Elements of Poetry

1. Content/Subject – it is what being talked about in the poem. It answers the question ‘’what?” What is
the poem all about? What happens in the poem?
2. Theme – it is the message of the poem. The theme of the poem is the idea conveyed in the poem---
that the poet is trying to communicate. The theme may be stated directly or it may be implied.
3. Mood or Tone – it is the emotions directed by the poet to his poem. The mood of a poem is the
feeling that the poet creates and that the reader senses through the poet’s choice of words, rhythm,
rhyme, style, and structure.
4. Imagery – it is how the reader pictures the poem in his mind. The imagination that is evoked from the
collection of tangible images created by the poet. It refers to the pictures which we perceive with our
mind’s eyes, nose, tongue, skin, and through which we experiences the duplicate world created by
poetic language. Imagery evokes meaning and truth of human experiences not in abstract terms, as in
philosophy, but in more perceptible and tangible forms. This is a device by which the poet makes his
meaning strong, clear and sure. The poet uses sound words and words of color and touch in addition of
Figures of Speech. Concrete details that appeal to the reader’s senses are used as well build up images.
5. Symbols – “a symbol is an image of one thing that stands for another”. Once the writer mentioned
images like “sun” “flower” “river” “mountain” “dreams” etc. as a reader you will not accept those
images as they are but convert them into higher level of giving meaning. For instance, a sun may stand
for enlightenment, knowledge, hope, etc. depending on how it is used by the poet in the poem.
6. Sound effect devices - it gives music to the ears of the readers. It avoids the poem to be monotonous
in approach.

a. Rhyme - “it is patterned recurrence of like or similar sounds and its functions indirectly to
intensify meaning. “The examples are end rhyme, internal rhyme, masculine rhyme, feminine rhyme,
perfect rhyme, and slant rhyme. Then, the common rhyme schemes are; quatrain, couplet, terza rima
and tercet.
b. Assonance – is repeating interval vowel sounds.
c. Consonance – is repeating beginning consonant sounds.
d. Repetition – is repeated words of phrases.
e. Onomatopoeia – is using a word or phrase to imitate a sound.
f. Rhythm – is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

7. Persona – In every poem, there is always a character. It relies with the writer’s creativity in
constituting images and other literary devices to visibly introduce the character to the readers.

8. Speaker – the speaker is not always the poet just like how it is being perceived by some students.
Although sometimes the poet is also the speaker. But even if it is in the first person pronoun “I’’ there is
no clear assurance that the speaker is the poet because for sure there is a character behind every poet’s
poem. The poet’s speaker is the person who is addressing the reader. Sometimes the speaker is the
poet, who addresses the reader directly or the speaker is another person. The poet reveals the identity
of the speaker in various ways. Choice of words, focus of attention and attitudes will indicate the age,
perspective and identity of the speaker.
9. Shape and Form – Basically, the actual shape and form of poems can vary dramatically from poem to
poem. It is the structure of the entire poem, you will encounter two forms. It can be free- verse and
structured. The traditional way of constructing poem follows a patterned verse. Structured poetry has
predictable patterns of rhyme, rhythm, line, length, and stanza construction. Some examples are the
sonnet and the haiku. While free verse is the modern way which does not follow a pattern. Walt
Whitman is the one who pioneered free verse wherein the poet is free to construct poem. The poet
experiments with the form of the poem. The rhythm, number of syllables per line, and stanza
construction do not follow a pattern.
10. Figurative Language – it is also called as ornamental language, rhetorical language and figure of
speech. From the term ornamental, it literally adds beauty to the poem. It is type of language that
varies from the norms of literal language, in which words mean exactly what they say. Also, known as
the ornamental language, figurative language does not mean exactly what is says, but instead forces the
reader to make an imaginative leap in order to comprehend an author’s point.
Simile – it compares two unlike things and uses signal for comparison such as “like” and “as”.
Ex. Carla is like a rose.
Metaphor – Metaphor – It is implied comparison of two unlike things.
Ex. George has a heart of a lion.
Personification – it gives human attributes to inanimate objects. It is sometimes called prosopopeia.
Ex. The clouds are crying.
Irony – The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning; a statement or situation
where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.
Ex. Oh, I like your hair; seems like you have a bad hair day.
Allusion – A brief, usually indirect reference to a person, place, or event—real or fictional.
Ex. What do you think is your waterloo?
Paradox – A paradox is seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a
contradiction or a situation which seems defy logic or intuition. The term is also used for an apparent
contradiction that actually expresses a non-dual truth such as two true sentences which put together
seem incompatible as both being true.
Ex. The more you read, the less you know.
Hyperbole – it uses excessive exaggeration for emphasis. It is also known as overstatement.
Ex. It took me forty eight years to finish the enrolment.
Synecdoche – from Greeksynekdoche, meaning “simulantaneousunderstanding”) is a figure of speech]
in which a term is used in one of the following ways:
a. Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing or
b. A thing (a “whole”) is used to refer to part of it, or
c. A specific class of things is used to refer a larger, more general class, or
d. A specific class of things is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class, or e. A container
is used to refer to its contents.
Anamnesis – “a remembering” you remind your reader of former success or catastrophe to emphasize
your point.
Ex. This the very day when my we caught an accident.
Asyndeton – Asyndeton – “Without joining” You rush a series of clauses together without conjunctions,
as if tumbled together by emotional haste.
Ex. They listened, they reviewed, and they passed the exam.

Aposiopesis – “a silence” you stop suddenly in midsentence, as if words fail, or as if the word to your
wise reader has completely sufficient.
Ex. Is it ok if…
Apostrophe – “a turning away” “you turn away” from your audience to address someone new
– God, the angels, the dead, or anyone no present.
Ex. Freedom, when you will set me free.
Apophasis – also called as paralepsis or preteritio. “A passing over” You pretend not to mention
something in the very act of mentioning it. The effect is strongly, and sometimes hilariously,
ironic. It was a favorite of Cicero.
Ex. I don’t want to mention that tomorrow will be no class.
Epitrope – You ironically grant permission.
Ex. Don’t you ever try to comeback! Go to your woman!
Oxymoron - “Pointed stupidity” You emphasize your point by the irony of an apparent
contradiction or inconsistency.
Ex. I can’t stand this deafening silence.
Hirmos – “a series” You heap appositives together.
Ex. All students, young, old, happy, depressed, they are all the same.
Horismos – you elaborate concepts by defining it.
Ex. Literature is life, an imitation of reality, a reflection of experience.
Epizeuxis - You double the same word for emphasis.
Ex. Please, please, don’t leave me.
Ploce – you repeat a word emphatically to bring out its literal meaning.
Metonymy – a kind of metaphor, in which you substitute an associated item for the thing itself.
Ex. The Malacanang palace announces that on November 30 there will be no class.

11. Stanza
It is a group of lines or verses, the counterpart of which in prose is pragraph.

12. It is the musical arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables in poetry, the rise and fall of
our voice as we read the verses (e.g. the rise and fall of the tide). It is said that this element gives a
musical undertone in a poem which makes it pleasing to the ear.

13. It is the combination of the accented and unaccented syllables in the verses of poetry.
Foot Combinations:
Rising
Iambus or Iambic (ua combination)
Anapest or Anapestic (uua combination)
Falling
Trochee or Trochaic (au combination)
Dactyl or Dactylic (auu combination)

14. Meter
It is the regular recurrence of the accented and unaccented syllables or feet in poetry. A verse then
is classified as
monometer - 1 foot combination
dimeter - 2 feet combination octameter - 8 feet combination
trimeter - 3 feet combination nonameter- 9 feet combination
tetrameter - 4 feet combination decameter - 10 feet combination
pentameter - 5 feet combination
hexameter - 6 feet combination
heptameter - 7 feet combination

Example:

u a/u u a/ u ua/uu a/ u a/
As unto a rose of ineffable beauty you are

Rhythm: uua (Most common in the group)

Foot: Anapest/Anapestic
Meter: Pentameter (number of combinations)
“Lyric 17”
Jose Garcia Villa

First, a poem must be magical. a

Then musical as a sea-gull. a
It must be a brightness moving, b
It must be slender as a bell, c
And it must hold fire as well. c
It must have the wisdom of bows, d
It must kneel like a rose. d
It must be able to hear e
The luminance of dove and deer. e
It must able to hide f
What it seeks, like a bride. f
And over all I would like to hover g
God smiling from the poem’s cover. G