5. The Greek Poet Sappho (7th century BCE)
Our Poetic History
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
Beowulf, the anonymous
epic poem is the most subjects, including
famous poem religious themes
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, f
orm, 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 General & Abstract
Specific language: General language:
refers to objects or signifies broad classes of
conditions that can be persons, objects, and
perceived or imagined phenomena
Concrete diction: Abstract diction: refers to
describes conditions or qualities that are rarefied
qualities that are exact and theoretical
and particular
Poems tend to be
Poems tend to be detached and
visual, familiar, and cerebral, deal with
compelling universal questions or
emotions
13. Levels of Diction
• Elevated & Elaborate
High or Formal
• Follows exact rules of syntax
• Stresses Simplicity
• Avoids elevated tones
Middle or
Neutral • Also avoids
slang, colloquialisms, contractions, jargon, fads
of speech
• Language of common, everyday use
Low or Informal • Uses
slang, contractions, swearwords, grammatical
errors
14. Special Types of Diction
Idiom Dialect
Unique forms of Regional and
diction and word group usage and
order pronunciation
Slang Jargon
Informal and Special language
substandard and terminology of
vocabulary / idiom 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. 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. (1770-1850)
William Wordsworth
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. ―Still I Rise‖ (1987)
Maya Angelou (b. 1928) “Still I Rise”
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.
Maya Angelou
22. ―Hazel Tells Laverne‖
last night
Katharyn Machan
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 “The Princess and the Frog”
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
24. Characters Setting
Speaker or persona Setting reflects
Most significant Time
character in a poem Place
(1) Inside Speaker – Thought
uses the first-person Social Conventions
voice and is involved in
the poem’s actions General
circumstances of the
Outside Speaker – third- characters’ lives
person perspective
Religion
(2) Listener – imagined
person, not the Economic
reader, whom the circumstances
speaker is addressing Condition of the
(3) Major & Minor natural world
Participants – can be
human or nonhuman
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 (1840-1928)
“O didn’t you know I’d
been ruined,” said she.
Thomas Hardy
27. ―The Passionate Shepherd to His
Love‖ (1599)
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Come live with me and
be my love,
And we will all the
pleasures prove
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
28. ―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 Sir Walter Raleigh
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
Bright Star film clip
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. ―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.
Andrew Marvell
53. ―Marvell Noir‖ (2005)
Ann Lauinger
Sweetheart, if we had the time,
A week in bed would be no crime.
Humphrey Bogart as a Guy Noir
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. ―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. Lucille Clifton
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
Lucille Clifton, “Walnut Grove”
spin him like a top!
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 ˘ ΄ a single stressed or
foot or unstressed syllable by
itself
67. ―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.
A.E. Housman
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. ―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
Gwendolyn Brooks
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. 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.
Walt Whitman
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)
̆ ʹ ̆ ʹ ̆ ʹ ̆ ʹ ̆ ʹ
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.
~ ―My Garden,‖ Joyce Johnson
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
