowel sound within words. • Example: rise and shine, down and out • Consonance: • Repetition of consonant sounds within words. • Example: • Onomatopoeia: • Use of words that imitate sounds. • Example: whirr, creak, clunk, quack • Inversion • Example: Beautiful is she.

15. Rhyme: The repetition of sounds at the ends of words such as trod and plod; usually occurs at the ends of lines of poetry. • Internal Rhyme: • Rhyming that occurs within a line of poetry. • Example: the cat in the hat • Slant Rhyme: • Words that sound the same, but are not spelled the same. • Example: Rise/sky, down/found, etc… • These may also include visual “rhymes” like love/prove.

16. Imagery: • Descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the five senses

17. Watch Your Tone! • "The word tone in literary discussion is borrowed from the expression tone of voice.Toneis the manner in which a poet makes his statement; it reflects his attitude toward his subject. Since printed poems lack the intonations of spoken words, the reader must learn to "hear" their tones with his mind's ear. Tone cannot be heard in one particular place since it reflects a general attitude, it pervades the whole poem." • (Poems: Wadsworth Handbook and Anthology by C. F. Main & Peter J. Seng)

18. Mood & Tone • Mood: • The feeling or atmosphere of the poem that is implied • Tone: • The attitude that the poem’s style implies • Note: More on this later. We will really begin to distinguish these this semester!

19. Figurative Language: • Language that describes things in a different way than imagery to create word pictures • Simile: • Comparing two unlike objects using comparative words • Metaphor: • Direct comparison of two unlike objects • Personification: • Giving human qualities to objects, animals or ideas • Hyperbole: • Exaggeration is made for emphasis or humorous effect

20. Examples of Language • Metonymy (one term for another with which it is commonly associated or closely related.) • the pen is mightier than the sword • the crown (referring to a Queen or King) • all hands on deck • Synecdoche (part for the whole) • give us this day our daily bread • The U.S. won three gold medals. (Instead of “The members of the U.S. boxing team won three gold medals.”) • Don’t get comfortable… there are so many more…

21. Looking at a Poem Synaesthesia / Synesthesia ‘a deafening yellow’; ‘sunburnt mirth” Epithet swift-footed Achilles; rosy-fingered dawn; Ivan the Terrible

22. Irony, doncha think? Irony involves a contradiction.  "In general, irony is the perception of a clash between appearance and reality, between seems and is, or between ought and is.” Verbal irony--Saying something contrary to what it means. In daily language, being ironic means that you say something but mean the opposite to what you say.  "Oh, how lucky we are to have SO MANY AP classes to choose from!" Depending on how you say it, there is a contradiction between your literal meaning and your actual meaning--and this is what we call verbal (rhetoric) irony.  Dramatic irony -- Saying or doing something while unaware of its ironic contrast with the whole truth; verbal irony with the speaker's awareness erased" -- so that the irony is on the speaker him/herself, but not what s/he talks about. Situational irony-- Events turning to the opposite of what is expected or what should be.   The ironic situation --the "ought" upended by the is -- is integral to dramatic irony.  In Alanis Morissete's “Ironic" we can see a lot of situational ironies -- or ironies of fate. Cool article explaining the song "Ironic"

23. “Sea Fever” by John Masefield • I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tideIs a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

24. by Emily Dickinson I NEVER saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

25. Opportunityby Edward Sill This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:-- There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle , and men yelled, and swords Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s banner Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. A craven hung along the battle’s edge, And thought, “Had I a sword of keener steel – That blue blade that the king’s son bears – but this Blunt thing!” he snapt, and flung it from his hand, And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, And saved a great cause that heroic day.

26. Hey, DIDLS diddle. . . • Use DIDLS to consider the tone of a poem. • Diction—the connotation of the word choice • Consider the following when discussing diction • ·         monosyllabic/polysyllabic • ·         colloquial/informal/formal • ·         denotative/connotative • ·         euphonious/cacophonous • Images—vivid appeals to understanding through the senses • Details—Facts that are included or omitted • Language—The overall use of language, formal, colloquial, clinical, jargon, etc... • Sentence Structure—How structure affects the reader’s attitude

27. TPCASTT • We’ll save this for another powerpoint ;) • One last note. . . • SPEAKER The speaker of the poem IS NOT necessarily the poet. It is a persona (a character) used to “voice” the poem. The speaker addresses an audience or another character. Identify and describe the speaking voice or voices, the conflicts or ideas, and the language used in the poem.