Elements of Poetry: Structure and Forms

Elements of Poetry:Structure and Forms

Let’s start with some basics… po·et·ry(n) writing chosen and arranged to create a certain emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm prose(n) everything else! ordinary language that people use when they speak or write

Lines • May be short or long. • Are NOT necessarily complete sentences or even complete thoughts! • The arrangement of lines, spacing, and whether or not the lines rhyme in some manner, can define the FORM of a poem.

Stanza • A group of lines whose rhyme scheme is usually followed throughout the poem. • A division in poetry like a paragraph in prose. • Common stanza patterns include couplets, triplets, quatrains, etc. • Free-verse poems follow no rules regarding where to divide stanzas.

And now several forms of poetry…

Couplet • Two lines that rhyme. • A complete idea is usually expressed in a couplet, or in a long poem made up of many couplets. • Couplets may be humorous or serious.

Couplet continued… Example: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end. Shakespeare Chocolate candy is sweet and yummy It goes down smoothly in my tummy! Unknown

Couplet continued… Twinkle, twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are, Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky.

Narrative Poems • Tell a story. It is a story told in verse, by a speaker or narrator. • There is a plot … something happens; because of this, something else happens. • Can be true or fictional. • Poems vary in treatment of character and setting. • Forms of narrative poetry include: • ballad • epic

Narrative Poems: Ballad • A narrative, rhyming poem or song. • Characterized by short stanzas and simple words, usually telling a heroic and/or tragic story (although some are humorous). • Can be long. • Usually rich with imagery(emotionally charged visual images). • Originated from folk songs that told exciting or dramatic stories.

Ballad continued… Example from John Henry, a traditional American ballad in ten stanzas. When John Henry was a tiny little baby Sitting on his mama’s knee, He picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel Saying, “Hammer’s going to be the death of me, Lord, Lord, Hammer’s going to be the death of me.” John Henry was a man just six feet high. Nearly two feet and a half across his chest. He’d hammer with a nine-pound hammer all day And never get tired and want to rest. Lord, Lord, And never get tired and want to rest.

Ballad continued… Example from The Unquiet Grave. (an old ballad that would have been sung to an eerily catchy tune) The wind doth blow today, my love, And a few small drops of rain. I never had but one true-love, In cold grave she was lain. I’ll do as much for my true-love As any young man may. I’ll sit and mourn all at her grave For a twelvemonth and a day.

Narrative Poems: Epic • Very long narrative (story) poem that tells of the adventures of a hero. • Purpose is to help the reader understand the past and be inspired to choose good over evil. • Usually focuses on the heroism of one person who is a symbol of strength, virtue, and courage in the face of conflict.

Narrative Poems: Epiccontinued • Some are VERY long – for example, The Odyssey by Homer, (written as 12 books) has over 6,213 lines in the first half alone!

Lyric Poetry • Always expresses some emotion. • Poems are shorter than epic poems. • Tend to express the personal feelings of one speaker (often the poet). • Give you a feeling that they could be sung.

Lyric Poetry continued… • Originally Greek poets sang or recited poems accompanied by music played on a lyre(a stringed instrument like a small harp). • In the Renaissance, poems were accompanied by a lute(like a guitar).

Lyric Poetry: Sonnet • Most sonnets are in a fixed form of 14 lines of 10 syllables, usually written in iambic pentameter. • The theme of the poem is summed up in the last two lines. (English sonnet) • Can be about any subject, but usually are about love and/or philosophy.

Other sonnet info

Lyric Poetry: Sonnet continued… Example from Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Lyric Poetry: Ode • A tribute to someone or something. • Often uses exalted language in praise or celebration. • Can be serious or humorous.

Lyric Poetry: Ode continued… Example from Ode to Pablo's Tennis Shoes by Gary Soto They wait under Pablo's bed,Rain-beaten, sun-beaten,A scuff of greenAt their tipsFrom when he fell In the school yard.He fell leaping for a footballThat sailed his way.But Pablo fell and got up,Green on his shoes,With the footballOut of reach. Now it's night.Pablo is in bed listeningTo his mother laughingto the Mexican novelas on TV.His shoes, twin petsThat snuggle his toes,Are under the bed.

Elegy • to express grief or mourning for someone who has died • somber, serious, ending on a peaceful note

Elegy example… Elegy for Anne Frank by Jessica Smith You blossomed and grew between the quiet gray walls of your attic home. A sidewalk-surrounded flower pushed up through the cracks, petals straining for the light, but your roots held you down. In the dim light of your room you made family trees, the continuing lives comforting you in ways your mother could not. While concentration camps built bonfires with the bones of your neighbors, you dreamed of the sun and the love you’d find when the doors of your prison were unlocked. When I took your short life from your diary, I could feel your heartbeat pulse with my own, and every breath you took went into my own lungs, every desire you felt, I felt, too. Your life was held by four silent years, surrounding you as the four walls did. And before the last bomb fell, destroying the last of your love and light, you died. And I am thankful.

Sestina • French origin • Stanzas: • 6sestets • 1tercet: anenvoi • Repetition and linking oftalons: • a/b/c/d/e/f • f/a/e/b/d/c • c/f/d/a/b/e • e/c/b/f/a/d • d/e/a/c/f/b • b/d/f/e/c/a • ba/dc/fe • Atmosphereranges from cozy to claustrophobic

"Sestina d'Inverno" by Anthony Hecht Was blessed heaven once, more than an islandThe grand, utopian dream of a noble mind.In that kind climate the mere thought of snowWas but a wedding cake; the youthful natives,Unable to conceive of Rochester,Made love, and were acrobatic in the making. Dream as we may, there is far more to makingDo than some wistful reverie of an island,Especially now when hope lies with the RochesterGas and Electric Co., which doesn't mindSuch profitable weather, while the nativesSink, like Pompeians, under a world of snow. The one thing indisputable here is snow,The single verity of heaven's making,Deeply indifferent to the dreams of the natives,And the torn hoarding-posters of some island.Under our igloo skies the frozen mindHolds to one truth: it is grey, and called Rochester. No island fantasy survives Rochester,Where to the natives destiny is snowThat is neither to our mind nor of our making. Here in this bleak city of Rochester,Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow,"Not all of them polite, the wayward mindBasks in some Yucatan of its own making,Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon islandAlive with lemon tints and burnished natives, And O that we were there. But here the nativesOf this grey, sunless city of RochesterHave sown whole mines of salt about their land(Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snowComes down as if The Flood were in the making.Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind An ark sets forth which is itself the mind,Bound for some pungent green, some shore whose nativesBlend coriander, cayenne, mint in makingRoasts that would gladden the Earl of RochesterWith sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.It might be well to remember that an island

Villanelle • French origin • Originated with round dance • Stanzas and Rhyme • 5 tercets: aba aba aba aba aba • 1 quatrain: abaa • Line Repetition • 1, 6, 12, 18 • 3, 9, 15, 19

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;I lift my lids and all is bornagain.(I think I made you up inside my head.)The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,And arbitrary darkness gallops in:I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.I dreamed that you bewitched me into bedAnd sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.(I think I made you up inside my head.)God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:Exit seraphim and Satan's men:I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.I fancied you'd return the way you said.But I grow old and I forget your name.(I think I made you up inside my head.)I should have loved a thunderbird instead;At least when spring comes they roar back again.I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.(I think I made you up inside my head.) Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

Elements of Poetry: Structure and Forms