Poetry

This type of literature expresses ideas, feelings or tells a story in a specific form (usually using lines and stanzas). Point of view is important in poetry. The poet is the author of the poem. The speaker of the poem is the ‘narrator’ of the poem.

Poetry form

Form: this is the appearance of the words on the page. Line: a group of words together on one line of the poem. Stanza: a group of lines arranged together. Kinds of stanzas • Couplet = a two-line stanza • Triplet = a three-line stanza • Quatrain = a four-line stanza • Quintet = a five-line stanza • Sestet = a six-line stanza • Septet = a seven-line stanza • Octave = an eight-line stanza

Poetic language

• Rhythm: This is the beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem. Rhythm can be created by meter, rhyme, alliteration and refrain. • Meter: This is a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Meter occurs when the stressed and unstressed syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern. When poets write in meter, they count out the number of strong (stressed) syllables and weak (unstressed) syllables for each line. They repeat the pattern throughout the poem. • Free verse poetry: Unlike metered poetry, free verse poetry does not have any repeating patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. It does not rhyme. Free verse poetry is very conversational. It is a more modern type of poetry. • Rhyme: This refers to words that sound alike because they share the same ending vowel and consonant sounds. Remember a word always sounds like itself. • End rhyme: This refers to word at the end of one line rhyme

with a word at the end of another line. • Internal rhyme: A word inside a line rhymes with another

word on the same line. • Near rhyme: This is imperfect rhyme, close rhyme. • Rhyme scheme: A rhyme scheme is a pattern (usually at the end of lines, but not always.) The poet uses the letters of the alphabet to be able to visually ‘see’ the pattern. • Refrain: A sound, word, phrase or line repeated regularly in

a poem. • Lyric: This is a short poem. It is usually written in first person point of view. The poem expresses an emotion or an idea or describes a scene. • Haiku: A Japanese poem written in three lines. • Shakespearean sonnet: This is a 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme. The poem is written in three quatrains and ends with a couplet. • Narrative poem: This is a poem that tells a story. These types of poems are generally longer than the lyric styles of poetry because the poet needs to establish characters and a plot.

Figurative language

• Simile: This is a comparison of two things using ‘like’, ‘as’ or ‘than’, e.g “She is as beautiful as a sunrise” • Metaphor: This is a direct comparison of two unlike things. “All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.” – William Shakespeare • Alliteration: the use of the same consonant sound at the

beginning of each stressed syllable in a line of verse. • Assonance: takes place when two or more words close to one another repeat the same vowel sound but start with different consonant sounds. • Hyperbole: Exaggeration often used for emphasis. • Idiom: This is an expression where the literal meaning of the words is not the meaning of the expression. It means something other than what is actually says, e.g. it’s raining cats and dogs. • Personification: An animal given human-like qualities or an

object given living qualities. • Symbolism: When a person, place, thing or event that has meaning in itself also represents or stands for something else. • Allusion: Allusion comes from the verb ‘allude’ which means

to refer to. • Imagery: This is poetic language that appeals to the senses. Most images are visual, but they can also appeal to the senses of sound, touch, taste and smell, e.g. ‘then with cracked hands that ached from labour in the weekday weather..’( from ‘Those Winter Sundays’)

• Onomatopoeia: This is words that imitate the sound they are naming, e.g. buzz.