Poetry

1
Poetry

• Over and Under View

Busy Curious Fly
2
Imagery in Poetry

• Imagery lies at the heart of poetry
• Much of any language is built of dead metaphors,
  and metaphors in poetry are more sleeping than
  dead.
• To put the matter concisely imagery is the
  content of thought where attention is directed to
  sensory qualities
• mental images
• figures of speech

3
Xanadu Shang Du, in China

• Xanadu  n Xanadu is a fictitious place found in
  Samuel Taylor Coleridge's wonderful but
  incomplete poem, Kubla Khan, which was published
  in 1816. 
• Xanadu was in fact a place called Shang Tu, the
  Upper Capital and summer capital of Kubla Khan
  who was the founder of the great Mongol (Yuan)
  dynasty.
• It was located about 180 miles north of Beijing. 
  
• Legend has it that Kubla Khan built a great
  'garden of delights' with a hedonistic 'pleasure
  dome' at the centre. 
• It was here that soldiers were drugged and
  convinced that they were waking up in paradise. 
• This was a clever ruse used to ensure that they
  would happily fight in the emperor's battles,
  under the mistaken belief that eventually they
  would return to the decadent 'pleasure dome'
  forever.
• Coleridge and his poem helped to immortalize
  this.  
• Unfortunately much of Kubla Khan's life is
  shrouded in mystery so whether or not such a
  place actually existed is purely speculative. 

Samuel Coleridge
music
4
Rhythm

• The rhythm or repeating pattern, chosen for a
  particular poem is called a meter. (In music it's
  called the beat.)
• The sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables
  is represented by "/" for the stressed syllable
  and "U" for the unstressed syllable.
• Were we to write a poem and choose this pattern,
  "ba BOOM ba BOOM ba BOOM," we'd mark it "U / U /
  U /" and work to find words that fit that
  pattern.

• "The queen has lost her cat,
• "The QUEEN has LOST her CAT.
• Look at our pattern, and you'll see that its
  meter is "U /" with three meters.
• There are specific names for different meters

3 Feet
U / U / U /
5
Lets Look at Feet

• Monometer one foot he SITS
• Dimeter two feet he SITS on CHAIRS
• Trimeter three feet he SITS on CHAIRS in BARS
• Tetrameter four feet he SITS on CHAIRS in BARS
  and THINKS
• Pentameter five feet he SITS on CHAIRS in BARS
  and THINKS of CARS
• Hexameter six feet he SITS on CHAIRS in BARS
  and THINKS of CARS that BREAK

6
Types of Rhythm - Iamb
One unstressed syllable, followed by one stressed

• Examples
• Iambic pentameter
• when I have FEARS that I may CEASE to BE
• beFORE my PEN has GLEAN'D my TEEMing BRAIN
• Iambic tetrameter
• come LIVE with ME and BE my LOVE
• and WE will ALL the PLEAsures PROVE
• Iambic monometer
• one GIRL.
• one BOY.
• one PHONE.
• no JOY.

• Exercise Iambic
• Basic
• Write a two- to four-line iambic verse in each of
  the following meters. It can be rhymed or
  unrhymed.
• Hexameter
• Pentameter
• Tetrameter
• Trimeter
• Dimeter
• Monometer

• 75 of all poetry
• Shakespeare

7
Types of Rhythm

• one unstressed syllable, followed by one stressed
  iamb
• when I have FEARS that I may CEASE to BE
• beFORE my PEN has GLEAN'D my TEEMing BRAIN
• one stressed syllable, then one unstressed
  trochee
• two unstressed, one stressed anapest
• one stressed, two unstressed dactyl
• two stressed spondee

8

• Ballad  
• A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or
  four lines and usually a refrain.
• It is a form of verse to be recited or sung and
  characterized by its presentation of a dramatic
  or exciting episode in simple narrative form.  
• In Australia the "bush" ballad is still very
  popular while in the West Indies the "Calypso"
  singers, with their impromptu songs, produce
  something similar to the ballad.  
• The folk ballad is,  in most countries, one of
  the earliest forms of literature. It has been
  common practice for years to compose story-songs
  about current events and people.  
• It seems as if any event of interest to people
  has made it to a ballad.  Marilyn Monroe has been
  a subject of ballads.

9
Ballad - Narrative Poetry in song style

•  Ballad
• narrative verse which tells a story
• to be sung or recited
• the folk ballad is anonymously handed down,
• while the literary ballad has a single author.

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown by Jim Croce Well the
South side of Chicago Is the baddest part of
town And if you go down there You better just
beware Of a man named Leroy Brown Now Leroy,
more than trouble You see he stands about six
foot-four All the downtown ladies call him
"Treetop Lover" All the men just call him
"Sir" And he's bad, bad, Leroy Brown The baddest
man in the whole darn town Badder than old King
Kong And meaner than a junkyard dog
Narrative a story or an account of a sequence
of events in the order in which they happen
10
Ballad
Often Sung

• Two basic Meters
• 4-3-4-3 or 4-4-4-4.
• Often have verses of four lines
• I'm nobody! Who are you?
• Are you nobody, too?
• Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
• They'd advertise -- you know!
• How dreary to be somebody!
• How public like a frog
• To tell one's name the livelong day
• To an admiring bog!
• 3. Usually have a rhyming pattern either of
• abac   or aabb or  acbc
• Repetition often found in ballads
• Entire stanzas can be repeated like a song's
  chorus
• Lines can be repeated but each time a certain
  word is changed
• A question and answer format can be built into a
  ballad one stanza asks a questions and the next
  stanza answers the question

• 2 definitions of verse
• Verses one line or
• the whole poem of poetry

2 stanzas
ballads

• Ballads contain a lot of dialogue. 
• Action is often described in the first person
• Two characters in the ballad can speak to each
  other on alternating line
• Sequences of "threes" often occur
• three kisses,
• three tasks,
• three events

11
Writing a Ballad

• Find a Topic
• One you are interested
• Dramatic
• fun
• Brainstorm all details about it
• Put them in sequence
• Group them into paragraphs
• (probably have 4 ideas per paragraph
• Select a song for its music if a ballad song
• Casey Jones
• Write Ballad

• Requirements
• Title
• 4 stanzas
• Correct rhyme and meter
• Tells a story
• Has dialogue
• Has a refrain

Due Tuesday - Use a ballad that you like as a
model
12
How to Recognize an Ode

• The first lines
• Describe some outer particular natural scene
• The next few lines
• Are an extended meditation, which the scene
  stimulates, and which may be focused on a private
  problem or a universal situation or both
• The last lines
• Discusses the occurrence of an insight or vision,
  
• a resolution or decision, which signals a return
  to the scene originally described,
• but adds a a new perspective created by the
  intervening meditation.

• It has more than one stanza
• All the stanzas have the same metre and rhyming
  scheme
• Every line rhymes with at least one other line in
  the same stanza.

Meditation The act of thinking about something
deeply and carefully
Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 Line 5 Line 6
Line 7
13
Ode

• Background Information
• The ode has been around since the days of Horace
  (Quintus Flavius Flaccus, 65-8 BC).
• A noble sentiment
• Dignified style
• 2. Subject Matter
• A celebration of a particular subject matter or
  person
• Box of crayons
• Ants
• Urns
• 3. Type of writing style
• This type of poem glorifies someone, a place or a
  thing

To Autumn
14
Ode to Autumn by John Keats

• 1.
• SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
• Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
• Conspiring with him how to load and bless
• With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves
  run
• To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
• And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core
• To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
• With a sweet kernel to set budding more,
• And still more, later flowers for the bees,
• Until they think warm days will never cease,
• For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

• 2.
• Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy
  store?
• Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
• Thee sitting careless on a granary
  floor,
• Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing
  wind
• Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound
  asleep,
• Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while
  thy hook
• Spares the next swath and all its
  twined flowers
• And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost
  keep
• Steady thy laden head across a brook
• Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
• Thou watchest the last oozings hours by
  hours.

15
Number lines
Ode to Autumn - Analysis

• Read the first stanza and circle two words which
  you think best describe autumn.
• Point out lines in the first stanza which draw
  pictures in your mind
• Name at least three things that autumn and the
  sun are conspiring to do in stanza 1.
• How may autumn confuse the bees?
• Cite three instances in which the spirit of
  autumn is personified as a farm girl?
• What sights are evoked at line 25-26 to picture
  autumn's beauty?
• What autumn sounds are mentioned in the last
  seven lines of final stanza?
• What does Keats suggest about autumn's beauty and
  about cyclic pattern of nature?
• Is this poem mainly descriptive, or does the
  poet intrude his moods on the poem? (proof from
  text)
• What examples of tactile imagery-
• imagery that appeals to the senses of touch-do
  you find in Autumn"?
• What is the theme of the ode?

• ripeness and harvest
• nature's cycles)

Answer
16
Number lines
Ode to Autumn - Analysis

• Read the first stanza and circle two words which
  you think best describe autumn.
• Point out lines in the first stanza which draw
  pictures in your mind
• Name at least three things that autumn and the
  sun are conspiring to do in stanza 1.
• How may autumn confuse the bees?
• Cite three instances in which the spirit of
  autumn is personified as a farm girl?
• What sights are evoked at line 25-26 to picture
  autumn's beauty?
• What autumn sounds are mentioned in the last
  seven lines of final stanza?
• What does Keats suggest about autumn's beauty and
  about cyclic pattern of nature?
• Is this poem mainly descriptive, or does the
  poet intrude his moods on the poem? (proof from
  text)
• What examples of tactile imagery-
• imagery that appeals to the senses of touch-do
  you find in Autumn"?
• What is the theme of the ode?

• ripeness and harvest
• nature's cycles)

Answer
17

• Concrete Words
• Figurative language
• Sensory words
• Mood

Writing Your Own Ode

• What images-of sound, sight, smell, taste, or
  touch-have led you on a journey of the
  imagination, perhaps back to some remembered past
  occurrence?
• Think of a an event and write down two words
  which can best describe it
• What images do you usually see ?
• What kind of memories does the event evoke?
• Describe it in paragraph form
• Use the above information as a source to compose
  your own ode.

• Format
• Meter
• Rhyme
• 3 subsections
• Description
• Meditation
• New perspective because of meditation
• Dignified
• Glorify object

18
Sonnets

• Specific Definition
• Sonnets are fourteen-line poems, period.
• They exist in every meter, with every rhyme
  scheme imaginable, or with no rhyme scheme at
  all.
• The more or less standard sonnets, however, fall
  into two types
• Italian and Shakepearean

• What is a Sonnet?
• It is the concise expression of an isolated
  poetic thought--
• An idea keenly felt emotionally and
  rhythmically--
• The sonnet would seem to be the best medium
  (format) for this idea

19
Italian Sonnet

• The Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet, has 14
  lines-separated into 2 sections
• An octave (or octet), or 8 lines with rhyming
  patterns of either
• abbaabba, or
• abbacddc or
• abababab (rarely)
• A sestet, of 6 lines which may rhyme
• xyzxyz or
• xyxyxy, or any other possible and multiple
  variations.
• Volta - Shift in direction of thought or emotions
• Point where a distinct turn of thought occurs
• In Italian Sonnet, after Octave

• If poets write in the form of the Italian Sonnet
  
• They begin with an octave and
• Conclude with a sestet.
• They place the volta in the Sestet or at end of
  the Octave

20
Italian Sonnet - Rhyming Scheme

• The eight-line stanza, called an octave, uses two
  rhyme words.
• The first line rhymes with the fourth, fifth, and
  eighth lines
• the second with the third, sixth, and seventh.
• Meter Iambic Pentameter
• Confused? Here is the octave of a sonnet by the
  best sonneteer of the twentieth century, Edna St.
  Vincent Millay

• They break down into one eight-line stanza, that
  tells an experience or expresses a thought or
  feeling, and
• a six-line stanza, that contrasts with, resolves,
  or comments on the first part.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and
why, I have forgotten, and what arms have
lain Under my head till morning but the rain Is
full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon
the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart
there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads
that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a
cry.
21
Italian Sonnet

• BUSY, curious, thirsty fly!  
• Drink with me and drink as I  
• Freely welcome to my cup,  
• Couldst thou sip and sip it up  
• Make the most of life you may,          5
• Life is short and wears away.  
•  
• Both alike are mine and thine  
• Hastening quick to their decline  
• Thine 's a summer, mine 's no more,  
• Though repeated to threescore.   10
• Threescore summers, when they're gone,  
• Will appear as short as one!  

22

• BUSY, curious, thirsty fly!  
• Drink with me and drink as I  
• Freely welcome to my cup,  
• Couldst thou sip and sip it up  
• Make the most of life you may,          5
• Life is short and wears away.  
•  
• Both alike are mine and thine  
• Hastening quick to their decline  
• Thine 's a summer, mine 's no more,  
• Though repeated to threescore.   10
• Threescore summers, when they're gone,  
• Will appear as short as one!  

23
Italian Sonnet - Format

• They break down into one eight-line stanza, that
  tells an experience or expresses a thought or
  feeling, and
• a six-line stanza, that contrasts with, resolves,
  or comments on the first part.

• Counterpane
• quilt
• blanket

24
English Sonnet

• The English Sonnet was introduced into English
  poetry in the early 16th century by Sir Thomas
  Wyatt (1503-1542).
• In English, we are especially familiar with
• the English (or Shakespearean) Sonnet and
• the Spenserian Sonnet
• In these types of sonnets the poet groups lines
  in three quatrains followed by a closing rhymed
  couplet.
• Poets places a shift (a more subtle change than
  the volta) between the second and third
  quatrains.

• Tidbit of knowledge
• The name Sonnet from the Italian sonnetto
  ("little sound" or "little song").

25
Analysis Practice
To Sleep

• A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by
• One after one the sound of rain, and bees
• Murmuring the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
• Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure
  sky
•  
• Ive thought of all by turns, and still I
  lie         
• Sleepless and soon the small birds melodies
• Must hear, first utterd from my orchard trees,
• And the first cuckoos melancholy cry.
•  
• Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay,
• And could not win thee, Sleep! by any
  stealth         
• So do not let me wear to-night away
•  Without Thee what is all the mornings wealth?
• Come, blesséd barrier between day and day,
• Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
• By William Wordsworth

• What kind of Sonnet?
• Where is Volta or shift?
• Transition from one idea to the next?
• What is rhyming pattern?
• What is rhythm (meter)?

26
Sonnet by ee cummings

• What's the satire in the following aimed at?
• What touches of mockery give you most pleasure?
• Is the poem very dated? (It was published in
  1926.)
• What is its form?
• Pay attention to the quotation marks. They define
  a speaker, who is not to be taken as the poet.
• What information is imparted by the quotation
  marks?
• Why "next to of course god"? Why "of course"?
  What is this speaker's relation to his audience?
• How does the shift from "thy" to "your" within a
  single line contribute to the effect?
• Cummings took care to make the poem rhyme, so
  you've got to pause a bit (but not drop the pitch
  of your voice) after "beaut-". What is the effect
  of breaking the word thus?
• If the dead did not stop to think, does the
  speaker think they are to be admired for this?
  Does Cummings?
• What's the effect of the last line?

Theme confused philosophy

• "next to of course god america I
• love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
• say can you see by the dawn's early my
• country 'tis of centuries come and go
• and are no more what of it we should worry
• in every language even deafanddumb
• thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
• by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
• why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
• iful than these heroic happy dead
• who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
• they did not stop to think they died instead
• then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
• He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

27
Definitions

• Satire Use of sarcasm and ridicule to attack
  the vices of human nature.

• Mockery ,words or behavior to make somebody or
  something look ridiculous

28

• Try reading it like this for better understanding
• next to of course god
• america i love you
• land of the pilgrims' and so forth
• oh say can you see by the dawn's early
• my country 'tis of
• centuries come and go and are no more
• what of it
• we should worry in every language
• even deafanddumb
• thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
• by jingo
• by gee
• by gosh
• by gum
• why talk of beauty
• what could be more beaut-
• iful than these heroic happy dead

29
Assignment Writing an English Sonnet

• Do you have a passion to express, an argument to
  press?
• The Sonnet may be the form you need, to convince
  the world.
• Homework policy
• Poverty
• Youth

• Select a topic that you have some interest in
• Divide it into 3 stanzas of thought
• Couplet for conclusion
• Develop each quatrain (3 couplet) with a
  specific idea
• but one closely related to the ideas in the other
  quatrains
• Shift between 3 and 3 quatrain
• Rhyming pattern???
• Iambic Pentameter - meter

• Does that seems too hard?
• It is estimated that probably a million sonnets
  are written nowadays worldwide, by poets young
  and old, of all possible levels of skill.
• Why not you?

30

• Epic  
• This is a long, narrative poem that celebrates
  the achievements and adventures of a hero.
• An epic deals with the traditions, mythical or
  historical, of a nation.
• An example of an epic is Beowulf.
• Or the Illiad and the Odyssey

• Elegy
• A poem that laments the death of a person, or one
  that is simply sad and thoughtful.
• An example of this type of poem is Thomas Gray's
  Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.