Poetry

1. Poetry

2. What is poetry? • Type of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery to appeal to the reader’s emotions & imagination. • Two major types: 1. Lyric poems 2. Narrative poems

3. NARRATIVE POEMS: Poems that tell a story. Examples are epics & ballads. LYRIC POEMS: Poems that do not tell a story, but is aimed at expressing a speaker’s emotions or thoughts. Major type of lyric poem is the sonnet. What is the difference between lyric & narrative poems?

4. What are ballads? • SONGS which tell stories of tragedy or adventure. • Use simple language & lots of repetition. • Usually have a regular rhythm & rhyme scheme, which makes them easy to memorize.

5. What is a sonnet? • 14 line lyric poem. • Iambic pentameter: rhythm of natural language. - iamb: unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one (ex: before). - pentameter: 5 stressed syllables, or beats, in each line. • Follows a regular rhyme pattern.

6. How important is imagery to poetry? • Imagery: language that appeals to the senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, & taste). • Imagery is present in all poems. • It shapes how we interpret a poem by influencing our feelings about it. • Images may be pleasant/ unpleasant.

7. Is there only one way to rhyme? • Rhyme: the repetition of accented vowel sounds, & all sounds following them, in words that are close together in a poem. • End rhymes: occur at the ends of lines. • Internal rhymes: occur in the middle of a line. • Approximate rhymes: 2 words have a sound in common but do not necessarily rhyme.

8. How do rhyme & rhythm shape poems? • Rhyme scheme, the pattern of end rhymes in a poem, defines the shape of a poem. • Rhythm is a musical quality based on repetition. • Meter is a regular pattern of stressed & unstressed syllables in each line of poetry.

9. Do poems have to rhyme? • Free verse is poetry which does not follow regular rhyme & meter patterns. • Rhythm is create through repeated words or lines. • Language sounds ordinary.

10. Whose poem is it? • The voice talking to us in a poem is the speaker. • Not necessarily the poet; it can be anyone or anything. • Speaker impacts tone, the attitude expressed toward its subject or audience. • The speaker’s tone & style of speaking create the speaker’s voice. • All of these are the keys to determining a poem’s meaning.