PoetryThe language of everything

What is Poetry?

• Poetry is a form of written expression

• Is used to express feelings, emotions or ideas in a direct or indirect way

• Follows language structure according to certain rules of specific poems

Meter

• 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 stressed (strong) syllables and unstressed (weak) syllables for each line. They then repeat the pattern throughout the poem.

Meter

• FOOT - unit of meter.

• A foot can have two or three syllables.

• Usually consists of one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables.

• TYPES OF FEET

The types of feet are determined by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Meter

TYPES OF FEET

Iambic - unstressed, stressed

Trochaic - stressed, unstressed

Anapestic - unstressed, unstressed, stressed

Dactylic - stressed, unstressed, unstressed

Types of Poetry

Verse (traditional poetry)

• Rhyming poetry with specific meter

• The Bible is in verse (not all of it)

Example of Verse

William Wordsworth

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Free Verse

• An open form of poetry with few repeating rhymes or poetic rules

• Follows patterns of speech

• Began in late 19th Century and is commonly used today

Walt Whitman 

After the Sea-Ship 

After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship: Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves, Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;

Prose(Similar to Free Verse)

• Colloquial speech

• Dialogue

• Servants speaking to each other in Shakespeare

• No rhyming scheme or meter

Shakespearean Sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A fourteen line poem with a specific rhyme

scheme.

The poem is written in three quatrains and ends with a couplet.

The rhyme scheme isabab cdcd efef gg

Haiku

at the ancient pond

a frog leaps into water

a deep resonance

A Japanese poem written in three lines

Five Syllables

Seven Syllables

Five Syllables

Concrete Poetry

• Poems that reflect a certain physical shape

• Text is arranged on the page to look like an object

• The text speaks about the subject and the shape of the poem relates to the text

Spoken Word

• Poetry that is meant to be spoken out loud

• Speakers use beat, rhythm, emphasis and pauses to create a feeling

• Repetitive speech, rhyming, alliteration, allow the audience to experience spoken word with the speaker

Found Poetry

• Found pieces of paper, billboards, TTC advertisements, bits of recycling, notes on desks, pieces of email subject lines, etc.

• All of these can be combined to create a poem

• Minor alterations from the author changes the text into a poem

How to create an effective poem

• Use Literary Devices!• Metaphor, simile, imagery, etc.

• Make sure to be creative and allow the reader to use their imagination

• Write about what you’re passionate about.

• Make the reader think while they read your poem and after they finish the poem.