“Poetry is when an emotion has found its

thought and the thought has found

words.”-Robert Frost

POETRY

Angelyn E. Lingatong
MAED – English
English 207 -Literary Criticism
Prof. Cristopher Mendoza
 Poetry

Introduction:

Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is an art form in which human

language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and

semantic content. It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a

manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose.

It may use condensed or compressed form to convey emotion or ideas to the

reader's or listener's mind or ear; it may also use devices such as assonance and repetition

to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poems frequently rely for their effect on imagery,

word association, and the musical qualities of the language used. The interactive layering of

all these effects to generate meaning is what marks poetry.

Because of its nature of emphasizing linguistic form rather than using language

purely for its content, poetry is notoriously difficult to translate from one language into

another: a possible exception to this might be the Hebrew Psalms, where the beauty is

found more in the balance of ideas than in specific vocabulary. In most poetry, it is the

connotations and the "baggage" that words carry (the weight of words) that are most

important. These shades and nuances of meaning can be difficult to interpret and can cause

different readers to "hear" a particular piece of poetry differently. While there are

reasonable interpretations, there can never be a definitive interpretation.

Many people are intimidated by the mention of the word “poetry.” It is often

perceived as something that is cryptic and beyond understanding. But there are some pieces

of information that can help us to grasp poetry whether we are just starting to learn about

analyzing poetry or trying to find our own poetic voice.

Poetry has often reflected the voice of the time. Meaning, subject matter and

language choices may change with whatever is considered an everyday concern in the

current society’s expectations. Not many contemporary poems will use the same language
as Shakespeare, but that does not mean that they are any less valid and likewise, poetry that

lasts through the transition of time still resonates with the reader in some way.

History of poetry

Poetry as an art form predates literacy. In preliterate societies, poetry was

frequently employed as a means of recording oral history, storytelling (epic poetry),

genealogy, law and other forms of expression or knowledge that modern societies might

expect to be handled in prose. The Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic which includes poetry, was

probably written in the 3rd century BCE in a language described by William Jones as "more

perfect than Latin, more copious than Greek and more exquisitely refined than either."

Poetry is also often closely identified with liturgy in these societies, as the formal nature of

poetry makes it easier to remember priestly incantations or prophecies. The greater part of

the world's sacred scriptures are made up of poetry rather than prose.

The use of verse to transmit cultural information continues today. Many English

speaking–Americans know that "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". An alphabet

song teaches the names and order of the letters of the alphabet; another jingle states the

lengths and names of the months in the Gregorian calendar. Preliterate societies, lacking the

means to write down important cultural information, use similar methods to preserve it.

Some writers believe that poetry has its origins in song. Most of the characteristics

that distinguish it from other forms of utterance—rhythm, rhyme, compression, intensity of

feeling, the use of refrains—appear to have come about from efforts to fit words to musical

forms. However, in the European tradition the earliest surviving poems, the Homeric and

Hesiodic epics, identify themselves as poems to be recited or chanted to a musical

accompaniment rather than as pure song. Another interpretation, developed from 20th-

century studies of living Montenegran epic reciters by Milman Parry and others, is that

rhythm, refrains, and kennings are essentially paratactic devices that enable the reciter to

reconstruct the poem from memory.

 In preliterate societies, all these forms of poetry were composed for, and sometimes

during, performance. As such, there was a certain degree of fluidity to the exact wording of

poems, given this could change from one performance or performer to another. The

introduction of writing tended to fix the content of a poem to the version that happened to

be written down and survive. Written composition also meant that poets began to compose

not for an audience that was sitting in front of them but for an absent reader. Later, the

invention of printing tended to accelerate these trends. Poets were now writing more for

the eye than for the ear.

The development of literacy gave rise to more personal, shorter poems intended to

be sung. These are called lyrics, which derives from the Greek lura or lyre, the instrument

that was used to accompany the performance of Greek lyrics from about the seventh

century BCE onward. The Greek's practice of singing hymns in large choruses gave rise in the

sixth century BCE to dramatic verse, and to the practice of writing poetic plays for

performance in their theatres.

In more recent times, the introduction of electronic media and the rise of the poetry

reading have led to a resurgence of performance poetry and have resulted in a situation

where poetry for the eye and poetry for the ear coexist, sometimes in the same poem. The

late 20th-century rise of the singer-songwriter and Rap culture and the increase in

popularity of Slam poetry have led to a renewed debate as to the nature of poetry that can

be crudely characterized as a split between the academic and popular views. As of 2005, this

debate is ongoing with no immediate prospect of a resolution.

Love poems proliferate now, in weblogs and personal pages, as a new way of

expression and liberty of hearts, "I have won many female relations with this valid resource",

has said a contemporaneous writer called Federic P. Sabeloteur.

1.1. Characteristics of Forms of Poetry

1- Acrostic – a poem in which the first letter of each word forms a word – usually a name – if

read downward.

Example: “A Rock Acrostic” by Avis Harley.

2- Couplet – two lines of poetry that rhyme and usually form one complete idea.

Example: The poem “Catch a Little Rhyme” by Eve Merriam is written in couplets.

3- Haiku - a Japanese three-line poetic form – usually about nature – with lines of three,

seven, and five syllables, respectively.

Example:

I call to my love

on mornings ripe with sunlight.

The songbirds answer.

4- Quatrain – a stanza made up of four lines, often containing a rhyme scheme.

Example: “The Toaster” by William Jay Smith.

5- Cinquain – a five-line untitled poem, where the syllable pattern increases by two for each

line, except for the last line, which ends in two syllables (2,4,6,8.2).

Example: The cinquain that begins with “Oh, cat” by Paul B. Janeczko.

6- Limerick – a humorous rhyming poem written in five lines and having a particular meter. It

often begins with “There once was a…”

Example: Limericks by Edward Lear.

7- Sonnet – a poem that is 14 lines long, generally written in iambic pentameter.

Example: “Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare.

8- Free Verse – a poem that does not follow a predictable form or rhyme scheme or metric

pattern.

Example: “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes.

9- List or Catalog Poem – a poem in the form of a list, that uses sensory details and precise

language to persuade the reader to take notice of what is being listed.

 Example: “Things To Do If You Are a Subway” by Robbi Katz.

10- Villanelle – a challenging poetic form that includes five tercets (aba rhyme) followed by a

quatrain (abaa rhyme) and a pattern of repetition of lines 1 and 3 of the first stanza.

Example: “Is There a Villain in Your Villanelle?” by Joan Bransfield Graham.

11- Ode – a poem that celebrates or praises something.

Example: “Ode to Pablo‟s Tennis Shoes” by Gary Soto.

12- Lyric Poetry – poetry that expresses a poet‟s personal experience, feelings, and

emotions.

Example: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth.

13- Blank Verse – a poem written in iambic pentameter, but with no rhyme.

Example: Verses in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

14- Blues Poem – poems that – like blues songs – deal with personal or world issues.

Example: “Evening Air Blues” by Langston Hughes.

15- Nonsense Poem – a fun, usually rhyming poem that makes no sense, focusing instead on

the sounds and the rhythm of the poem.

Example: “The Jumblies” by Edward Lear.

16- Concrete Poem – a poem that uses words to form the shape of the subject of the poem

(also known as a “shape poem”).

Example: “Concrete Cat” by Dorth Charles.

17- Narrative Poem – a poem that tells a story.

Example: “The Sneetches” by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel).

18- Ballad – a poem that tells a story, usually written in four-line stanzas.

Example: “The Wreck of the Hesperus” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

19- Epic Poem – a long and heroic narrative poem.

Example: “The Odyssey” by Homer.

20- Imagist Poetry – poems that contain precise visual images.

Example: “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams.

21. Metaphysical Poetry – The word “metaphysical” describes the lyric poems of certain

seventeenth- century men – Donne, Marvell, Herbert, and others – who , like the poet-

psychologist, were fond of writing highly intellectual and philosophical verses on the nature

of thought and feeling. Their work which also concerns ethics, religion, and love, blends

emotion with intellectual ingenuity in a manner that modern readers often find farfetched if

not downright obscure. To illustrate, here is a short poem by Richard Crashaw about “infant

martyrs” an allusion that Crawshaw’s biblically literate audience would instantly have

understood even without benefit of footnote:

Upon the Infant Martyrs

To see both blended in one flood,

The mothers’ milk, the children’s blood,

Make me doubt if heaven will gather

Roses hence or lilies rather.

22. Elegy - An elegy is a mournful, melancholy or plaintive poem, especially a lament for the

dead or a funeral song. The term "elegy," which originally denoted a type of poetic meter

(elegiac meter), commonly describes a poem of mourning. An elegy may also reflect

something that seems to the author to be strange or mysterious. The elegy, as a reflection

on a death, on a sorrow more generally, or on something mysterious, may be classified as a

form of lyric poetry.

1.2 Forms and Structure of Poetry

1.2.a. Forms of Poetry

Poetic form is more flexible in modernist and post-modernist poetry and continues

to be less structured than in previous literary eras. Many modern poets eschew recognizable
structures or forms and write in free verse. But poetry remains distinguished from prose by

its form; some regard for basic formal structures of poetry will be found in even the best

free verse, however much such structures may appear to have been ignored. Similarly, in the

best poetry written in classic styles there will be departures from strict form for emphasis or

effect.

Among major structural elements used in poetry are the line, the stanza or verse

paragraph, and larger combinations of stanzas or lines such as cantos. Also sometimes used

are broader visual presentations of words and calligraphy. These basic units of poetic form

are often combined into larger structures, called poetic forms or poetic modes .

Lines and stanzas

Poetry is often separated into lines on a page, in a process known as lineation. These

lines may be based on the number of metrical feet or may emphasize a rhyming pattern at

the ends of lines. Lines may serve other functions, particularly where the poem is not written

in a formal metrical pattern. Lines can separate, compare or contrast thoughts expressed in

different units, or can highlight a change in tone.

Lines of poems are often organized into stanzas, which are denominated by the

number of lines included. Thus a collection of two lines is a couplet (or distich), three lines a

triplet (or tercet), four lines a quatrain, and so on. These lines may or may not relate to each

other by rhyme or rhythm. For example, a couplet may be two lines with identical meters

which rhyme or two lines held together by a common meter alone.

Most often when writing about something we have read, we break things down into

sentences, paragraphs or chapters. In poetry, the units we refer to will be lines and stanzas.

Some stanzas are a set number of lines long, and when this happens, we have the option of

being even more particular about the way we reference them in our writing, and this can

also help us to vary our wording and keep our audience engaged. Here are some of the

terms (or units) we will encounter most often with a brief explanation of each:
  Couplet – a pair of consecutive lines that typically rhyme though they do not have

to.

 Tercet- a three line stanza or poem. They often rhyme. A haiku is an example of a

type of poem that is a Tercet.

 Quatrain- a four line stanza or poem. If the poem has a rhyme scheme, alternate

lines will rhyme.

 Stanza – lines of poetry that are grouped as a unit and offset from other lines with a

space.

Other poems may be organized into verse paragraphs, in which regular rhymes with

established rhythms are not used, but the poetic tone is instead established by a collection

of rhythms, alliterations, and rhymes established in paragraph form.

1.2.b. STRUCTURE

1- Poetic Line – the words that form a single line of poetry.

Example: “„Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house” is the

well-known first poetic line of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore.

2- Stanza – a section of a poem named for the number of lines it contains. Example: A

couplet is a stanza of two lines.

The first stanza from “Barbara Frietchie” by John Greenleaf Wittier is a couplet:

Up from the meadows rich with corn,

Clear in the cool September morn,

3- Enjambment – when there is no written or natural pause at the end of a poetic line, so

that the word-flow carries over to the next line.

Example: the following lines from “Knoxville, Tennessee” by Nikki Giovanni contain

enjambment:

and listen to

gospel music
 outside

at the church

homecoming

4- Placement – the way words and poetic lines are placed on the page of a poem.

Example: The following are creatively-placed lines from a poem by E.E. Cummings:

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame ballonman

whistles far and wee

5- Verse – a line in traditional poetry that is written in meter.

Example:

In “When I do count the clock that tells the time” from Shakespeare‟s “Sonnet Number

Twelve,” the underlined syllables are accented, giving the line a metric pattern known as an

iambic pentameter .

6- Capitalization and Punctuation – In poetry, rules of capitalization and punctuation are not

always followed; instead, they are at the service of the poet‟s artistic vision.

Example:

in our backyard

we plant

tomatoes

is the first stanza from “Laughing Tomatoes” by Francisco X. Alarcón. Notice the lack of

capitalization and punctuation.

1.3. Imagery and Figurative Language of Poetry

1.3.a. Imagery

It is the concrete representation of a sense impression, feeling, or idea that triggers

our imaginative ere-enactment of a sensory experience. Images may be visual (something

seen), aural (something heard), tactile (something felt), olfactory (something smelled), or

gustatory (something tasted). Imagery may also refer to a pattern of related details in a

poem. Under imagery there are two kinds:

1. Precise Language – the use of specific words to describe a person, place, thing, or action.

Example: Notice how Paul B. Janeczko uses proper nouns in his poem “Reverend Mona”:

When the elders said she was too old,

Reverend Mona

surrendered her tabernacle

next to Fast Frankie‟s Pawn Shop

2. Sensory Details – the use of descriptive details that appeal to one or more of the five

senses.

Example: Notice the sensory details in the following lines from “The Sea” by James Reeves:

The giant sea dog moans,

Licking his greasy paws.

1.3.b. Figurative Language Used in Poetry

Figurative language is a form of language use in which the writers and speakers mean

something other than the literal meaning of their words

[Link] – a comparison of two unlike things, using the words like or as.

Example: “I read the shoreline like an open volume.”

2. Metaphor – a comparison of two unlike things, not using the words like or as.

Example: “Ribbons of sea foam / wrap the emerald island.”

3. Personification – to ascribe human traits to non-human or non-living things.

 Example: “The unfurled sailboat glides on / urged by wind and will and brilliant

bliss.”

4. Symbolism – a person, place, thing, or action that stands for something else.

Example: In “From Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes, a set of stairs symbolizes

life.

5- Hyperbole – the use of exaggeration to express strong emotion or create

a comical effect.

Example: “I‟m so hungry I could eat a hippo.”

6. Verbal Irony or Sarcasm – when you mean the opposite of what you say.

Example:

“My darling brother is the sweetest boy on Earth,” she muttered sarcastically.

7. Situational Irony – when the outcome of a situation is the opposite of what is expected.

Example:

After many years of trying, Mr. Smith won the lottery -- and immediately died of a heart

attack.

8. Pun – a humorous phrase that plays with the double meaning or the similar sounds of

words.

Examples:

“Tomorrow you shall find me a grave man,” said the duke on his deathbed. The cookbook

Lunch on the Run by Sam Witch is awesome.

9. Allusion- a reference to a familiar person, place, or event.

Example:

The following two lines from the poem “My Muse” contain an allusion to Pandora‟s Box:

hunched over from carrying

 that old familiar Box

10. Idiom - a cultural expression that cannot be taken literally.

Examples: She is the apple of his eye. He drives me up the wall.

1.4. Prosody and Sound Devices

Prosody is the study of meter, rhythm and intonation of a poem. Rhythm and meter

are different although closely related. Meter is the definitive pattern established for a verse,

while rhythm is the actual sound that results from a line of poetry. Prosody also may be used

more specifically to refer to the scanning of poetic lines to show meter.

1. Rhythm – the basic beat in a line of a poem.

Example:

“Whose woods these are, I think I know” is the first line from “Stopping by Woods on a

Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Notice that the accented words (underlined) give the line a

distinctive beat.

2- Meter – a pattern of stressed and unstressed (accented and unaccented) syllables (known

as a foot) in a line of poetry.

Example: In an iambic pentameter, the pattern is five iambic (unaccented + accented) feet in

each line.

Patterns of rhythm in poetry are based on meter, a word synonymous with

“measure”. Using the poetic foot as the unit of measurement, the meter of any line of

poetry can be analyzed according to the number and arrangement of its stressed and

unstressed syllables. Poetic feet may consist of two syllables (disyllabic or three syllables

(trisyllabic), and have names based on the order in which the syllables appear.

Kinds of Poetic Feet

 In analyzing meter, a vertical slash ( / ) is used to separate poetic feet. A ( ∪)

represents an unstressed syllable, and a (-) stands for stressed syllable.

 iamb – one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (e.g. des-cribe, in-

clude, re-tract)

 trochee—one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (e.g. pic-ture,

flow-er)

 dactyl – one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (e.g. an-no-tate,

sim-i-lar)

 anapaest—two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable (e.g. com-pre-

hend)

 spondee—two stressed syllables together (e.g. heart-beat, four-teen)

 pyrrhic—two unstressed syllables together (rare, usually used to end dactylic

hexameter)

Sound Devices

It is a strategy to create an emotional response by the listener that was used by the

poet. Sound devices are special tools the poet can use to create a certain effects in the

poems to convey and reinforce meaning through sound. The most common sound devices

are the following:

 Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar concluding syllables in different

words, most often at the ends of lines. Rhyme is predominantly a function of sound

rather than spelling; thus, words that end with the same vowel sounds rhyme, for

instance, day, prey, bouquet, weigh, and words with the same consonant ending

rhyme, for instance vain, rein, lane. The kinds of rhyme are:

1. End Rhyme – same or similar sounds at the end of words that finish different

lines.
 Example: The following are the first two rhyming lines from “The King of Cats Sends

a Postcard to His Wife” by Nancy Willard:

Keep your whiskers crisp and clean,

Do not let the mice grow lean,

2. Internal Rhyme – same or similar sounds at the end of words within a line.

Example: A line showing internal rhyme (underlined) from “The Rabbit” by Elizabeth Maddox

Roberts: When they said the time to hide was mine,

 Rhyming Scheme - The rhyme scheme of a poem, describes the pattern of end

rhymes. Rhyme schemes are mapped out by noting patterns of rhyme with small

letters: the first rhyme sound is designated a, the second becomes b, the third c, and

so on.

 Alliteration - a repetition of the same consonant sounds in a sequence of words,

usually at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable: “descending dew drops;”

“luscious lemons.” Alliteration is based on the sounds of letters, rather than the

spelling of words; for example, “keen” and “car” alliterate, but “car” and “cite” do

not.
 Assonance – the repetition of vowel sounds within words in a line.

Example: A line showing assonance (underlined) from “A Visit from Saint Nicholas”

by Clement Clarke Moore:

The children were nestled all snug in their beds

 Consonance – the repetition of consonant sounds within words in a line.

Example: A line showing consonance (underlined) from “A Visit from Saint Nicholas”

by Clement Clarke Moore: Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

 Alliteration – the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.

Example: Notice the alliteration (underlined) in “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would

Not Take the Garbage Out” by Shel Silverstein.

 Onomatopoeia – words that sound like their meaning.

Example: buzz, swish, hiss, gulp.

 Repetition – sounds, words, or phrases that are repeated to add emphasis or create

rhythm. Parallelism is a form of repetition.

Examples: Two lines from “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll showing parallelism:

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Read the poem “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe and listen to the way the repetition of

the word “bells” adds rhythm and creates an increasingly ominous and morbid

mood.
  Refrain – a line or stanza repeated over and over in a poem or song.

Example: In “Jingle Bells,” the following refrain is repeated after every stanza:

Jingle Bells, jingle bells,

Jingle all the way!

Oh, what fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh!

 Word Play – to play with the sounds and meanings of real or invented words.

Example: Two lines from the poem “Synonyms” by Susan Moger:

Claptrap, bombast, rodomontade,

Hogwash, jargon, and rant

Two lines from the poem “Antonio” by Laura E. Richards:

Antonio, Antonio,

Was tired of living alonio.

Strategies for Reading Poetry

Many students in Senior Highschool abhor poetry. So, as a teacher in 21 st Century

Literature it is a must to find a way to help the students appreciate and love poetry. In

order for that to happen, we need to love and appreciate first the beauty and mystery of

poetry. Since the poem’s hidden meaning do not present it self easily, I need to master

reading and interpreting poem for myself in order to help out my students, since it is one of

the highest form of literature.

Ideally poems should be read aloud since it is after all, is an oral art akin to music. Its

sounds, rhythm and rhyme are meant to be heard. Easier said than done, right?
 So, I suggest these tips in teaching poetry based on my personal experience. Before

you let your students read and interpret/analyze a poem. You have to discuss and explain

to them what is poetry and its elements and how are they different from the other types of

literature that they have encountered so far, how does figurative language and sound

devices are used in a poem. then start building their vocabulary of the students, presenting

the authors and their poetic styles and historical timeline and background.

Reading poetry and studying it is alike a skill like any other, and the more you

practice, the better you’ll get. Here are some practices that I adopt in teaching poetry:

1. Let the student read the title first and let them speculate on what the poem might be

about.

2. Read and reread the poem several times to unlock its meaning.

3. Ask the generic questions along with the discussion o0f the poem:

a. Who is talking in the poem?

b. To whom is the speaker talking?

c. What is the dramatic context of the poem?

d. What happen during the poem was written?

e. What motivate the speaker now, in the tone ne/she uses?

f. How does the language of the poem contribute to its meaning?

g. How is the poem organized?

h. Do patterns of rhyme and rhythm contribute to the meaning and effect of the

poem?

i. What does the poem organized?

j. What was your initial response to the poem?

4. Using graphics organizers.

5. Word hunt for vocabulary.

6. Finding word origins.

7. Giving opinions.

8. Using the senses for interpretation.

[Link] it to a popular song, life experiences and emotions.

10. Associate it with images and illustration.

Strengths and Challenges of Students Experience in Understanding Poetry.

Well for my student’s strengths in understanding poetry are the things that can help

them relate to the poem like music, personal experiences, their passion in life and emotions

that they have. Since most of them are visual and auditory learners. I have to use strategies

based on viewing, reading and listening. And to help them develop their other macro skills:

writing and speaking.

As for challenges, it was more of a generation gap between modern poetry from

classical poetry. Since modern poetry are based on emotional experiences like spoken word

poetry influenced by social media.

Browsing the internet to answer reading analysis of poem hinder their growth in

comprehending in comprehending the poems that we are discussing. But rather that being

discourage about the outcome. I tried to incorporate technology in making poems. Like

posting their poems in social media like twitter or Facebook, design posters with the poems

they make using adobe photoshop and some ICT skills can really make wonders. As for

discussions I need to coax them more by associating the present to the past somewhat

projecting the future.