P19 STRESS
Poetry
It’s All About the Purpose
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Four techniques to create stress in a poem:
 Use
white space purposefully
 Use anastrophe
 Use font changes
 Use punctuation
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BUT use these techniques to draw attention, not at
random
What is White Space?
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Line breaks
Alignment
Shape
Tips on Line Breaks
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Use line breaks to signal spoken pauses
End lines with strong words (nouns, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs)
Use short lines to draw attention to key concepts
Consider how line breaks aid other techniques
(repetition, alliteration, etc.)
Example
Example
We Real Cool
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
Die soon.
Gwendolyn Brooks
Example
Anastrophe
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Definition: words are out of order (compared to
normal speech)
Example:
 Yoda
in Star Wars Episode V - Empire Strikes
"Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight
hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will
I keep on who is to be trained...This one a long time
have I watched...Never his mind on where he was."
Example
Shakespeare’s SONNET 130
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.
Punching Punctuation
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All punctuation marks indicate a verbal pause
 Short
pause: commas, semi-colons, colons, parantheses
 Long pause: period, dash, question mark, exclamation
point
Example
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
By E. E. Cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Example
If those I loved were lost by Emily Dickinson
If those I loved were lost
The Crier's voice would tell me -If those I loved were found
The bells of Ghent would ring -Did those I loved repose
The Daisy would impel me.
Philip -- when bewildered
Bore his riddle in!
Recap

What four techniques can you use to create stress?
 Use
white space purposefully
 Use anastrophe
 Use font changes
 Use punctuation