The Elements of Poetry

1. The Elements of Poetry Poetry is hard to define. Even poets argue among themselves about what makes a poem a poem. There are some common characteristics, however, that we can use to help us differentiate between poetry and prose. (1) It should look like a poem, meaning that lines don’t run to the margins. Some lines are not even sentences. (2) There are usually some musical devices that give the poem a song-like, lyrical quality. (3) Images are conveyed through sensory details and figurative language. (4) The poem has some form to hold it together. Some poems actually have a prescribed form like haikus and sonnets. (5) The poem has some meaning, image or emotion it wants to share with the reader. That makes a poem!

2. To critically analyze a poem, we must look at its elements and see what they are doing to the poem. Then we can infer a meaning to it. The following slides will take us through the elements so that we can recognize them, and then we will try to put it all together and analyze the meaning of the poem.

3. Imagery • Imagery is the senses the poem evokes in the reader. Imagery puts the reader in the poem. It helps the reader to “see” the poem. • The tools of imagery are • Senses : sound, sight, touch, smell, taste, and emotion. • Figurative language : metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, etc.

4. Sensory details Sensory details touch the five senses. They make the poem vivid to the reader. Let’s look at the sensory details in the poem “Those Winter Sundays.”

5. Those Winter Sundays Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? Robert Hayden

6. In “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden has caused us to experience several senses. “…[B]lueblack cold” certainly makes us feel how cold it was. When the father’s hands are described as “cracked hands that ached” we can feel the roughness. He describes the cold “splintering and breaking.” We can hear the trees and ice crack. And then the rooms “were warm” when the boy got up. We know how that feels on a cold day. When the boy fears “the chronic angers of that house” and when he speaks “indifferently to him” we know what emotions the boy is feeling. Hayden has caused us to feel cold, cracked hands and warm rooms. We hear splintering and breaking and feel anger and indifference. These sensory details make the poem come alive to us and help us to feel what the boy felt on those winter Sundays.

7. Figurative Language • Figurative language is words not meant to be taken literally. The words are symbolic. We know these images as metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, and others. Because the poet is comparing a less familiar object to a common one, the comparison makes the familiar image stronger. • The next slides will give examples of each type of image.

8. Metaphor Metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, in which one thing becomes another without the use of the words like, as, than, or resembles.

9. Example: Love is a rose.

10. Simile Simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles. Example: My love is like a red, red rose. - Robert Burns

11. Metaphor/Simile Metaphors and similes compare something in the poem to something familiar outside the poem. Making the connection requires background knowledge for the metaphor/simile to be meaningful to the reader. Look at the metaphors in the poem, “Frost.”

12. Frost How does The plain Transparency Of water Sprout these Lacy fronds And plumes And tendrils? And where, Before window- Panes, did They root Their lush forests, Their cold Silver jungles?

13. The author of this poem compared the frost on a window to the lacy fronds, plumes, and tendrils of a fern. In the last stanza she has expanded the comparison to “crystal forests” and “silver jungles.” Let us picture that in our minds. Can we “see” the frost on the window?

14. Personification Personification is a special kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing is talked about as if it was human (given human characteristics).

15. Example: This poetry gets bored of being alone, It wants to go outdoors to chew on the wings, To fill its commas with the keels of rowboats…. -Hugo Margenat, from”Living Poetry”

16. Personification When an author uses personification, he gives human characteristics to a non-human object. Look at the human characteristics used by Howard Nemerov in his poem “The Vacuum.” Also notice how personification reveals the speaker’s attitude toward housekeeping.

17. The Vacuum The house is quiet now The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet, Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth Grinning into the floor, maybe at my Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth. I’ve lived this way long enough, But when my old woman died her soul Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can’t bear To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust And the woolen mice, and begin to howl Because there is old filth everywhere She used to crawl, in corner and under the stair. I know now how life is cheap as dirt, And still the hungry, angry heart Hangs on and howls, biting at air.

18. Hyperbole/ Exaggeration The poet uses hyperbole to overstate something to reveal the truth. In a poem called “Sow” Sylvia Plath describes how much the sow eats. She writes, “Of kitchen slops and, stomaching no constraint,/ Proceeded to swill/ The seven seas and every earthquaking continent.” How much did the sow eat?

19. Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the use of a word or words whose sound imitates its meaning. Examples: crackle, pop, fizz, click, chirp

20. Onomatopoeia We are familiar with onomatopoeia even if we don’t understand the word. When two cars collide, what sound do they make? Crash! That is onomatopoeia – words that make the sound they are imitating. Here is a poem by Eve Merriam appropriately titled “Onomatopoeia.” See how many sounds are heard.

21. Onomatopoeia The rusty spigot sputter, utters a sputter, spatters a smattering of drops, gashes wider; slash, splatters, scatters, spurts, finally stops sputtering and plash! gushes rushes splashes clear water dashes.

22. Symbolism Symbolism is when a person, place, thing or idea stands for itself and for something else. Example: Use of the bald eagle to represent the United States.

23. Understatement • Understatement - basically the opposite of hyperbole. Often it is ironic. • Ex. Calling a slow moving person “Speedy” • Ex. Yao Ming is slightly taller than Ms. Marinucci.

24. Idiom • An expression where the literal meaning of the words is not the meaning of the expression. It means something other than what it actually says. • Ex. It’s raining cats and dogs.

25. Allusion comes from the verb “allude” which means “to refer to” An allusion is a reference to something famous. A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave, And to our own his name we gave. From “Snowbound” John Greenleaf Whittier Allusion

26. Alliteration Alliteration is the use of similar sounds at the beginning of a word.

27. Music The poet uses musical devices to make the poem song-like. In fact, some poems are/were songs. The musical devices we will discuss, and be responsible for, are assonance (which is similar to alliteration), onomatopoeia, rhythm, rhyme, repetition, and pause.

28. Assonance - Assonance is the use of similar vowel sounds within a word.

29. Rhythm Rhythm is the beat of a poem. It is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. There are several rhythm patterns in poetry which we will not go into in this presentation which will be shown later. Let’s look at the following poem and see if we can identify the pattern of stressed and unstressed beats.

30. Counting-Out Rhyme Silver bark of beech , and sallow Bark of yellow birch and yellow Twig of willow. Stripe of green in moosewood maple, Colour seen in leaf of apples, Bark of popple. Wood of popple pale as moonbeam, Wood of oak for yoke and bran-beam, Wood of hornbeam. Silver bark of beech, and hollow Stem of elder, tall and yellow Twig of willow. -Edna St. Vincent Millay

31. Rhyme Exact rhyme are words that have the exact same-sounding ending, like cat and hat A rhymescheme is the pattern of rhyming words. Look at the following poem and identify the rhyme scheme.

32. Reapers Jean Toomer Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His belly close to ground, I see the blade, Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.

33. END RHYME • A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line • Hector the Collector • Collected bits of string. • Collected dolls with broken heads • And rusty bells that would not ring.

34. INTERNAL RHYME • A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line. • Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary. • From “The Raven” • by Edgar Allan Poe

35. a.k.a imperfect rhyme, close rhyme The words share EITHER the same vowel or consonant sound BUT NOT BOTH ROSE LOSE Different vowel sounds (long “o” and “oo” sound) Share the same consonant sound NEAR RHYME

36. Rhyme Scheme • Having a certain rhyme scheme also is a way to give structure to poetry. • Look at the example first and letter it • Look at the rhyme scheme in the poem “Cross” by Langston Hughes. See how it holds the poem together. Also notice the use of stanzas. Why did Hughes put these words in the stanza?

37. SAMPLE RHYME SCHEME • 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. a a b b c c a a

38. CrossLangston Hughes My old man’s a white old man And my old mother’s black. If ever I cursed my white old man I take my curses back. If ever I cursed my black old mother And wished she were in hell, I’m sorry for that evil wish And now I wish her well. My old man died in a fine big house. My ma died in a shack. I wonder where I’m gonna die Being neither white or black?

39. Letters Repetitive initial consonant sounds in a poem are called alliteration. Repetition of other consonant sounds is called consonance. Repetitive vowel sounds are called assonance. The following poem has many examples of each. See how many you can find. Also notice what other element of poetry you can find.

40. Fueledby Marcie Hans Fueled by a million man-made wings of fire – the rocket tore a tunnel through the sky – and everybody cheered, Fueled only by a thought from God – the seedling urged its way through the thickness of black – and as it pierced the ceiling of the soil – and launched itself up into outer space – no one even clapped.

41. Repetition • Poems also create music through the repetition of words and lines. • Look at the poem “One Perfect Rose” by Dorothy Parker. One line is repeated three times. Notice how the meaning of the line changes by the third repetition.

42. One Perfect Roseby Dorothy Parker A single flow’r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure with scented dew still wet – One perfect rose. I knew the language of the flowerlet; “My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.” Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get One perfect rose.

43. Form • Form is the structure of the poem. Any type of writing must have something to hold it together. The structure can be created through many means: meter, stanza, rhyme scheme, or set patterns of poetry like sonnet, haiku , concrete, and others.

44. Iambic Foot An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable .

45. Example: We could write the rhythm like this: da DUM

46. Meter Meter is the pattern of rhythm established for a verse.

47. Rhythm Rhythm is the actual sound that results from a line of poetry.

48. Iambic Pentameter Iambic Pentameter is a lineof poetry with five iambic feet in a row This is the most common meter in English poetry.

49. Example: We could write the rhythm like this: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM We can notate this with a ˘ mark representing an unstressed syllable and a '/' mark representing a stressed syllable

50. Example Continued: The following line from John Keats' Ode to Autumn is a straightforward example: ˘/˘/˘/˘/ ˘ To swell the gourd, and plump the ha - zel / shells