Poetry

What is Poetry?

• What it is, exactly, is less important than how it makes us feel.

Eleanor Farjeon (1966) def. • Not a rose, but the scent of the rose• It’s a kind of language that

says more and

says it more intensely • than ordinary language. (Laurence Perrine)

Poetry by Eleanor Farjeon (1966)

What is Poetry? Who Knows?Not a rose but the scent of the rose;Not the sky but the light in the sky;Not the fly but the gleam of the fly;Not the sea but the sound of the sea;Not myself but what makes meSee, hear, and feel something that prose Cannot, what it is, who knows?

Poetry… by Carl Sandburg

is the opening and closingof a door,leaving thosewho look throughto guess aboutwhat was seenduring a moment

Elements of Poetry

• Rhythm• Rhyme and sound• Imagery• Figurative language:

– Comparison and Contrast– personification

• Shape• Emotional force, mood• Diction

Diction

• Word choice– Consider connotations and denotations – p. 3 With a wide mouth: 1) talkative, 2) odd looking

• Latinate and Germanic Diction– Poetry is often associated with fancy or elaborate

vocabulary.– Is French a more poetic language than German?– This need not be the case. Hesse uses simple, clear,

unpretentious language– Much more Germanic or Anglo-Saxon than Latinate

Latinate and Anglo-Saxon Diction• Old English is Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) in its forms, structures, and

vocabulary. But at around 1100, the Normans invaded England causing French, a romance language (meaning it is derived from Latin) to mix with Old English. During the Renaissance (1400-1700), thousands more words were imported directly from Latin.

• For this reason, English today mixes Germanic and Latinate roots. Often we can find pairs of words, near synonyms, of which one comes from an Anglo-Saxon root and one from a Latinate root. Sometimes there are three closely related words, one each from Anglo-Saxon, from Latin via French, and directly from Latin, as in kingly (Germanic), royal (from French roi), and regal (from Latin rex, regis).

• As a (very rough) general rule, words derived from the Germanic ancestors of English are shorter, more concrete, and more direct, whereas Latinate words are longer and more abstract: compare, for instance, the Anglo-Saxon thinking with the Latinate cogitation.

• Most “bad” language is of Anglo-Saxon ancestry: compare, for instance, shit (Germanic) with excrement (Latinate).

Germanic Latinate Germanic Latinate

anger, wrath rage, ire flood inundateask inquire friendly amicable

begin commence give providebelief creed go departbodily corporal god deity

brotherly fraternal help assistchild infant hen poultry

come arrive hill mountdeadly mortal motherly maternal

earth soil new novel, modernfatherly paternal shut close

first primary teach educate

Poetry for children• Like poetry for adults but may

comment in a different way• Poetry that is cute, coy, nostalgic,

or sarcastic might be about children, but it is not for them. (Charlotte Huck)

• Didactic or preachy poems are usually not insightful or particularly enjoyable.

• Micahel Rosen Speaks

Poems can be funny

The Purple Cow by Gelett Burgess

I never Saw a Purple Cow

I never hope to see one;

But I can tell you, Anyhow,

I’d rather see than be one.

The Burp by Anonymous

• Pardon me for being rude.It was not me, it was my food.It got so lonely down below,it just popped up to say hello.

Poems can be ironic

The Vulture Hilaire Belloc

The culture eats between his meals and that’s the reason whyHe very, very rarely feels As well as you and I.His eye is dull, his head is bald,His neck is growing thinner.Oh! What a lesson for us allTo only eat at dinner

Poems can be fun

Betty BotterBetty Botterbought some butter."But," she said,"the butter's bitter.If I put itin my batter,it will makemy batter bitter.But a bitof better butter--that would makemy batter better."

So she boughta bit of butter,better thanher bitter butter.And she put itin her batter,and the batterwas not bitter.So 'twas betterBetty Botterbought a bitof better butter!

How good a tongue twister are you?

40 seconds and over:Too slow. Your grandparents could say the poem faster.

30 to 40 seconds:Not bad. You're probably a faster talker than the President.

20 to 30 seconds:Pretty good. You've been gifted with a fast pair of lips.

15 to 20 seconds:Excellent. You can out talk anyone around.

14 seconds or less:You are a tongue tying champion!

Poems are insightful

Fog by Carl Sandburg

The fog comesOn little cat feet

It sits lookingOver harbor and city

On silent haunchesAnd then moves on

Caterpillar Christina Rossetti

Brown and furryCaterpillar in a hurry,Take your walkTo the shady leaf, or stalk,Or what not,Which may be the chosen spot.No toad spy you,Hovering bird of prey pass by you;Spin and die,To live again a butterfly.

Poems can express serious feelings

How to paint a donkey by Naomi Shihab Nye

She said the head was too large,the hooves too small.I could clean my paintbrushbut I couldn't get rid of that voice.While they watched,I crumpled him,let his blue bodystain my hand.I cried when he hit the can.She smiled. I could try again.Maybe this is what I unfold in the dark,deciding, for the rest of my life,that donkey was just the right size.

Which Lunch Table ? • Where do I sit?

         All my friends         from last year          have changed;          my world is                 f r a c t u r e d                 l o p s i d e d                r e a r r a n g e d.

          Where do I fit?          Nothing is clear.          Can already tell          this will be           a jigsaw year.

Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poemsby Kristine O'Connell GeorgeClarion Books, 2002

Poems can speak through their shapes

(Concrete poems)

"Breezes," by Court Smith,

THE WINDLESS ORCHARD, 31, p. 12

A concrete poem

A Gentle Breeze

People are always finding new ways to create poetry

Arms by Dan Weber

• http://www.vispo.com/guests/DanWaber/arms.htm

• The poem uses the internet to create poetry in a new form.