[HANDOUT FOR 4TH QUARTER]

Prepared by Ms. Inez for Grade 7

POETRY
DEFINITION
Poetry is a written composition made to be performed in a human voice (whether aloud or
in your minds ear), using both the eye and the ear to understand. WHAT a poem says or
means is often a result of HOW it is said.
CHARACTERISTICS
CONCISENESS. Poetry is considered the most condensed form of language. It is capable of
cramming an image or even a story in a few words. With some exceptions (such as epic poetry),
poems rarely go past a few pages.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. Poetry often uses idioms and figures of speech. This helps to make
clear images while using as few words as possible.
IMAGERY. Poems usually paint images or scenes. Using words, of course.
SCANSION. The metrical analysis of verse; the act of determining of the rhythm of a particular
line of verse. Scansion involves the following aspects of poetry:
Rhythm. This is how a line or set of words is broken into stressed (or emphasized) and
unstressed syllables when spoken. All poems have it.
Meter. A repetitive, regular (fairly equal) rhythm is called meter. The most common meter (or
measure) in English is to have five sets of stressed and unstressed syllables per line. Many
poems have it.
Rhyme. To have the same sound (the last stressed vowel and all speech sounds following it),
or almost the same. Many, BUT NOT ALL, poems use this.
*** When looking at the rhyme scheme or pattern in a poem, a letter is assigned to each
rhyming sound. In a poem with an ABAB scheme, for example, the 1st and 3rd, and 2nd
and 4th lines rhyme.
*** Usually, poems make use of end rhymes (where the rhyme occurs at the END of a
line), but there may also be inside rhymes, otherwise known as internal rhymes (where
the rhyme occurs WITHIN the line, but NOT at the end of it).
ANATOMY OF A POEM
If I Were a Voice
Charles McKay

Title
Author

If I were a voice, a persuasive voice,

That could travel the wide world through,
I would fly on the beams of the morning light,
And speak to men with a gentle might,
And tell them to be true.
I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er land and sea,
Wherever a human heart might be,
Telling a tale, or singing a song,
In praise of the right - in blame of the wrong.

Line
Stanza

* Of course, this is only an excerpt (a part) of the poem.

Something to think about

Have you ever written a poem? If you have, why did you do so? Is it easier to write a poem or an
essay? Did you try reading it aloud?
TYPES
There are THREE main TYPES of poems: lyric, narrative and concrete.

[HANDOUT FOR 4TH QUARTER]

Prepared by Ms. Inez for Grade 7

Lyric poems usually show only a certain scene or emotional state (rather than an entire
story) and retain similarities, when performed, to the songs from which they were derived.
Most poems are lyric.

Narrative poems tell a story. They have the same elements as short stories (plot,
character, conflict, theme, setting, point of view, irony), except theyre poems.

Example: John Mackey Shaws The Broken Leggd Man

(http://www2.nkfust.edu.tw/~emchen/CLit/Broken-legged_Man.htm)
I saw the other day when I went shopping in the store
A man I hadn't ever, ever seen in there before,
A man whose leg was broken and who leaned upon a
crutchI asked him very kindly if it hurt him very much.

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

"What was it then?" I asked him, and this is what he
said:
"I crossed a busy crossing when the traffic light was
red;
A big black car came whizzing by and knocked me off
my feet."
"Of course you looked both ways," I said, "before you
crossed the street."

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

I ran around behind him for I thought that I would see
The broken leg all bandaged up and bent back at the
knee;
But I didn't see the leg at all, there wasn't any there,
So I asked him very kindly if he had it hid somewhere.

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

"They rushed me to the hospital right quickly, "he went
on,
"And when I woke in nice white sheets I saw my leg
was gone;
That's why you see me walking now on nothing but a
crutch."
"I'm glad," said I, "you told me, and I thank you very
much!"

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

"Then where," I asked him, "is it? Did a tiger bite it off?
Or did you get your foot wet when you had a nasty
cough?
Did someone jump down on your leg when it was very
new?
Or did you simply cut it off because you wanted to?"

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

*Note that in this poem, a single line Not at all! said the broken-leggd man repeats after
each quatrain, as a refrain. When an entire stanza repeats, it is a chorus. You often see refrains
and choruses in songs.
Other Examples: Alfred Noyes The Highwayman (1906); Robert Services The Cremation of Sam
McGee (http://www.potw.org/archive/potw22.html)
ELEMENTS EXERCISE!
Identify the characters, setting, conflict, and theme of The Broken-Leggd Man. On a separate
sheet of paper, make a plot graph of the events in the poem. Can you determine the point of
view and authors purpose of the poem?

Concrete poems use the arrangement of the written words on the page to create a shape
or image, to add meaning or emphasis to the poems content.

Example: Easter Wings

[HANDOUT FOR 4TH QUARTER]

Prepared by Ms. Inez for Grade 7

Other example: William Jay Smiths Seal

EXERCISE!
1. What shape is formed by the words of Easter Wings?
2. Does this poem have a rhyme scheme? If so, what is it? (If you cant give letters, then
which lines rhyme?)
TYPES
There are many types of poems, depending on structure, rhyme scheme, and more, but we are
only going to take a few. They are enumerated below. Definitions and examples follow.
COUPLET
SONNET

HAIKU
ACROSTIC
POEM

QUATRAIN
SESTINA

LIMERICK
PROSE POEM

EPIC
FREE VERSE

COUPLET. Each stanza is composed of 2 lines, with no set rhyme/meter.

Example: William Carlos Williams The Red Wheelbarrow (1923)
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

Other examples: Joyce Kilmers Trees; Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool

IMAGERY EXERCISE!
Try to draw the subject of the poem The
Red Wheelbarrow in the box to the right.
Vocabulary Check:
What is a wheelbarrow?
What does glazed mean?

HAIKU. A type of poem that originated in Japan. There are three lines per stanza. The first line
must have only 5 syllables, the second 7, and the last 5 again.

[HANDOUT FOR 4TH QUARTER]

Prepared by Ms. Inez for Grade 7

*** NOTE! There are many types of poetry in Japan, the haiku being the most famous outside of the country. Another
type is the five-line tanka (literally short poem), which is one of the major genres of Japanese literature. In fact, haiku
may be considered part of tanka, as the tanka is divided into a 5-7-5 upper phrase and a 7-7 lower phrase. On the
other hand, there is also a linked form of haiku (where one line in a verse begins the next verse), called renga or
renku.

Example: Haiku by Matsuo Basho

In my new clothing
I feel so different; I must
Look like someone else.
From all directions
Winds bring petals of cherry
Into the green lake.

Other examples: Ezra Pounds In a Station of the Metro (1913) is an adaptation.

IMAGERY EXERCISE!
Pick one of Bashos haiku and try to draw
its subject in the box to the right.
Lets Add to Our Vocabulary!
1. Haiku is borrowed from Japanese. As
an English loanword, the plural is haikus.
2. A poem with three lines per stanza is
said to be in tercet form.
QUATRAIN. The most commonly-used form in English poetry. Quatrains have 4 lines per stanza.
The most common meter is the pentameter (5 pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables),
and the most common rhyme schemes are, in no particular order, AAAA, AABB, ABBA, and ABAB.
Example: Dorothy Parkers One Perfect Rose (1926)
A single flower he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet --One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
My fragile leaves, it said, his heart enclose.
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, its always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

[HANDOUT FOR 4TH QUARTER]

Prepared by Ms. Inez for Grade 7

FIGURES OF SPEECH EXERCISE!

There are three lines that use personification in One Perfect Rose. Which lines are these?
What is the object being given human-like characteristics? What characteristic or ability is given
to that object?
How is irony shown in the poem? (Clue: look for the part where theres a twist you didnt
expect.)
LIMERICK. A type of poem that has 5 lines and an aabba rhyme scheme, and rhythmic beat that
goes weak, weak, strong, thrice in lines 1/2/5 and twice in 3/4. It is usually meant to be funny or
entertaining.
Example: Edward Lears There was an Old Man with a Beard (1946)
There was an old man with a beard,
Who said, Its just as I feared! --Two owls and a hen,
Four larks and a wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!

Other examples: Hickory, Dickory Dock

Hickory, dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck ONE!
The mouse ran down.
Hickory, dickory dock!

EPIC. A long narrative poem, usually about larger-than-life events (such as wars) and characters
(such as heroes or gods). It has an elevated style (many stylistic conventions) and present
characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a
central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a
nation or race. Many ancient cultures have an oral tradition of epic poetry.
Characteristics of an epic:
o Begins in medias res.
o The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe.
o Begins with an invocation to a muse (epic invocation) and/or with a statement of the
theme.
o Includes the use of epithets.
o Contains long lists, called an epic catalogue, and/or long and formal speeches.
o Shows divine intervention on human affairs.
o Features heroes that embody the values of the civilization.
o Often features the tragic hero's descent into the Underworld or hell.
o Hero will participate in a cyclical journey or quest and be changed thereby.
Examples: The Iliad and The Odyssey (Homer, Greece); Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Bhagavad
Gita (India); La Divina Commedia [Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso] (Dante Alighieri, Italy); Paradise
Lost (John Milton, England); Hinilawod (Kinaray-a); Bi-ag ti Lam-ang (Ilokano); Indarapatra at
Sulayman (Mindanao); Ibalon/Handiong (Bikolano)

SONNET. A type of poem with 14 lines and a specific rhyme scheme. There are several
variations of sonnets, and the rhyme scheme changes with each:
Italian/Petrarchan: the original form of the sonnet. Two parts formed an argument, the
first 8 lines (an octave composed of two quatrains) posing a question or a problem, and
the last 6 lines (a sestet composed of two tercets) presenting a solution, with the ninth line
(the volta or turn) serving as a turning-point. The rhyme scheme was typically ABBA
ABBA CDC CDC, although there are variations to the sestet.
Example: Sonnet XLIII (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

[HANDOUT FOR 4TH QUARTER]

Prepared by Ms. Inez for Grade 7

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

English/Shakespearean: Three quatrains and a couplet. The volta may be introduced in the
third quatrain or (usually preferred by Shakespeare) in the couplet. The typical rhyme
scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
Example: Sonnet 130 (William Shakespeare)
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 damask'd, 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.

Spenserian: A variant of the English form. The rhyme scheme is ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.
Example: Amoretti LXXV (Edmund Spenser)
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise."
"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."

ACROSTIC POEM. A type of poem that forms a message, usually related to the theme of the
poem, using the first letter, syllable, or word of each line.
*** NOTE: In school, it is often used as a mnemonic device for younger children. An acrostic
poem which spells out the letters of the alphabet is known as an abecedarius.
Example: The Alphabet Song (a.k.a. A, Youre adorable, Pery Como/Sesame Street)
SESTINA. A type of poem that has six stanzas with six lines each, followed by a three-line envoi
(an address to the reader or a comment on the rest of the poem). The words that end each line
of each stanza are rotated in a fixed pattern for the stanzas, and repeated, two at a time, in each
line of the envoi.
EXERCISE
Below is an example of a sestina. Based on this, figure out what the word pattern is. Use the
numbers 1-6 to label your end words.
Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape (John Ashberry, 1927)

[HANDOUT FOR 4TH QUARTER]

Prepared by Ms. Inez for Grade 7

The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits in

thunder,
Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country."
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch:
"How pleasant
To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she
scratched
Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach

Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums

scratched
Her long thigh. She gasped, "Popeye, forced to flee the
country
One gusty evening, by his scheming father, jealous of the
apartment
And all that it contains, myself and spinach
In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder
At his own astonished becoming, rupturing the pleasant

And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any

spinach.
"M'love," he intercepted, "the plains are decked out in
thunder
Today, and it shall be as you wish." He scratched
The part of his head under his hat. The apartment
Seemed to grow smaller. "But what if no pleasant
Inspiration plunge us now to the stars? For this is my
country."

Arpeggio of our years. No more shall pleasant

Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the
scratched
Tree-trunks and mossy foliage, only darkness and
thunder."
She grabbed Swee'pea. "I'm taking the brat to the
country."
"But you can't do that--he hasn't even finished his
spinach,"
Urged the Sea Hag, looking fearfully around at the
apartment.

Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the

country.
Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number 2 can of
spinach
When the door opened and Swee'pea crept in. "How
pleasant!"
But Swee'pea looked morose. A note was pinned to his
bib. "Thunder
And tears are unavailing," it read. "Popeye's apartment
Shall be but remembered space, whole or scratched."

But Olive was already out of earshot. Now the apartment

Succumbed to a strange new hush. "Actually it's quite
pleasant
Here," thought the Sea Hag. "If this is all we need fear
from spinach
Then we could invite Alice the Goon over"--she scratched
One dug pensively--"but Wimpy is such a country
Bumpkin, always burping like that." Minute at first, the
thunder
Soon filled the apartment. It was domestic thunder,
The color of spinach. Popeye chuckled and scratched
His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the
country.

FREE VERSE. A type of poem that has no set rhyme scheme or meter. On occasion, some lines
may rhyme, but on the whole there is no consistent pattern. Not to be confused with blank verse,
which has a controlled meter but no set rhyme pattern (and is in fact one of the most commonly
used types of poetry), or other forms of controlled verse, which have set rhyme schemes and
suggested meters.
EXERCISE: One of these is free verse and the other is blank verse. Can you determine which is
which?
The Second Coming (William Butler Yeats, 1919)

Come Slowly Eden! (Emily Dickinson)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Come slowly Eden!

Lips unused to Thee
Bashful sip thy Jessamines
As the fainting Bee
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums
Counts his nectars
Enters and is lost in Balms.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

PROSE POEM. Strictly speaking, prose poetry would be a fusion between prose and poetry, and
thus neither one nor the other. It takes the form of prose in that there are none of the line breaks

[HANDOUT FOR 4TH QUARTER]

Prepared by Ms. Inez for Grade 7

typically found in poetry; but it uses figurative speech, imagery, repetition, and other similar
devices to sound like poetry.
Example: A Seltzer Bottle (Gertrude Stein, 1914)
Any neglect of many particles to a cracking, any neglect of this makes around it what is lead in color and
certainly discolor in silver. The use of this is manifold. Supposing a certain time selected is assured, suppose it
is even necessary, suppose no other extract is permitted and no more handling is needed, suppose the rest of
the message is mixed with a very long slender needle and even if it could be any black border, supposing all
this altogether made a dress and suppose it was actual, suppose the mean way to state it was occasional, if
you suppose this in August and even more melodiously, if you suppose this even in the necessary incident of
there certainly being no middle in summer and winter, suppose this and an elegant settlement a very elegant
settlement is more than of consequence, it is not final and sufficient and substituted. This which was so kindly
a present was constant.