POETRY
KINDS OF STANZAS
Couplet
Triplet (Tercet)
Quatrain
Two Line Stanza
Three Line Stanza
Four Line Stanza
Quintet
Sestet
Septet
Octave
Five Line Stanza
Six Line Stanza
Seven Line Stanza
Eight Line Stanza
PERFECT RHYME
 Words sound alike
because they share the
same ending vowel
and consonant sounds.
 (A word always
rhymes with itself.)
LAMP
STAMP
 Share the short “a”
vowel sound
 Share the combined
“mp” consonant sound
NEAR RHYME
 a.k.a imperfect
rhyme, close rhyme
 The words share
EITHER the same
vowel or consonant
sound BUT NOT
BOTH
ROSE
LOSE
 Different vowel
sounds (long “o” and
“oo” sound)
 Share the same
consonant sound
END RHYME
 A word at the end of one line rhymes with a
word at the end of another line
Hector the Collector
Collected bits of string.
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.
INTERNAL RHYME
 A word inside a line rhymes with another
word on the same line.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered weak and weary.
From “The Raven”
by Edgar Allan Poe
RHYME SCHEME
 A rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme (usually
end rhyme, but not always).
 Use the letters of the alphabet to represent sounds
to be able to visually “see” the pattern. (See next
slide for an example.)
SAMPLE RHYME SCHEME
The Germ by Ogden Nash
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.
a
a
b
b
c
c
a
a
 It’s the End of the
World as we Know It
REM

That's great, it starts with an earthquake,
birds and snakes,
an airplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself
churn,
world serves its own needs, dummy serve
your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak,, grunt, no,
strength,
The ladder starts to clatter with fear fight
down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games,
a government for hire and a combat site.
Left of west and coming in a hurry with
the furies breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped,
tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing!
Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common
food, but it'll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself. World
serves its own needs, listen to your heart
bleed dummy with the rapture and the
revered and the right - right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright
light, feeling pretty psyched.
chorus
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I
feel fine.
Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in
foreign towers.
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn.
Locking in, informing, book burning, blood
letting.
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate.
Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step
down.
Watch your heel crush, crushed. Uh-oh, this
means no fear cavalier.
Renegade steer clear! A tournament, a
tournament, a tournament of lies.
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I
decline.
chorus
The other night I dreamt of knives, continental
drift divide. Mountains sit in a line
Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Brezhnev. Lenny
Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam book neck,
right? Right.
Classwork
 Write down the rhyme scheme of the poem.
 Identify perfect and slant rhyme and internal and
end rhymes.
 Discuss how the rhyme contributes to the poem
and write an explanation on the back of the paper.
 In group, create a poem “in a round”
 Use the picture to get you started. Then each
person adds a line to the poem.
 The poem must contain the following:
–
–
–
–
–
Quatrain
Couplet
Triplet
Internal and end rhymes
Slant and perfect rhymes.
RHYTHM
 The beat created by
the sounds of the
words in a poem
 Rhythm can be created
by meter, rhyme,
alliteration and refrain.
METER
 A pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables.
 Meter occurs when the stressed and unstressed
syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a
repeating pattern.
 When poets write in meter, they count out the
number of stressed (strong) syllables and
unstressed (weak) syllables for each line. They
they repeat the pattern throughout the poem.
METER cont.
 FOOT - unit of meter.
 A foot can have two or
three syllables.
 Usually consists of
one stressed and one
or more unstressed
syllables.
 TYPES OF FEET
The types of feet are
determined by the
arrangement of
stressed and
unstressed syllables.
(cont.)
METER cont.
TYPES OF FEET (cont.)
Iambic - unstressed, stressed
Trochaic - stressed, unstressed
Anapestic - unstressed, unstressed, stressed
Dactylic - stressed, unstressed, unstressed
METER cont.
Kinds of Metrical Lines
 monometer
 dimeter
 trimeter
 tetrameter
 pentameter
 hexameter
 heptameter
 octometer
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
one foot on a line
two feet on a line
three feet on a line
four feet on a line
five feet on a line
six feet on a line
seven feet on a line
eight feet on a line
SOME TYPES OF POETRY
WE WILL BE STUDYING
FREE VERSE POETRY
 Unlike metered poetry,
free verse poetry does
NOT have any
repeating patterns of
stressed and
unstressed syllables.
 Does NOT have
rhyme.
 Free verse poetry is
very conversational sounds like someone
talking with you.
 A more modern type
of poetry.
BLANK VERSE POETRY
from Julius Caesar
 Written in lines of
iambic pentameter, but
does NOT use end
rhyme.
Cowards die many times before
their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but
once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have
heard,
It seems to me most strange that
men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
LYRIC
 A short poem
 Usually written in first person point of view
 Expresses an emotion or an idea or
describes a scene
 Do not tell a story and are often musical
 (Many of the poems we read will be lyrics.)
NARRATIVE POEMS
 A poem that tells a
story.
 Generally longer than
the lyric styles of
poetry b/c the poet
needs to establish
characters and a plot.
Examples of Narrative
Poems
“The Raven”
“The Highwayman”
“Casey at the Bat”
“The Walrus and the
Carpenter”

The Ballad of Gilligan's Island by
George Wyle and Sherwood Shwartz Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.
So this is the tale of the castaways,
They're here for a long, long time,
They'll have to make the best of things,
It's an uphill climb.
The weather started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
The minnow would be lost, the minnow would be
lost.
The first mate and the Skipper too,
Will do their very best,
To make the others comfortable,
In the tropic island nest.
The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted
desert isle
With Gilligan
The Skipper too,
The millionaire and his wife,
The movie star
The professor and Mary Ann,
Here on Gilligan's Isle.
source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gilligansislandlyrics.html
No phone, no lights no motor cars,
Not a single luxury,
Like Robinson Crusoe,
As primitive as can be.
So join us here each week my friends,
You're sure to get a smile,
From seven stranded castaways,
Here on "Gilligan's Isle."
Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Song: I Am a Rock Lyrics
A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Don't talk of love,
Well, I've heard the word before.
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.
 "Angels" by Enya from the 1991 album "Shepherd Moons."
Angels, answer me,
are you near if rain should fall?
Am I to believe
you will rise to calm the storm?
For so great a treasure words will never do.
Surely, if this is, promises are mine to give you.
mine to give...
Here, all too soon the day!
Wish the moon to fall and alter tomorrow.
I should know
heaven has her way
- each one given memories to own.
Angeles, all could be
should you move both earth and sea
Angeles, I could feel
all those dark clouds disappearing...
Even, as I breathe
comes an angel to their keep.
Surely, if this is
promises are mine to give you.
mine to give...
FIGURATIVE
LANGUAGE
ONOMATOPOEIA
 Words that imitate the sound they are
naming
BUZZ
 OR sounds that imitate another sound
“The silken, sad, uncertain, rustling of
each purple curtain . . .”
ALLITERATION
 Consonant sounds repeated at the
beginnings of words
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
peppers, how many pickled peppers did
Peter Piper pick?
ASSONANCE
 Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line or lines
of poetry.
(Often creates near rhyme.)
Lake
Fate
Base
Fade
(All share the long “a” sound.)
ASSONANCE cont.
Examples of ASSONANCE:
“Slow the low gradual moan came in the
snowing.”
- John Masefield
“Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep.”
- William Shakespeare
SIMILE
 A comparison of two things using “like, as
than,” or “resembles.”
 “She is as beautiful as a sunrise.”
METAPHOR
 A direct comparison of two unlike things
 “All the world’s a stage, and we are merely
players.”
- William Shakespeare
EXTENDED METAPHOR
 A metaphor that goes several lines or
possible the entire length of a work.
Hyperbole
 Exaggeration often used for emphasis.
PERSONIFICATION
 An animal
given humanlike qualities
or an object
given life-like
qualities.
from “Ninki”
by Shirley Jackson
“Ninki was by this time irritated
beyond belief by the general air of
incompetence exhibited in the
kitchen, and she went into the living
room and got Shax, who is
extraordinarily lazy and never catches
his own chipmunks, but who is, at
least, a cat, and preferable, Ninki saw
clearly, to a man with a gun.
IMAGERY
 Language that appeals to the senses.
 Most images are visual, but they can also
appeal to the senses of sound, touch, taste,
or smell.
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather . . .
from “Those Winter Sundays”
Literary Criticism
 New Criticism: focused on the text and
literary devices of a work of literature
 Bio/Historical Criticism: literary work as a
reflection of the author's life and times
 Moralistic Criticism: Judge the value of the
literature on its moral lesson or ethical
teaching