What is Poetry?

1. r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r who a)sw(eloo)k upnowgath PPEGORHRASS eringint(o- aThe):l eA !p: S a (r rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhOs) to rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly ,grasshopper; What is Poetry? so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.

3. Essential Questions What is poetry? How is poetry different from prose? How do authors use stylistic devices to affect the emotions of their readers? How does the performance of poetry affect its meaning? How can poetry be used as a tool for social justice?

4. What is Poetry? Some Responses Webster’s Dictionary: “Imaginative language or composition, whether expressed rhythmically or in prose.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.” AudreLorde: “The difference between poetry and rhetoric / is being / ready to kill / yourself / instead of your children.”

5. What do these have in common?

6. Prose version:         A woman stands on a mountain top with the cold seeping into her body. She looks on the valley below as the wind whips around her. She cannot leave to go to the peaceful beauty below.         In the valley, the sun shines from behind the clouds causing flowers to bloom. A breeze sends quivers through the leaves of trees. The water gurgles in a brook. All the woman can do is cry

7. Poetry version             The Woman on the Peak         The woman stands upon the barren peak,         Gazing down on the world beneath.         The lonely chill seeps from the ground         Into her feet, spreading, upward bound.         The angry wind whistles ‘round her head,         Whipping her hair into streaming snakes,         While she watches, wishes, weakly wails.         Beyond the mountain, sunshine peeks,         Teasing flowers to survive and thrive.         The breeze whispers through the leaves,         Causing gentle quivers to sway the trees.         Laughter gurgles as the splashing brook         Playfully tumbles over rugged rocks,         While the woman above can only grieve.

8. Organizing Key Terms • Types of Poems • Sonnet • Lyric • Ballad • Elegy • Epic • Idyll • Pastoral • Figurative Language • Alliteration • Assonance • Metaphor • Simile • Conceit • Hyperbole • Personification • Metonymy • Onomatopoeia • Simile • Synecdoche • Allusion • Imagery • Parts of a Poem • Verse (Free and Blank) • Stanza • Caesura • Couplet • Foot • Meter • Refrain • Stress

9. Key Terms Alliteration: the repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words Allusion: a reference to a famous person, thing, or work Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds Ballad: a poem that tells a story (such a folk tale or legend), often with a refrain Caesura: a natural pause or break in a line of poetry Conceit: a poetic image or metaphor that compares one thing to another that seems unlikely Couplet: a pair of lines of the same length and that usually rhyme

10. Key Terms Elegy: a poem written for the death of a person Enjambment: the continuation of a sentence or idea across more than one line of poetry Epic: a long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure Foot: two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhyme in a poem Hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis Idyll: a short poem depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene

11. Key Terms Imagery: the use of language appealing to the five senses Lyric: a poem that expresses the thoughts or feelings of the poet Metaphor: a comparison of two things when one is said to be the other Meter: the arrangement of lines according to the number of syllables and rhythm Metonymy: the substitution of one word for another closely associated word Onomatopoeia: words used to imitate sounds Pastoral: a poem that depicts rural life

12. Key Terms Personification: giving human traits to non-human objects or things Refrain: a line or phrase repeated throughout the poem Simile: comparison of two things using “like” or “as” Sonnet: a 14-line lyric poem Stanza: two or more lines organized to form the divisions of a poem Stress: prominence or emphasis given to certain syllables

13. Key Terms Synecdoche: a part used to substitute for the whole, or the whole is used to mean the part Verse: a single metrical line of poetry, or poetry in general (as opposed to prose) Free Verse: poetry with unrhymed lines or rhymed lines with no set meter Blank Verse: poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter

14. Review Literal Meaning: Figurative Meaning:

15. Figurative Devices Simile: Comparison using “like” or “as”. Metaphor: Comparison without using “like” or “as”. Such devices make up... Verse: a single metrical line of poetry, or poetry in general (as opposed to prose) Stanza: two or more lines organized to form the divisions of a poem

16. Stanza: two or more lines organized to form the divisions of a poem

17. Haiku Haiku grew from an early writing game in which the first three lines of a poem were written by one person. A second person wrote the closing two lines. The great Japanese writer, Basho (1644-94) grew tired of this game. He felt that the first three lines could stand alone. In that way, haiku was born.

18. Issa 1811 春雨に大欠する美人哉 harusameniôakubisurubijinkanain the spring rain
a big yawn...
pretty woman