The Elements of Poetry

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The Elements of Poetry

• Mr. D. Bellis
• CP/AP English

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Elements of Poetry

• The Nature of Poetry (3 purposes)
• Poetry helps the writer say what they feel in a
  better way than speaking those feelings.
• Poetry helps the reader see (or perceive)
  familiar things in new ways.
• Finally, poetry helps the reader feel things we
  have not felt before.
• Therefore, poetry serves to widen our experiences
  and the way we view ourselves.

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The types of poetry

• Narrative Poetry
• Is the oldest form of literature.
• It tells a story or expresses an emotion, or
  explains and idea.
• Is usually used in the story telling of a
  culture.
• Lyric Poetry
• Is the recreation of the authors feelings.
• Contains short outbursts of emotions.
• Allows the author to share their experiences
  and emotions with others.

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Rhetorical devices-the tools poets use in the
  expression of their art.
• Figures of speech-such as simile, metaphor, and
  personification are common poetic tools.
• Some examples include
• Similehis feet were like two immense cannons,
  two sharks, two blackbirds.

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Figures of speech examples continued.
• Metaphorfinally seeing her smile was a welcomed
  relief to my abused emotions.
• Personificationthe wolves sang their lonely
  chorus throughout the moon lit night.

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Imageryis a second type of poetic device in
  which the poet uses words to draw pictures in the
  readers minds describing appeals to the human
  senses.
• Different types of imagery include
• Sense impressions (sound and sight).
• Tactile (touch) sensations.
• Olfactory (smell) appeals.

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Sound devicesare poetic tools that form the
  rhythmic patterns in poetry.
• Metrical symbols (scansion) is the rhythmic
  representation of poetry in the form of foot
  patterns and stressed and unstressed syllable
  sounds.

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Syllable stress symbols
• \ Stressed syllable
• ? Unstressed syllable
• Foot patterns two syllable feet
• Iambic ? \ (unstressed, stressed)
• Trochaic \ ? (stressed, unstressed)
• Pyrrhic ? ? (unstressed, unstressed)
• Spondaic \\ (stressed, stressed)

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Foot patterns three syllable feet
• Anapest ? ? \ (unstressed, unstressed,
  stressed)
• Dactyl \ ? ? (stressed, unstressed,
  unstressed)
• Poetic rhythm is also symbolized by the number of
  feet per line.

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Rhythm feet measures the number of measures
  (feet) in a line of poetry. Also known as the
  scansion of a line.
• Monometer (one measure)
• Dimeter (two measures)
• Trimeter (three measures)
• Tetrameter (four measures)
• Pentameter (five measures)
• Hexameter (six measures)
• Octameter (eight measures)

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Scansion continued
• Caesuraa pause caused by the phrasing of words.
• End-stoppedall meaning, rhythm, and rhyme stop
  simultaneously.
• Enjambmentthe phrasing pressure carries the
  rhythmic pattern from one line to the next.

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Sound devicesthe choice of sounds of words to
  determine the impact of the poem upon the reader.
• Assonancethe repetition of a vowel sound within
  successive words, phrases, or lines of text.
• Alliterationthe repetition of initial consonant
  sounds in successive words.
• Onomatopoeiathe sound of a word echoes its
  meaning (BAM, POW, BOOM, SMACK).

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Sound devices (continued)
• Rhymethe repetition of the ending sounds of
  words, particularly occurring at the end of
  lines.
• Internal rhymethe repetition of sounds of words
  in the middle of a line with those sounds at the
  end of the same line of text.

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Poetic Devicesthe toolbox of poetry

• Examples of poetic devices