Poetic Terms

• Free-verse• Imagery• Simile• Metaphor• Onomatopoeia• Alliteration• Personification

Free-Verse DefinitionWrite in your own words

• Free-verse is poetry that doesn’t have a regular rhythm, line length, or rhyme scheme. It relies on the natural rhythms of speech. Today it is the form of poetry that most American poets prefer. Free-verse poetry invents and follows its own forms, patterns, and rules.

» --Nancy Atwell

Chain Poem

• Create a vertical list of 6-10 words

• Free associate from the word before

• Start with either “window” or “mirror”

• Start at top center of page

• Fill in the blanks around the chain

• Add words before, after, or both

Image Poem Topics

• Quiet poem

• Loud Poem

• Silent Poem

• Winter Poem

• Summer Poem

• Morning Poem

• Night Poem

• Waiting Poem

• Calm Poem

• Anxious Poem

Two Steps for Creating an Image Poem

• First, imagine an image for each sense—hearing, touching, seeing, smelling, and tasting—relating to your topic

• Second, choose the images you want to use for your poem. Remember to turn general images into specific ones

Image Poem Format

• Image 1: ___________________________

• Image 2: ___________________________

• Image 3: ___________________________

• Image 4: ___________________________

And me

____________________________

Image Poem Example

Our Quiet PoemSnake scales slithering against a tree.Rain sprinkling on frosty grass.The sun drifting behind snow capped mountains.Crickets singing in the night.A cool midnight breeze And meImagining it all.

Mrs. Sturgis’ 5th Grade Collaborative Poem

“Where I’m From” Poem

• Multi-stanza free-verse

• Each stanza begins: “I am from. . .”

• Begin by brainstorming items, names, sayings, foods, places to find childhood memories, similes, and metaphors

• Use 11x17 brainstorming sheet

Tritina

• Tritina comes from the Latin for “three”

• Contains three stanzas plus an envoy

• Each stanza has three lines ending with one of three words

• The envoy contains all three words

• These three words are Important!

• Subject is often a person or a memory

Tritina Form

• Stanza 1: ends in word 1

ends in word 2ends in word 3

• Stanza 2: ends in word 3

ends in word 1

ends in word 2 • Stanza 3: ends in word 2

ends in word 3ends in word 1

• Envoy: one line that uses all 3 words.

Revision Strategies

• Alliteration: series starting with same sound• Onomatopoeia: words from their sound• “Begin Inside:” Begin poems “in the midst

of things”• Add a title• Add literary devices such as simile,

metaphor, personification, or sensory imagery

Poem Introduction Page

• Include the title of the poem

• Write a paragraph describing the poem, include: – The poetic form (image, chain, etc.)– What the poem’s about– What inspired it– Devices and revision strategies attempted

Introduction Page Example

“Horses and Rain”

This image poem uses imagery, simile, and alliteration. It is about horses in the rain that I saw when I went for a drive with my family. I was inspired by the colors and shapes of the horses in the wet pasture. In revision, I included similes and alliteration to add depth.

Photopoem Part 1:Interviewing a Picture

• What physical things do you see in the image?• What feelings does the picture evoke?• What colors dominate or seem to represent

feeling?• If you could be in the picture, what sounds would

you hear around you?• What might you hear further away?• What textures could you touch?• What would you smell?• What memories do you connect with the sight,

sounds, and/or smells?

Interview Part 2: If there are people in the picture, select

one of the persons as a focus for this next section. If there is not a person, put a person into the picture. Decide on the person's gender and age.

• What does the person do during the day?• What does the person do in the evening?• Who might be the people significant in this person's life?• What does this person fear?• What does this person enjoy?• What makes the person laugh and cry?• Who and what does she love?• What is this person's voice like?• With what sort of things does the person surround herself or himself?• What is the person looking at?• What just happened?• What is going on in the person's mind at the time of the picture?• What is the person feeling as the picture is being taken?

Interviewing a Picture: Part 3

• What might have been different about the land 10 (100) years ago?

• How might the land be different in the future?

• Who or what has the power to change the face of the land?

Part 4: Interview Becomes a Draft

• From the responses that you have written, choose a dozen or so words or phrases that interest you. Use these as a start to write a poem about the picture. Decide on a point of view. Are you in or out of the picture? Are you in the present or looking back on the past?

I Am PoemI am

Rain, Forests, and SunsetsI like long walks and quiet times

I value honesty, humor, and peaceI find satisfaction in others’ peace of mind

I can be fearsome when my ideas are challengedBut I thrive on intelligent conversation

I love this earth and its animalsI can be counted on to help

I have strong feelings when life is threatenedThis is me. I am!

Lines 1-51. Begin with the words I am.2. Write three nouns about which you have strong

feelings. Begin each with a capital letter.3. Write a complete sentence about two things you

like.4. Begin the sentence with the words I value.

Follow with three nouns that describe qualities you like to see in other people.

5. Write a sentence containing a positive thought or feeling. It can tell what you find acceptable in yourself.

Lines 6-11

6-7 Write a sentence in which you show something negative within yourself or in others; the sentence must finish by showing that out of something bad can come good. Use the word but to link the bad and good.

8, 9, &10 Each line is a short sentence relating something about which you have strong feelings—likes or dislikes. These likes do not have to relate to each other or to the previous lines you have written.

11. End your poem with the words This is me. I am!

Haiku

Five, seven, five, there!

That’s how you make a Haiku

That is how it goes.

Isabella Geist

Poetry Conventions

• Title: each word capitalized

• Capital letters at beginning of sentences and proper nouns, not every line.

• Commas and periods: just like in prose writing, not every line.

• Stanzas are the rooms of your poem house.

• Line breaks are important.