6. Meeting Poetry
Our words poem and poetry are derived from the
Greek poiein, “to create or make,” a structure that
is created from the human imagination and that is
expressed rhythmically in words.
The word poet originally referred to the writer of
any kind of literature, although it now means
someone who writes poetry (642).
7. History of
English Poetry
• Earliest poems in English
date to the Old English
period (450-1100 CE)
• Many reflected the
influence of Christianity
• From the Middle Ages
(1100-1500) poets wrote
about many subjects,
including religious themes
Beowulf, the anonymous
epic poem is the most
famous poem
9. Don’t be intimidated by poetry.
Remember, each of us brings our own ideas,
interpretations, history, and knowledge to the reading
of a poem – it, like all literature, is never really
finished until it is read.
First Steps:
Read straight through to get a general sense of the
poem
Ask questions – about the title, speaker, words,
descriptions, sounds, setting, form, structure
Read aloud and listen for the rhythm of the words
Develop theories about the particular elements of the
poem – create a paraphrase or brief
explication
10. “Here a Pretty Baby Lies”
(1648)
Robert Herrick (1594-1664)
Here a pretty baby lies
Sung asleep with lullabies:
Pray be silent, and not stir
Th’easy earth that covers her.
12. Diction (Choice of Words)
Specific & Concrete
Specific language:
refers to objects or
conditions that can be
perceived or imagined
Concrete diction:
describes conditions or
qualities that are exact
and particular
Poems tend to be
visual, familiar, and
compelling
General & Abstract
General language:
signifies broad classes of
persons, objects, and
phenomena
Abstract diction: refers to
qualities that are rarefied
and theoretical
Poems tend to be
detached and cerebral,
deal with universal
questions or emotions
13. Levels of Diction
High or
Formal
• Elevated & Elaborate
• Follows exact rules of syntax
Middle or
Neutral
• Stresses Simplicity
• Avoids elevated tones
• Also avoids slang, colloquialisms,
contractions, jargon, fads of speech
Low or
Informal
• Language of common, everyday
use
• Uses slang, contractions,
swearwords, grammatical errors
14. Special Types of Diction
Idiom
Unique forms of
diction and word
order
Dialect
Regional and
group usage and
pronunciation
Slang
Informal and
substandard
vocabulary / idiom
Jargon
Special language
and terminology of
groups
15. “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now”
(1896)
A.E. Housman (1859-1936)
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodland I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
16. Syntax (Word Order &
Sentence Structure)
Parallelism = most often considered repetition
produces lines or portions of lines that make strong
impressions because of the repetition of certain words or
phrases
also the repetition of verb endings
packing of words to add multiple meanings
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread
~ “Richard Cory” (Robinson)
17. Antithesis = a contrasting situation or idea that
brings out surprise, shock, or climax
works with parallelism
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
~ “Richard Cory” (Robinson)
18. Denotation & Connotation
Denotation = the actual, literal, dictionary
meaning of a word
Connotation = the cultural, emotional,
psychological, social, and historical overtones
of a word
19. William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Decorum
Decorum = beautiful,
appropriate
Words and subjects should be
in perfect accord
Formal words for serious subjects
Informal words for low
subjects and comedy
William Wordsworth
transformed poetry in the
19th century, opening the
door for topics and language of
people from all classes,
with special stress on
common folk.
20. “Daffodils (I Wandered Lonely as
a Cloud)” 1807
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
21. Maya Angelou
“Still I Rise” (1987)
Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I rise.
“Still I Rise”
22. “The Princess and the Frog”
“Hazel Tells Laverne”
last night
im cleanin out my
howard johnsons ladies room
when all of a sudden
up pops this frog
musta come from the sewer
swimmin aroun an tryin ta
climb up the sida the bowl
so i goes ta flushm down
but sohelpmegod he starts talkin
bout a golden ball
an how i can be a princess
me a princess
well my mouth drops
all the way to the floor
an he says
kiss me just kiss me
once on the nose
well i screams
ya little green pervert
am i hitsm with my mop
an has ta flush
the toilet down three times
me
a princess
Katharyn Machan
24. Characters
Speaker or persona
Most significant character
in a poem
(1) Inside Speaker – uses
the first-person voice and
is involved in the poem’s
actions
Outside Speaker – third-
person perspective
(2) Listener – imagined
person, not the reader,
whom the speaker is
addressing
(3) Major & Minor
Participants – can be
human or nonhuman
Setting
Setting reflects
Time
Place
Thought
Social Conventions
General circumstances
of the characters’ lives
Religion
Economic
circumstances
Condition of the
natural world
25. “On the Amtrak from Boston to
New York City”
Sherman Alexie
somebody from the enemy thought I was one of their own.
26. “The Ruined Maid” (1866)
Thomas Hardy
“O didn’t you know I’d been
ruined,” said she.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
27. “The Passionate Shepherd to
His Love” (1599)
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Come live with me and be
my love,
And we will all the
pleasures prove
28. Sir Walter Raleigh
“The Nymph’s Reply to the
Shepherd” (1600)
Sir Walter Raleigh (1522-
1618)
If all the world and love were
young,
And truth in every shepherd’s
tongue,
These pretty pleasures might
me move
To live with thee and be thy
love.
30. Types of Imagery
Sensory Imagery.
Visual = Sight
Auditory = Sound
Olfactory, Gustatory, and Tactile = Smell, Taste,
and Touch
Kinetic and Kinesthetic = Motion and Activity
31. “Channel Firing”(1914)
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment Day
And sat upright.
32. “Seven Horizons” (2006)
Stephen Stepanchev (b. 1915)
Here in Flushing I let the rain
Wash away my rotting selves,
The rubble of what I was, the thick
Deeps of silence among the ruins,
The seven layers of abandonment
No archeologist will ever read.
33. “It’s Only Rock and Roll, but I Like
It”: The Fall of Saigon (1975, 1990)
David Wojahn (b. 1953)
…An ice-cream suited
Saigonese drops his briefcase; both hands
Now cling to the airborne skis. The camera gets
It all: the marine leaning out the copter bay,
His fists beating time. Then the hands giving way.
35. Metaphor
A metaphor equates known objects or actions
with something that is unknown or to be
explained.
A metaphor not only explains and illuminates the
thing being described – but also offers distinctive,
original, and often startling ways of seeing it and
thinking about it.
“All the world’s a stage / and all the men and
women merely players.”
~ As You Like It, Shakespeare
36. “Shall I Compare Thee to a
Summer’s Day?” (1609)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou are more lovely and more temperate
37. Simile
A simile illustrates the similarity or comparability of
the known to something unknown or to be explained
by using the words “like” or “as” /“as if”/“as though”
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
~ “She Walks in Beauty,” Lord Byron
38. “Bright Star” (1819, 1838)
John Keats (1795-1822)
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient, sleepless eremite,
39. Paradox
A paradox is a figurative device through which something
apparently wrong or contradictory is shown to be truthful
and non-contradictory.
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of
saddest thought.
~ “To a Skylark,” Percy Bysshe Shelley
40. “On Monsieur’s Departure (c.
1560)
Elizabeth Tudor,
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I every meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.
41. Anaphora
Anaphora = the repetition of the same word or phrase
throughout a work in order to lend weight and
emphasis
Yes, we had laughed often day and night
Yes, we fought violence and knew violence
Yes, we hated the inner and outer oppression
~ “Looking at Each Other,” Muriel Rukeyser
42. Apostrophe
In an apostrophe a speaker addresses a real or
imagined listener who is not present in the work.
Creates the drama of a speaker addressing an
audience.
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three
summer days - three such
days with you I could fill with
more delight than fifty
common years could ever
contain.”
~ John Keats
43. “London, 1802” (1802)
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
44. Personification
Personification = the attribution of human traits to
abstractions or to nonhuman objects
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her
in a bar once in Iowa City.
~ “Remember,” Joy Harjo
45. Synecdoche & Metonymy
Synecdoche = a part stands for the whole, or the
whole stands for a part
Indiana won the championship – meaning that the
basketball team, not the entire university or the entire
state, won the game
Christian Watford won the championship – meaning he
made a great play that won the game for the Indiana
basketball team
Metonymy = substitutes one thing for another with
which it is closely identified
The silver screen or Hollywood used to refer to the movie
industry
46. Pun or Paronomasia
Pun or Paronomasia = wordplay stemming
from the fact that words with different
meanings have surprisingly similar or even
identical sounds
The portrait tumbled from the wall
And hit the young man’s head.
“A striking likeness!” That was all
The rueful punster said.
~Author Unknown
47. Synesthesia
Synesthesia = a description of feelings or
perceptions using words or images that are
typically used for other feelings or
perceptions, or for the exact opposite things
O for a beaker full of the warm South
~”Ode to a Nightingale,” Keats
49. Symbolism
Symbolism in poetry can be found in…
actions
setting and scenes
characters
situations
and in the automatic symbolism of certain
words – shepherd, cross, flood, winter
50. “Snow” (1977)
Virginia Scott (b. 1938)
A doe stands at the roadside,
spirit of those who have lived here
and passed known through our memory.
The doe stands at the edge of the icy road,
then darts back into the woods.
51. Allusion
An allusion carries the entire context of the
work from which it is drawn
Use to add depth of meaning to poetry
Allusions can be drawn from a single word or
from an entire passage that is reminiscent of
another famous text, idea, or image
52. Andrew Marvell
“To His Coy Mistress” (c. 1650)
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
*a carpe diem poem
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
53. Humphrey Bogart as a Guy Noir
“Marvell Noir” (2005)
Ann Lauinger
Sweetheart, if we had the time,
A week in bed would be no crime.
55. Tone, Choice, & Response
Tone is derived from the phrase tone of voice
Describes the shaping of attitudes in poetry
The poet’s choice of language and tone is designed to
evoke a response from the reader
Common Grounds of Assent
An appeal to a bond of commonly held interests, concerns,
and assumptions is essential to maintaining an effective tone
In a poem with well-controlled tone…
Details and situations should be factually correct
Observations should be logical and fair
56. “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1920)
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
If you could hear at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues. –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori. Wilfred Owen: Greatest
English War Poet
57. Tone & Irony
Irony is a mode of indirection, a way of
making a point by emphasizing a discrepancy
or opposite.
Verbal Irony indicates the irony achieved
through the subtleties of language.
Situational Irony is derived from the
discrepancies between the ideal and the
actual in a poem.
Dramatic Irony is at work when the reader
knows more about a situation than the
characters do.
Satire uses humor and irony to expose
human follies and vices.
58. “The Workbox” (1914)
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
Yet still her lips were limp and wan,
Her face still held aside,
As if she had known not only John,
But known of what he died.
59. Lucille Clifton
“homage to my hips” (1987)
Lucille Clifton (1936-2010)
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don’t fit into little
petty places, these hips
are free hips.
they don’t like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved.
they go where they want to go.
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
Lucille Clifton, “Walnut Grove”
61. Prosody
Prosody describes the study of poetic sounds and
rhythms.
Prosodic technique cannot be separated from a poem’s
content.
The study of prosody aims to determine how poets
control their words so that the sound of a poem
complements its expression of emotions and ideas.
Prosody examines vowel sounds, consonant sounds,
syllables, and rhyme.
62. Scansion
Scansion = the systematic study of poetic rhythm
Scansion examines accented and unaccented
syllables
Accented / Primary Stress / Heavy Stress
Signified by a prime mark (΄) or by capitalization of stressed
syllables: to BE or NOT to BE
Unaccented / Light Stress
Indicated by a breve (˘) or by lowercase letters
When I con-SID-er HOW my LIGHT is SPENT
63. Meter and Metrical Feet
Metrical verse follows a set rhythmical pattern.
Free verse does not.
The meter of a poem is its rhythmical pattern,
measured by the number of feet in its lines.
English verse is made up of rhythmical units called
feet. A foot is made up of weakly stressed (˘) and
strongly stressed (΄) syllables.
Virgules or slashes (/) are used to separate metric
feet.
WA – ter / WA – ter / Ev – ery WHERE
64. “Annabel Lee” (1849)
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride
In her sepulchre there by the sea –
In her tomb by the side of the sea.
65. Determining Meter
Metric Term Number of Feet Example
Monometer One foot And I
Shall fly
away
Dimeter Two feet After autumn
Comes the winter
Trimeter Three feet In the midst of morning
Tetrameter Four feet O saddle up my milk white steed
Pentameter Five feet That time of year thou may’st in
me behold
Hexameter Six feet A perfect knight he was, that all
could plainly see.
Heptameter Seven feet
Octameter Eight feet
66. The Major Metrical Feet
Type of Foot Stress Pattern Example
Iamb, or iambic foot ˘΄ afraid
Trochee, or trochaic foot ΄˘ freedom
Anapest, or anapestic foot ˘˘΄ in a flash
Dactyl, or dactylic foot ΄˘˘ feverish
Spondee, or spondaic foot ΄΄ baseball
Pyrrhee or pyrrhic foot ˘˘ Unbelievable
Amphibrach ˘΄˘ Ah FEED me
Amphimacer ΄˘΄ LOVE is BEST
Imperfect foot or catalectic
foot
˘ ΄
or
a single stressed or
unstressed syllable by
itself
67. A.E. Housman
“When I was One-and-
Twenty”(1896)
A.E. Housman (1859-1936)
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
68. The Caesura (Pause)
Pauses or caesurae are used to indicate the natural rhythm
of speech
Indicated by commas, semi-colons, and periods (or other
forms of punctuation)!
Two virgules are used in indicate a caesura
Caesura create end-stopped lines and run-on lines:
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Its loveliness increases; // it will never
Pass into nothingness; // but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, // and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, // …
“Endymion” ~ John Keats
69. Segmented Poetic Devices
Used to create emphasis or echo sounds
Assonance = the repetition of identical vowel
sounds in different words “swift Camilla skims”
Consonance = the repetition of identical consonant
sounds typically in the middle of words
Alliteration = the repetition of identical consonant
sounds falling at the beginning of each word “brazen
brainless brothers”
Onomatopoeia = verbal imitation of real sounds
crack, buzz, bump, thump
Euphony = pleasing sounds
Cachophony = harsh sounds
70. Gwendolyn Brooks
“We Real Cool” (1959)
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
71. Rhyme and Meter
Exact Rhyme = words with identical rhyming
sounds: ache, bake, break, opaque
Inexact Rhyme / Slant Rhyme / Near Rhyme =
words with nearly identical rhyming sounds: could,
solitude
Eye Rhyme / Sight Rhyme = identical in spelling
but different in pronunciation: cough, dough,
through
Identical Rhyme = the same word is used in
different lines to formulate the rhyming pattern
Internal Rhyme = rhyming patterns which fall
within the line of poetry rather than at the end of the
line
72. “At a Summer Hotel” (1979)
Isabella Gardner (1915-1981)
I am here with my bountiful womanful child
to be soothed by the sea not roused by these roses roving
wild.
My girl is gold in the sun and bold in the dazzling water,
She drowses on the blond sand and in the daisy fields my
daughter
dreams. Uneasy in the drafty shade I rock on the veranda
reminded of Europa Persephone Miranda.
73. Rhyme Scheme
Rhyme Scheme refers to a poem’s pattern of
rhyming sounds, designated by alphabetical
letters
The rhyming pattern is determined by the final
word in the line
The rhyming pattern is broken into stanzas
Iambic pentameter (the form of a
Shakespearean Sonnet) follows this rhyme
scheme:
abab cdcd efef gg
74. “The Road Not Taken”
(1920)
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
75. “The Lover Not Taken”
(1984)
Blanche Farley
Oh, she turned with a sigh.
Somewhere ages and ages hence,
She might be telling this. “And I” –
She would say, “stood faithfully by.”
But by then who would know the difference?
With that in mind, she took the fast way home,
The road by the pond, and phoned the blond.
77. Walt Whitman
Closed-Form Poetry
Closed-Form Poetry refers to poetry written in
specific and traditional patterns of lines produced
through line length, meter, rhyme, and line groupings.
78. Blank Verse
Blank Verse = unrhymed iambic pentameter
One of the most common closed forms in English
Consists of five unrhymed iambic lines
Resembles normal speech patterns in English
Shakespeare is the master of blank verse (in his plays)
Like a / good child,/ and a / true gen- / tle - man.
That I / am guilt- / less of/ your fa- / ther’s death.
And am / most sen- / si-bly / in grief / for it,
It shall / as le- / vel to / your judg- / ment ‘pear
~ The King, Hamlet, Shakespeare
79. The Couplet
The Couplet = contains two rhyming lines and is the
shortest distinct closed form
Lines are usually identical in length and meter
Heroic Couplet = iambic pentameter couplet considered
appropriate for epic, or heroic, poetry
Falls at the end of Shakespearian Sonnets
Expresses a complete idea and is grammatically self-
sufficient
My garden is unfolding before my startled eyes.
Each blossom as it opens is a welcome, glad surprise.
The daffodils are blooming and spread sunshiny cheer,
While the tulips are struggling to hold up their heads this
year.
80. Tercet or Triplet
A Tercet or Triplet is a three line stanza
Typically ryhmes aaa, bbb, ccc, and so on
But, there are two variations on the tercet
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
~”The Eagle,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
81. Terza Rima
In a Terza Rima, the stanzas are interlocked through a
pattern that requires the center rhyme in one tercet to be
rhymed twice in the next: aba, bcb, cdc, ded, and so on
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, (a)
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead (b)
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, (a)
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, (b)
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O Thou, (c)
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed (b)
~ “Ode to the West Wind,” Percy Bysshe Shelley
82. Villanelle
A Villanelle = the most complex form of tercet
pattern
Nineteen lines containing six tercets, rhymed
aba and concluded by four lines
First and third lines of the first tercet are
repeated alternately in subsequent tercets as
a refrain, also in the concluding four lines
Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into That
Good Night” is an excellent example of the
Villanelle form.
83. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good
Night” (1951)
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightening they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
84. Quatrain
A Quatrain = a four line stanza
The most common stanzaic form
Very popular in poetry
Determining factor is rhyme scheme, but that can vary in
pattern
A Quatrain is the basic component of ballads, lyrics, common
measure or hymnal stanza, and is significant in many religious
hymns:
Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.
~ “Amazing Grace,” John Newton
85. Ballad of Birmingham (1966)
(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama,
1963)
Dudley Randall (1914-2000)
The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.
For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.
86. How Many Lines Per Stanza?
Number of Stanzaic Lines Poetic Form
2 lines Couplet
3 lines Tercet or Triplet
4 lines Quatrain
5 lines Cinquain
6 lines Sestet
7 lines Heptastich
8 lines Octave
14 lines Sonnet
87. Italian / Petrarchan
Sonnet
Sonnets = consist of 14 lines
Initially an Italian form of poetry made famous by the
Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374)
In iambic pentameter
Include two quatrains (the octave) and
two tercets (the sestet)
The octave presents a problem or
situation that is resolved in the sestet
Fixed rhyme scheme abba, abba, cdc, cdc or abba,
abba, cde, cde
88. Poem 292
Francesco Petrarcha (1304-1374)
*Written on Laura’s death
The eyes I spoke of with such warmth,
The arms and hands and feet and face
Which took me away from myself
And marked me out from other people;
The waving hair of pure shining gold,
And the flash of her angelic smile,
Which used to make a paradise on earth,
Are a little dust, that feels nothing.
And yet I live, for which I grieve and despise myself,
Left without the light I loved so much,
In a great storm on an unprotected raft.
Here let there be an end to my loving song:
The vein of my accustomed invention has run dry,
And my lyre is turned to tears.
89. English / Shakespearian Sonnet
Sonnets = consist of 14 lines
Shakespeare transformed the Italian
sonnet into English
Recognized that there are fewer rhyming
words in English
Modified the rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef,
gg
Added a heroic couplet to the end
of the sonnet
Each quatrain (first 12 lines) contains
a separate development of the
sonnet’s central idea or problem
The couplet provides the resolution
to the problem
90. Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
91. Haiku
Haiku = a complete poem of 17 syllables
Originated in Japan
Follows strict guidelines:
(1) Must be a tercet (three lines)
(2) Must include five, seven, and five syllables per line
(3) the poem should embody a unique observation or
insight.
Spun in high, dark clouds,
Snow forms vast webs of white flakes
And drifts lightly down.
~ “Spun in High, Dark Clouds,” Anonymous
92. Epigram, Epitaph, Limerick
Epigram = short, witty poem that usually
makes a humorous or satiric point
Epitaph = brief poems composed to mark the
death of someone, humorous or sometimes
irreverent
Limerick = a five-line poem that is humorous,
sometimes bawdy
93. Elegy & Ode
Elegy = a poem about death and its meaning for the
living
A poem of lamentation
Subject is typically the death of a particular person, but
can also be death in general, mortality, or grief
Ode = a complex and extensive stanzaic poem
Varying line lengths and intricate rhyme schemes
Meditative and philosophical topics, but a broad range of
topics
Closest closed-form pattern to open-form poetry
94. Open-Form Poetry
Open-Form Poetry = also known as free verse, eliminates
the restrictions of the closed form.
Free in form and variable in content
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time
be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters of Death and Night incessantly
softly wash again, and ever again, this soiled world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin – I
draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in
the coffin.
~ “Reconciliation,” Walt Whitman
