Forms Of Poetry

This great collection of ideas for encouraging students to write poetry was
developed by Frances Vucica at Mount Stuart Primary School. An extract was
published in the first edition of the Hartz Literacy Newsletter. For more
information about teaching poetry, look at Hugo McCann’s poetry
(http://www.discover.tased.edu.au/english/hugo.htm)which includes a section on playing
with poetic forms. (http://www.discover.tased.edu.au/english/poetry.htm#play)

As teachers we need to adopt a very sensitive approach to the teaching of

poetry, one that combines discussion and writing, one that examines ideas and
feelings, one that encourages appreciation of the poetry of others while also
giving room for our students to write freely when creating poetry.

In this document I have tried to offer approaches to the teaching of writing poetry
that can be used by all classroom teachers.

These approaches encourage children to play around with words, to experiment

with their sounds, their rhythm. They also allow the teacher to introduce new
terminology in a fun way.

1. Based on alliteration
(noun, verb, adverb)

Clowns Nannas
captivate nag
charmingly. needlessly.

Seagulls Dads
soar drive
serenely. dangerously.

2. Based on the use of adjectives+noun

Ruins
Historic, Cool,
ancient, bubbling,
fascinating, nose-tickling
mind-grasping lemonade.

(emphasise the use of double-barrelled adjectives)

3. Based on a sound word

(Sound, what happens? How/why? repeat the sound.)

BANG! BURP!
The hunted beast falters Out it comes.
in its stride.... Everybody stares.
Killed by man. Made to say pardon.
Bang! Burp!

4. Contrasts
Great car. Father washes the car.
V8 engine. Mother sweeps the floor.
Hill-gripping tyres. Brother cleans the cylinder
No brakes! head.
Me.........
Well, I sit and watch.

5.From these simple forms you can lead children on

to internal rhyming.
I usually do not encourage children to use rhyme but in this instance it is being
used to allow them to really feel at ease with the language and at the same time
have fun.

A. Hinks Pinks (2 rhyming words.)

e.g. happy bird = merry canary

dog house = mutt hut

nocturnal plane ride = night flight

unhappy boy = sad lad

Encourage children to create their own.

Compile a class list.
Make it an on-going activity.
Wonderful art work can be linked with this work.

B. Twosomes In Rhyme (Rhyming couplets ....two line poems.)

Find two things that go together:

a dog with a bone.
Think of words that rhyme with the last word:
stone, cone, phone.
Choose one of the rhyming words and find something that goes with
it.
ice cream goes with cone.
Write your couplet:

A dog with a bone

Ice cream with a cone.

Try...........
Water with a fish

A baby with a toy

(Encourage children to link the work with Art.)

C. ‘Have you seen?’ rhymes

Choose a noun and then brainstorm to find rhyming words.

e.g. book, look , cook, shook, etc.

This form of poetry is really just asking a question.

Have you ever seen a book

cook
or
A tie
cry?

(Make a book of children’s creations. Art work gives added interest to

the rhymes.)
6. Upset Mother Goose
(Rewriting nursery rhymes)

Allow children to become familiar with a range of nursery rhymes.

Then.......
Give the class a specific scenario.

e.g. There’s a lot of pollution on the planet Earth so Mother Goose is flying home to
rewrite her nursery rhymes so that they will include a message about
out ecology. However she needs help.

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water.
When they got there
They couldn’t bear
The smell of dirty water.

Old Mother Hubbard

Went to the window,
To catch a breath of fresh air.
When she got there
She was quite in despair,
She forgot that clean air was rare.

Try other topics besides ecology....for instance, science, geography,

the universe, and space travel.

7. Using similes
(A simile asks us to picture one thing as being similar to another_often using the
word ‘like’ or the words ‘as.....as’ to link our ‘pictures’ in our mind.)

Choose a topic.
e.g. Marshmallow.

Give children one and let them do what they want with it....taste it,
smell it, shake it, squish it.
Ask, “What does a marshmallow remind you of?”

Write a description of your marshmallow using only similes.

e.g. Marshmallow
As white as..........
As fluffy as..........
As soft as...............

Finish with a catch phrase.

e.g. Great to eat!

Another very good activity is to choose a subject

and get children to write similes relating to it.
e.g.
The Witch
The witch floated above us like.........
Her nose was shaped like.............
Her green eyes glittered like..............
Her fingers were long and thin as...........
Her voice was shrill as..............
She looked fierce but turned out to be as gentle as................

8. Based on Subject,Verb, Object

Choose a topic. Scissors

What are they doing? cutting

Cutting what? paper
Next encourage children to brainstorm each of the categories to
make them more interesting.

e.g. Describe the scissors.

angry, savage, violent, vicious, hungry

How do they cut?

savagely, viciously etc.
 Describe the paper.
defenceless, helpless etc.

Children then write out their sentence.

e.g. The vicious scissors angrily cut the defenceless paper.

Demonstrate another way of setting out the sentence so it has poetic

form.

e.g. The vicious scissors

angrily cut
the defenceless paper.

Sometimes you may have to do a lot of chalk and talk with this work
in an endeavour to get the children to think more creatively. I
personally do a lot of this work in both the oral and written forms.

Another example.........

A solitary leaf
sits weeping
on a mangled twig.

Again it is an opportunity to use the terms ‘adjective’ and ‘adverb’.

9. Acrostic Poems
Choose any noun
e.g. Licorice.

Give each child a piece of licorice to eat.

Make a list of words (adjectives) to describe it or its taste.

Find adjectives that begin with L I C O R I C E

Write the letters of the word down the page and use them to write
appropriate adjectives.
 L.....................
I......................
C......................
O......................
R......................
Invigorating
C......................
E.......................

A more advanced style is the use of catch phrases beginning with the
appropriate letters.

10. Collage Collectables.

Choose a theme such as people, sports, food or animals.

Cut out pictures of your theme from newspaper, magazines and

pamphlets.

Glue your pictures to construction paper in collage form.

Write a poem about your collage.

11. Cinquains
Five line poems. This form was created by a French Canadian teacher who
found children to be very frustrated by trying to write poetry set to rules. He
wanted children to relax and have fun and at the same time be more creative
with their thoughts.
Rules of the poems........
Line 1. Title
Line 2. Two descriptive words.
Line 3. Three descriptive words.
Line 4. A catch phrase.
Line 5. Repeat the title or give a synonym for it.

e.g. Girls
Beautiful, curvaceous,
36, 26, 36,
I love them.
 Girls!

A more advanced form of this poetry can be

Title
Catch Phrase
Catch Phrase
Catch Phrase
Title.

12. Alliteration
More advanced. Alliteration is the placement of two or more words close
together with the same beginning sound.

Start with simple Tongue Twisters.

“Around the rugged rocks, the ragged rascal ran.”

Give a specific title.

e.g. Fredrick.
I have a fish called Fredrick
And he comes from Finland.
Sometimes he is friendly
But sometimes he is foolish.
He eats figs,
fleas
and flavoured fruits.

He is famous for fighting off ferocious fowls.

13. Oriental types of poetry.

Haiku (A seventeen syllable verse form which is arranged in lines of five, seven, five syllables.
It may be rhymed or unrhymed and the poem itself feels a closeness to nature. Nothing is too
insignificant for such a verse; a cricket, dry grass or even an empty rice bowl are topics of
feeling.)

e.g.On a green lemon branch

Gold hummingbird’s busily
Search summer’s nectar.

An easy way to introduce this form is to ask:

Where?.........five syllables
What?..........seven syllables
When?..........five syllables.

Tanka (This form has a basic pattern of five, seven, five, seven, seven. It is five unrhymed
lines with thirty one syllables.)
e.g. Stormy wind blowing
Out from dim eerie blackness
Full moon glows brightly.
From cloud to cloud shining moon
Pursues darkness swift in flight.

Renga (Has the same form as the Tanka, but is a linked verse. It is poem created by two
people and can extend to any length. The first person gives the first three lines in question form
and the second person gives the last two in answer to the question. This usually exists as part of
a series of linked verse.)

Cinquain (this is an unrhymed variant of the Tanka form with the scheme of five lines with a
total of twenty-two syllables, arranged with the pattern two, four, six, eight, two. Adapted from the
work done by a French Canadian but set to stricter guidelines.)

e.g. Coral
The stone flower
Of the sea, is the most
Fascinating feature of the
Sea world.

Quinzaine (Fifteen syllables in three lines, arranged seven, five, three. It is a statement
followed by a question.)

e.g. Lost child crying in the woods

Cries still........Will he clutch
At fireflies?

Septolet (This form has seven lines containing fourteen words with a break between the two
parts. Both parts deal with the same thought and create a picture.)

e.g. Kitten
Padding stealthily
Among green grasses
Most intent.

Bird
Ascends rapidly
Bringing great disappointment.

Lanterne (This is a five line verse shaped like a Japanese lantern with a syllabic pattern of
one, two, three, four, one.)

e.g. Dark
Heavens
 Threatening
Tropical storm
Fear!

Oriental poetry looks excellent when it is printed on scrolls made of rice paper, or
coloured tissue paper, with bamboo ends. Illustrations can be made at the sides
of the printed poems. Recordings of traditional oriental music help to create a
proper atmosphere for the readings of the poems written by the children.

14.Limericks
This is a fun activity but before you use it in a class it is best to expose children to examples of
the nonsense verse. By sharing examples the children can observe that they always consist of
five lines, how they rhyme and the importance of the last line in suitably ending each poem.)

Some examples:

There was an old man of West Dumpet

Who possessed a large nose like a trumpet;
When he blew it aloud
It astonished the crowd,
And was heard through the whole of West Dumpet.

There was an old man from Peru

Who dreamt he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in the night
In a terrible fright
And found it was perfectly true.

There was a young man named Steve

Who got married on Christmas Eve.
His new wife called Linda
Burnt his socks to a cinder;
That unhappy young man called Steve.

There was a young lady called Ann

Who fell in the frying pan.
The bacon and eggs
Got stuck to her legs;
That silly young lady called Ann.

Before the children write their own I often get them to complete some
given ones.
e.g.
A lion liked parties with zing
In which he could play he was king.
But it made him irate
When a mouse crashed the gate
And.......................

An elephant, hoping to dunk,

Filled his oversized ten litre trunk.
But along came a bee
Full of giggle and glee
And......................

A dolphin who wanted to talk

Met a dolphiness out for a walk.
But he found in dismay
He had nothing to say
So..................

There was an old man from Apulia

Whose conduct was very.................
He fed twenty sons
Upon nothing but...........
That comical man of...................

There was a young man called Stan

Who drove a brand new...............
He bought a piano
For three and a .............
That lucky young man called.....

15 Descriptions
These can be at any level you want them to be. It is a very effective form and children soon
realise they can express themselves quite easily and their confidence grows. They do, at first,
rely on whole class or group brainstorming sessions.

Examples.

Bull...
Snorting,
Stamping,
Bellowing,
Roaring,
Charging.
(In this example we have shown that most animals can be identified with the sounds they make.)

They can also be written using catch phrases to write lines of free verse. The degree of difficulty
in this work is only limited to the imagination and effort of the writer.

Fire.....
Panic in the streets.
Firemen,
Working tirelessly
Saving lives.

16. Answering a set of given questions.

(This is an excellent form to use when children are writing poems about animals
or birds.)

A. Think of a bird or an animal .

Write it. (This becomes the title)

B. Lines:
Where is it?
What is it doing?
What are its eyes like?
What are its feet/talons like?
Describe another part of its body.
A sound!
What causes it?
How is it caused?
What happens?

(Each response is a line of the poem.)

Below is an example of this poetry created by a child who was considered to have great
difficulties with written literacy.

The Eagle
by Jessica.

Perched high in a tree

An eagle sits, waiting.
Small glass-like eyes scan the land below.
Sharp claws cling to the bark of the tree.
Suddenly........
Crack!
A twig snaps
And a small mouse scurries across a field.
The eagle swoops
And carries off its victim.
17. Emotive
In the course of a day children can experience a wide range of feelings. Some
will talk about them quite openly while others just don’t want to discuss the issues
that have arisen. Poetry is an excellent tool for young children to express
feelings of loss and alienation, separation from people they love and are
dependent on, moving house away from friends and familiar places, coming to
school for the first time. If we can encourage children to express their feeling in
poetic form they are then more likely do the same in their stories.

Some examples of children’s work:

Loneliness
by Katy

Loneliness is plentiful in this world.

It doesn’t pay, it loses....
You get depressed and all has gone.
You have no faith,
You have no power
And all you do is dream.

My Mother.
by Selina.
She parted.......No farewell.
She left one sorrowful day.
Three children she left behind.
She wished that she could stay
But there was no other way.

Feelings
by John
I know what its like to feel unwanted.
I know what it is like to be without love.
I know what it is like to be left alone.
I know what it is like to be abandoned.

A Lonely Place
by Tracey
There’s a stillness in the mountains today,
there’s an empty feel to this place.
Grandad has gone away, no more to visit here.
I’ll always remember his special smile,
 the one he kept just for me.

17. Metaphors
An explanation of what a metaphor is will be necessary. I’ve found the easiest way to explain it is
to say it is a short cut to a comparison. It skips the words ‘like’ and ‘as’ and simply says one thing
is something else. In poetry metaphors create a special kind of vision. Once children understand
the term they will write some very powerful thoughts.

Some examples of children’s thoughts are:

The moon is a ghostly ship The sun is a thirsty sponge

that sails which withdraws
the gray of night. water from the sea.

The sun is an angry monster The volcano is an evil arsonist

savagely scorching who bombs
the dry earth. the helpless village.

The sea is an angry demon The sun is a strict gardener

viciously attacking who commands
the helpless shore. petals to open.

The wind is a whip

that cracks noisily
above our unprotected heads.

The stars are pinpricks

in the velvet
of the night sky.

An interesting poem to take with a class is :

How To Eat A Poem by by Eve Merriam

http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/poetry/eatpoem.html
The whole poem is a startling metaphor. Read it and discuss it with your class and they will soon
find out what a metaphor is.

18. Sound poems

This is an opportunity to introduce children to the word ‘onomatopaeio’. Even very young children
like the sound of the word and they will go around saying it and using it in the right context once
they have had opportunities to use it in the writing of poetry.
A simple form for the children to start with is:
I like sounds.
The swish of the wind.
The ........ of ...............
The.......... of ...............
The.......... of................ When the children have had the experience of
The ......... of ................ writing in this way get them to attempt an
Yes.... “I Don’t Like” poem.
I like sounds.

I like music.
The throb of guitars.
The.......... of ..............
The ......... of ...............
The ......... of.................
The .........of..................
I like music.

19. Wish poems

This form offers little difficulty for children making up poems of their own.

One approach is to write a class ‘wish’ poem.

The teacher or a student writes up on the board a number of times. “I wish.......’

Then members of the class takes turns completing the lines with wishes of their
own.

20. I saw poems

These can be developed in the same way as the wish poems. However, you can
encourage the children to be more dramatic by using colourful language.

e.g.
I saw....
When......
I saw the blazing sun in the sky
I saw a fish pond all on fire.

21. Sound poems

This is an opportunity to introduce children to the word ‘onomatopaeio’. Even very young children
like the sound of the word and they will go around saying it and using it in the right context once
they have had opportunities to use it in the writing of poetry.

A simple form for the children to start with is:

I like sounds.
The swish of the wind.
The ........ of ...............
The.......... of ...............
The.......... of................ When the children have had the experience of
The ......... of ................ writing in this way get them to attempt an
Yes.... “I Don’t Like” poem.
I like sounds.

I like music.
The throb of guitars.
The.......... of ..............
The ......... of ...............
The ......... of.................
The .........of..................
I like music.

22. Hello/Goodbye poems

This is another very simple form for expressing thoughts.
e.g.
Hello holidays, goodbye school.
Hello lollies, goodbye teeth.
Hello..........., goodbye..........
Hello..........., goodbye...........
Hello..........., goodbye...........

23. Is poems
(The degree of difficulty is up to the child.)
e.g.
Summer is air-conditioning units whirring.
Winter is........... etc.

You can choose a specific theme such a ‘school”

e.g.
School is..........
A teacher is.........
Homework is...........
Sport is............
English is.............
My friend is........
Friday is..............

24. Are poems

(Use the same technique as the “Is” poems.)
e.g. Cats are bundles of fur.
Cars are.............. etc.

25. Colours in poetry

(Use the same technique as in the ‘Is’ poems.)

Red is...............
Green is...........
White is............
Purple is ..........
Pink is...............
Grey is .............
Children can be very descriptive in this form.
e.g. Red is the sunset sinking behind the
mountains.
And red is the cherry, luscious and
sweet .

26. Shape Poems

The physical form of a poem on paper can fortify the poem’s meaning, add to its
imagery, highlight its rhythm, or increase its humour.

e.g. Two In Bed

by Abram Buner

When my brother Tommy

Sleeps in bed with me,
He doubles up
and makes
himself
exactly
like
a
V.

And ‘cause the bed is not so wide

A part of him is on my side.

The alligator chased his tail

Which hit him on the snout.
He nibbled, gobbled, swallowed it
And turned right inside out.
Mary McDonald.
27. Grave Poems:
Leslie Moore

Here lies what’s left

Of Leslie Moore.
No Les
No more.

A Dentist

Stranger, approach this spot with gravity:

John Brown is filling his last cavity.

28.Report Poems
I find this form very powerful when doing research on a topic.

e.g. James Cook.

James Cook was born in England.
A captain brave was he.
He sailed the ship Endeavour
Across a nameless sea.
He visited New Zealand
And then the wind with force
Took the ship, Endeavour
On another course.
For days and days they sailed
And then one sunlit morn
Above the sound of crashing waves
The call, “Land Ho!” echoed to one and all.