Poem or Poetry

1. Poem or Poetry The word is derived from the Greek poiein, “to create or make.”

2. Remember: • All good poems are unique • All good poems broaden our comprehension • All good poems add layers to our understandings

3. When Reading Poems: • Read carefully • Read thoughtfully • Read sympathetically

4. Look at Herrick’s Poem Here a pretty baby lies Sung asleep with lullabies: Pray be silent, and not stir Th’easy earth that covers her.

5. The Ballad • The ballad is one of the earliest poetic forms; it is a narrative which was originally spoken or sung. • It usually: *Is simple. *Employs dialogue, repetition, minor characterization. *Is written in quatrains. *Has a basic rhyme scheme, primarily A B C B. *Has a refrain which adds to its songlike quality. *Ballads often deal with the events of a folk hero; sometimes they retell historical events; often times they deal with the supernatural, disasters, good and evil, and love and loss.

6. A Ballad of the Mulberry Roadby Ezra Pound The sun rises in south-east corner of thingsTo look on the tall house of the ShinFor they have a daughter named Rafu (pretty girl).She made the name for herself: “Gauze Veil,”For she feeds mulberries to silkworms,     She gets them by the south wall of the town. With green strings she makes the warp of her basket,She makes the shoulder-straps of her basket from the boughs of Katsura,And she piles her hair up on the left side of her headpiece. Her earrings are made of pearl,Her underskirt is of green pattern-silk,Her overskirt is the same silk dyed in purple,And when men going by look on Rafu they set down their burdens,They stand and twirl their moustaches.

7. The Lyric • Lyric poetry is highly personal and emotional. • It can be as simple as a sensory impression or as elevated as an ode or elegy. • Subjective and melodious, it is often reflective in tone; often designed to be set to music. • It is written in a repeating stanzaic form.

8. Let’s Look at Robert Burns’ “A Red, Red, Rose” O my luve’s like a red, red rose, That’s newly sprung in June; O my luve’s like the melodie That’s sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry. *Note: This is only two stanzas of his four stanza poem.

9. The Elegy • This is a formal lyric poem written in honor of someone who has died. • Don’t confuse the elegy with the eulogy (funeral oration).

10. Dramatic Monologue • A poem in which a speaker addresses an internal listener or the reader. • Often the speaker includes detail reflecting the listener’s nonverbal responses. • The dramatic monologue relates an episode in a speaker’s life through a conversational format which reveals the character of the speaker. • Dramatic monologues can be very rich in narrative detail and characterization. • To connect dramatic monologue to drama, think soliloquy or aside

11. The Sonnet • Has 14 lines • Two types: Italian or Petrarchan sonnet and English or Shakespearean • The two differ in rhyme scheme and stanza form

12. The Sonnet • Subject matter of sonnets vary greatly – love, religion, politics • The sonnet is highly polished, and the strictness of its form complements the complexity of the subject matter.

13. Shakespearean Sonnet • Three Quatrains (4 lines) and one couplet (two lines) • Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

14. Italian: • One Octave (eight lines) and one Sestet (six lines) • Rhyme Scheme: ABBAABBA CDECDE (the sestet can vary)

15. What to remember • Sonnets, no matter the time period, will always have 14 lines.

16. Villanelle • Fixed form in poetry • Six stanzas: five tercets (3 lines) and a final quatrain (4 line) • It utilized two refrains: the first and last lines of the first stanza alternate as the last line of the next four stanzas and then form the final couplet in the quatrain. • Only two rhyming sounds occur throughout • “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”