The

Wonderful
World of
Poetry…

Introduction to Poetry
 What is poetry?
•Poetry is not prose. Prose is the ordinary
language people use in speaking or writing.
•Poetry is a form of literary expression that
captures intense experiences or creative
perceptions of the world in a musical
language.

•Basically, if prose is like talking, poetry is like

singing.
 Characteristics of Poetry
O Unlike prose which has a narrator, poetry has a
speaker.
O A speaker, or voice, talks to the reader. The speaker
is not necessarily the poet. It can also be a fictional
person, an animal or even a thing

Example
But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you.
from “Once Upon a Time” by Gabriel Okara
 Characteristics
Characteristicsof
ofPoetry
Poetry
Poem Structure:
– A line is a word or row of words that may or
may not form a complete sentence.
– A stanza is a group of lines forming a unit. The
stanzas in a poem are separated by a space.
Example
Open it.

Go ahead, it won’t bite.

Well…maybe a little.
from “The First Book” by Rita Dove
 Figures of Speech
O A figure of speech is a word or
expression that is not meant to be
read literally. We will come back to
study them later in this presentation.
Dramatic Poetry Narrative Poetry
Dramatizes action Poetry-Tells a story
though dialogue or
monologue
Lyrical Poetry
Expresses Personal
thoughts and
emotions
“Be Still my
Beating
Heart”
- Sting
https://www.youtube
.com/watch?v=Ng4P
6FWVdcE

Expresses emotions,
appeals to your senses,
and often could be set to
music.
How do I love thee? (Elizabeth Barret Expresses emotions in
Browning)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. a dramatic way,
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
Dramatic
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace poetry encompasses
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
a highly emotional
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; story that's written in
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
verse and meant to
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith be recited. It usually
I love thee with a love I seem to love
With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
tells a story or refers
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, to a specific situation.
I shall but love thee better after death.
 THE RAVEN
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore-
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered,
"tapping at my chamber door-
Expresses emotions,
Only this and nothing more.“ appeals to your senses,
and often could be set
to music.
A. You can read poems
B. Analyse poems
C. Write poems
A. Writing poetry
 B. Writing poetry
▪ To use poems as models for own
writing
▪ To add or substitute ideas to existing
poems
▪ To compose own poems in a range of
forms
▪ To compose own poems using a
range of poetic devices and
techniques
 Pass the poem
O The teacher provides the opening phrase and asks the
students to complete each line.

O Ask students to try. Put it in your e.portfolio

 Adding and Substituting
One For the Cluck of an Angry Hen
One for the cluck of an angry hen.
Two for the cheeps of a tiny wren.
Three for the croak of a fat green frog.
Four for the bark of a jumping dog.
Five for the quack of a duck on a lake.
Six for the hiss of a wriggling snake.
Seven for the hoot of the old grey owl.
Eight for the snarl for a wolf on the prowl.
Nine for the squeak of a scuttling rat.
Ten for the purr of a snuggling cat.
Enjoying Poetry from
practice

Spring has
sprung,
The grass has
riz,
I wonder where
the birdies is?
 Fast poem
Choose a subject – e.g. spaghetti

O First line – noun: spaghetti

O Two adjectives: thin and soft
O Three adverbs: silently, slowly, easily
O Four verbs: slipping, sliding, slithering,
disappearing.
 Now ….your turn!!!!
Fast poem
Choose a subject – ……………………..
O First line – noun: ........................................
O Two adjectives: .........................................
O Three adverbs: .........................................
O Four verbs: ..........................................
 Why teach poetry?
O Supports language reading;
O A structured model for writing;
O Motivates less able writers;
O Develops evaluative skills;
O Hones word choices;
O Encourages experimentation and creativity;
O Outlet for moods, feelings and attitudes.
B. Reading poetry
 Reading Poetry
▪ To learn poems
▪ To learn about poetic devices such as
rhythm, rhyme and figurative language
▪ To interpret poems
▪ To evaluate poetry
▪ To respond to poetry
▪ To perform poems
LET’S START….
 The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

By Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey,
and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing!
Oh! let us be married;
too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows;
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next
day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand on the edge of the sand

They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
DID YOU LIKE THE
STORY????
WHAT IS IT ABOUT????
 Nursery Rhymes
O Part of our literary heritage;
O Repetition and patterns make nursery
rhymes an excellent resource for early
reading;
O Schools need to ensure the continuation of
knowledge of nursery rhymes.
C. Analysing poetry
 Reflecting on the poem
Origin and background
This wonderful ballad was written by Edward Lear and put into music
by Victor Hely-Hutchinson, so it is one of the few nursery rhymes with
a known author.

Our ballad in question is much more romantic than that, it is the

heartbreaking romance between a cat and an owl, both animals of
the night. Some funny details are mentioned in the song, illustrating
the bizarreness of the scene but in the end they danced by the light
of the moon.

* Gloss: The word "runcible" does not exist, it was made up by Edward
Lear and means - nothing.
 The Owl and the Pussycat
O The author
O Sinopsis
O Literary Analysis:
O Language Style
O Theme
O Rhyme
O Stanza Form
O Repetition
O Tone
O Irony
O SYNOPSIS
O "The Owl and the Pussycat" features
four anthropomorphic animals – an owl, a cat, a pig, and a turkey
– and tells the story of the love between the title characters who
marry in the land "where the Bong-tree grows".
The Owl and the Pussycat set out to sea in a pea green boat with
honey and "plenty of money" wrapped in a five pound note. The
Owl serenades the Pussycat while gazing at the stars and
strumming on a small guitar. He describes her as beautiful. The
Pussycat responds by describing the Owl as an "elegant fowl" and
compliments him on his singing. She urges they marry but they
don't have a ring. They sail away for a year and a day to a land
where Bong-trees grow and discover a pig with a ring in his nose in
a wood. They buy the ring for a shilling and are married the next
day by a turkey. They dine on mince and quince using a "runcible
spoon", then dance hand-in-hand on the sand in the moonlight.
 BIOGRAPHY OF THE POET
Edward Lear
O The British poet and painter known for his absurd wit, Edward Lear was born
in 1812 and began his career as an artist at age 15.
O Young Lear was forced to earn a living.
O .
His first book of poems, A Book of Nonsense (1846) was composed for the
grandchildren of the Derby household. Around 1836
O Lear decided to devote himself exclusively to landscape painting (although
he continued to compose light verse). Between 1837 and 1847 Lear
traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.

O After his return to England, Lear's travel journals were published in several
volumes as The Illustrated Travels of a Landscape Painter.
O Lear is remembered for his humorous poems, such as "The Owl and the
Pussycat," and as the creator of the form and meter of the modern limerick.
O Like his younger peer Lewis Carroll, Lear wrote many deeply fantastical
poems about imaginary creatures, such as "The Dong with the Luminous
Nose."
O .Lear died in 1888 at the age of 76.
O
 POETRY ANALYSIS
a. Language Style
O The emphasis on the aesthetics of language and the use of techniques
such as repetition, meter and rhyme are what are commonly used to
distinguish English poetry from English prose. Poems often make heavy
use of imagery and word association to quickly convey emotions. It is
lyrical and easy to uderstand, but the word 'runcible' and ‘Bong-tree’
does not exist in the English language and were coined for this poem
adding to it's nonsensical theme.

b. Theme
The theme of poem “The Owl and the Pussy Cat” is love/marriage.
c. Poetic form
This poem is Rhyme verse Forms.
O Stanza I: a-b-c-b-c-d-c-d-d-d-d
O Stanza II: a-b-c-b-d-e-c-e-e-e
O Stanza III: a-b-c-b-d-e-f-e-e-e
 POETIC DEVICE
O

• Rhyme
O Internal rhyme
• They took some honey, and plenty of money
• Pussy said to the owl, you elegant fowl
• O let us be married! Too long we have tarried
• They sailed away, for a year and a day
• And there in a wood a piggy-wig stood
• They dined on mince, and slices of quince

O Approximate / Half-rhyme
• In a beautiful pea-green boat
O Wrapped up in a five pound note
• How charmingly sweet you sing
O But what shall we do for a ring
• The owl looked up to the stars above
O O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love
• To the land where the Bong-tree grows
O With a ring at the end of his nose
• Said the Piggy “I will”
O By the Turkey who lives on the hill
 Stanza form
O The stanza form of this poem is roundel, which contains eleven lines in each stanza.
Repetition
O This poem contains so many repetitions, such as: line 8 and 11 (What a beautiful pussy you
are), line 9 and 10 (You are), line 19 and 22 (with a ring at the end of his nose), line 20 and
21 (his nose), line 30 and 33 (They danced by the light of the moon), line 31 and 32 (the
moon).
O
Tone
O The tone in this poem is happiness or cheerfulness.
Symbol and Allegory
Owl: Their large human-like eyes are associated with intelligence and wisdom. The owl
also tend to be quiet, solitary, relax and enjoy the leisure of life.
Pussy cat: One who is regarded as easy going, mild-mannered, or amiable. It is also
regarded as a hot chick who is sexy and naughty.
Pea-green boat: It could be a romantic setting for a love affair
Green: symbolic of the fertile, productive, lush, and amorous qualities of life so
beautiful.
O
 O Honey: can be seen as a sweet indulgence. Perhaps symbolic of the sweet love that
the Owl and the Pussycat shared. And Perhaps the honey is meant as a symbol that
the relationship as before long the two would be on their "honeymoon".
O Bong-tree: They're shaped like a marshmellow stick and vary in height. They create
a fantasy land in which the two characters marry.
O Ring: Symbolized as marriage vow
O Hog ring: Symbolized that someone is going to be led around by the nose.
O Turkey: It has a reputation of not being the most intelligent of birds but it certainly
would make a tasty meal for both the Owl and the Pussycat.
O Mince and quice: a level of sophistication to the meal.
O Runcible spoon: By today's standards, it would probably be called a spork, a spoon
with three tines.
O The moon: The Owl and the Pussycat both are known for stalking their prey at night
so it should be an inresting honeymoon under the moonlight for the two lovers.

Irony
O It would be impossible to find an owl and a cat together in the first place and to have
them sailing to sea makes it even more improbable.
O The cat would no doubt see the bird as prey to serve as her lunch under normal
circumstances.
O The cat as well tends to avoid the water and would certainly feel unstable in a boat.
As a result, the two lovers are silly in their accompaniment.
O The irony of this word choice is that the remainder of the poem is written in short,
quick understandable words that are suitable for children. Suddenly, Lear breaks the
mold by choosing a word that is a bit archaic and unknown to most people.
O
 Moral Value
If you want to be happy, you should find someone that you love and
never let her/him go. No matter she/he is a pretty or ugly, rich or poor,
smart or stupid, etc. Marry and be with her/him till the end of your life.

The Comments about “The owl and the Pussy Cat” and Its
Implication in Language Teaching
This poem is contain ingenious creativity and unique content. The
wonderful illustrated graphics have also been set to the words of the
owl and the pussycat poem helping to fire the imagination of a child!
The irresistible blend of romance and nonsense in Edward Lear's "The
Owl and the Pussy-cat" has made it a classic enjoyed by generations
of young listeners We can also use this poem as a media to teach
listening, reading, vocabulary.
 Now ….your turn!!!!
Reading, analysing and
writing your own poems
1. Choose a simple poem about animals and follow
the model and analyse it. Learn it by heart. Include
the analysis and your mp3 recording in your e.
portfolio.
2. Download 3 outstanding nursery rhymes, include
them in your e.portfolio. Invent one of your own.
3. Work with Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe and
follow the model of analysing it. Include it in your
e.portfolio both the poem and the analysis
Poetry exists in a range of forms
Nursery Shape Conversations
rhymes poems Riddles Jingles and
monologues
Action Acrostic Classic
verses poems Limericks Couplets poems
Haikus and
Chants Tankas Epitaphs Raps Letters
Modern Performance
rhymes Cinquains Elegies poems Lists
Tongue Nonsense Narrative Alphabet
twisters Kennings poems poems poems
Concrete Poems o
caligrams:
They are visual poems in
which the text creates an
image related to the
poem.
 Poetry in which authors
use both words and
physical shape to convey
a message.
Another Concrete Poem
 Haiku poems:
They have Japanese origins. They have three verses and
generally its main theme is related to nature.
 Haikus
O The traditional Japanese haiku is an unrhymed
poem that contains exactly 17 syllables,
arranged in 3 lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables each.
O However, when poems written in Japanese are
translated into another language, this pattern is
often lost.
O The purpose of a haiku is to capture a flash of
insight that occurs during a solitary
observation of nature.
 Examples of Haikus
Since morning glories
hold my well-bucket hostage
I beg for water
- Chiyo-ni First autumn morning:
the mirror I stare into
shows my father’s face.
- Kijo Murakami
Cinquain:
This poem has got American origins but ispired in the Haiku. It follows this
structure:
- Line 1: a word for the title
- Line 2: two words to describe the title
- Line 3: three words to express an action related to title
- Line 4: four words to exress a feeling about the title
- Line 5. a word that repeats the title or other thing related to it.

Example: Love
Difficult, beautiful
Cry, laugh, miss.
It makes you crazy
Passion
 The
Cinquains “Modern”
Sister Cinquain
Smart, Outgoing •A Cinquain is a
poem that
Loving, playing, Laughing
resembles a
Always in for some fun diamond.
Friend •It has 5 lines and
begins with one
word.
•The 2nd line has
two adjectives that
“Tucson Rain” describe that word.
“Traditional The smell •The 3rd , three
verbs.
” Cinquain Everyone moves •The 4th line is a
To the window to look phrase that goes
Work stops and people deeper into the
start talking topic.
Rain came •The 5th line gives
either a synonym
for the first word, or
a word that
encompasses the
whole poem.
 "Diamond« poem
Like the cinquain but with 7 lines. It follows this structure:
- Line 1-> títle
- Line 2--> two adjectives that describe the title
- Line 3--> three words that express an action related to title
- Line 4--> four words that express a feeling about title
- Line 5--> a word that repeats titl or anything related to it
- Line 6--> two adjectives that describe line 7 noun
- Line 7--> a noun that opposes the first line noun

Example:
"Acrostic":
These are poems in which every first letter in each verse form a new
vertical word related to the poem

Example:
Winter wonderland.
Ice is slippery.
Nothing is hot.
The weather is cold.
Everything you touch is cold.
Really cold
•Paper slip poems:
Poems are built from paper slips containing different words according to
author’s creativity
"Jazz Chants".
They are poems chanted with Jazz rhytm, making some sounds with fingers
or claps

Example:
Up and down
right and left Example:
Purple and red, touch your head.
five, six, seven Yellow and blue, touch your shoe.
eight, nine, ten. Orange and white, point to the light.
Brown and black, point to the Jack.
Black and brown, turn around.
Up and down
right and left
touch you eyes
touch your neck

Up and down
right and left
close your eyes
touch you neck
Headline Poem: a poem that uses clippings
from newspapers or magazines to create a
message.
 Sonnets
O Background of Sonnets
O Form invented in Italy.
O Most if not all of Shakespeare’s sonnets are
about love or a theme related to love.
O Sonnets are usually written in a series with each
sonnet a continuous subject to the next.
(Sequels in movies)
 Sequence of Sonnets
O Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets and can be broken
up by the characters they address.
O The Fair Youth: Sonnets 1 – 126 are devoted to a
young man of extreme physical beauty. The first 17
sonnets urge the young man to pass on his beauty to the
next generation through children. From sonnet 18 on,
Shakespeare shifts his viewpoint and writes how the
poetry itself will immortalize the young man and allow
his beauty to carry on.
O The Dark Lady: Sonnets 127 – 154 talk about an
irresistible woman of questionable morals who
captivates the young poet. These sonnets speak of an
affair between the speaker and her, but her
unfaithfulness has hurt the speaker.
O The Rival Poet: This character shows up during the fair
youth series. The poet sees the rival poet as someone
trying to take his own fame and the poems refer to his
own anxiety and insecurity.
 Structure of Sonnets
The traditional Elizabethan or Shakespearean
sonnet consists of fourteen lines, made up of
three quatrains (stanzas of 4 lines each) and a
final couplet (two line stanza). Sonnets are
usually written in iambic pentameter. The
quatrains traditionally follow an abab rhyme
scheme, followed by a rhyming couplet.
Sonnet 18 Example
William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Poetry that follows no rules. Just about
anything goes.

Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet. No Rhyme
No Rhythm
No Meter
It sits looking
over harbor and city This is
free verse.
on silent haunches
and then, moves on.
Free Verse
Revenge
When I find out
who took
the last cooky

out of the jar

and left
me a bunch of

stale old messy

crumbs, I'm
going to take

me a handful
and crumb
up someone's bed.

By Myra Cohn Livingston

56
 Free Verse
O Free verse is poetry that has no fixed pattern of
meter, rhyme, line length, or stanza arrangement.
O When writing free verse, a poet is free to vary
the poetic elements to emphasize an idea or
create a tone.
O In writing free verse, a poet may choose to use
repetition or similar grammatical structures to
emphasize and unify the ideas in the poem.
 Free Verse
O While the majority of popular poetry today
is written as free verse, the style itself is not
new. Walt Whitman, writing in the 1800’s,
created free verse poetry based on forms
found in the King James Bible.
O Modern free verse is concerned with the
creation of a brief, ideal image, not the
refined ordered (and artificial, according to
some critics) patterns that other forms of
poetry encompass.
 Example of Free Verse
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirmed case,
He will never sleep any more as he did it in the cot in his mother’s
bedroom;
The dour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
He turns is quid of tobacco, his eyes blurred with the manuscript;
The malformed limbs are tied to the anatomist’s table,
What is removed drops horribly in the pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the stand….the drunkard nods by the
barroom stove…

Excerpt from “Song of Myself” (section 15)

Walt Whitman
Poetry as a stimulus for other text-types

Poetry can be used to:

O Provide the story;
O Promote discussion of characters’ feelings and
emotions which can be transferred to narrative;
O To provide imagery and figurative techniques for
prose;
When the Author of a
poem writes something,
but doesn’t really mean Main Types:
it literally. Metaphor
Simile
Personification
Imagery……
When human like qualities
are given to an animal or
object.
Example:
An overly gregarious puppy.
A decrepit old car.
More Example:
The sun stretched its lazy
fingers over the valley.
Similes
O When you compare
something using like or
as.
O The river is peaceful,
like a new baby
sleeping.

Assignment:
Find the similes in “Be
Still My Beating Heart”
Examples:
Joe is as hungry as a bear.
In the morning, Rae is like an angry lion.
 Ars Poetica
By Archibald MacLeish
Simile

Simile
Let’s see A poem should be palpable
and mute as a globed fruit,
what this Silent as the sleeve-worn
looks like in stone
a poem. Of casement ledges where
the moss has grown—
Simile

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.
 A comparison
NOT using like
or as.

Oh bright “It is the

angel, speak East, and
again!” Juliet is
the sun!”

Romeo, “Romeo and Juliet”, William Shakespeare

Examples:
Lenny is a snake.
Ginny is a mouse when it comes to standing
up for herself.

The difference between

a simile and a metaphor is
that a simile requires either
“like” or “as” to be included
in the comparison, and a
metaphor requires that
neither be used.
 VS.

Refrain is when Repetition is

a poem repeats when a word
entire lines or or phrase is
more several repeated just
times once or in
throughout. one specific
Like the chorus area of the
of a song poem.

Find an
Example in
“The Raven”
In a poem,
you can often
see the
images the
author writes
about

When the
author provides
visual pictures
as you read.
The spring flowers,
vibrant, electrified
with the newness of
spring
Using words to create a picture in the reader’s
mind.
 Imagery
◼ Imagery is the use of words to create
pictures, or images, in your mind.
◼ Appeals to the five senses: smell, sight,
hearing, taste and touch.
◼ Details about smells, sounds, colors, and
taste create strong images.
◼ To create vivid images writers use figures Five Senses
of speech.

73
Who is
the
Speaker
of the
Poem?
What is their tone?
The Point of view can
be the actual poet
him/herself, but may
also be an animal, an
inanimate object, or a
fictional character.
Irony When something
that wasn’t
expected
happens. Or
when the
opposite of what
is expected
happens.
 Musical Devices
O Alliteration O Assonance

When the same When the same vowel

consonant sound is sound is used in
used throughout a words throughout a
piece of writing. piece of writing

candy covered That is the way we will

coconuts. pray today, okay?
 Word
Connotation:Choice/Diction Denotation
The way a word
makes us feel. :The actual
Words can give dictionary
us different definition of the
feelings when we word.
hear them…some
positive, some
negative, and
everything in
between!
 The repetition of sounds End rhyme- the last
word on each line rhymes.
Example: hat, cat, brat, fat,
mat, sat
My Beard
by Shel Silverstein
My beard grows to my toes,
I never wears no clothes,
I wraps my hair
Around my bare,
And down the road I goes.

Internal rhyme- Words INSIDE the sentence rhyme.

Rhythm
Rhythm is the flow of the
beat in a poem.
Gives poetry a musical feel.
Can be fast or slow,
depending on mood and
subject of poem.
You can measure rhythm in
meter, by counting the beats
in each line.
 Rhythm Example
The Pickety Fence by David McCord
The pickety fence
The pickety fence
Give it a lick it's
The pickety fence
Give it a lick it's
A clickety fence
Give it a lick it's a lickety fence
Give it a lick
Give it a lick
Give it a lick
With a rickety stick
pickety The rhythm in this poem is fast –
pickety to match the speed of the stick
pickety striking the fence.
pick.
80
 Rhythm Example
Where Are You Now?
When the night begins to fall
And the sky begins to glow
You look up and see the tall
City of lights begin to grow –
In rows and little golden squares
The lights come out. First here, then there
Behind the windowpanes as though
A million billion bees had built The rhythm in this poem is
Their golden hives and honeycombs slow – to match the night
Above you in the air. gently falling and the
lights slowly coming on.
By Mary Britton Miller

81
 The repetition of the initial
letter or sound in two or
more words in a line.
To the lay-person, these are called “tongue-twisters”.
Example: How much dew would a dewdrop drop if a
dewdrop did drop dew?
 Alliteration

Alliteration
Let’s see what
this looks like
in a poem. She Walks in Beauty
I.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

Alliteration
These examples use the beginning sounds of
words only twice in a line, but by definition,
that’s all you need.
 Onomatopoeia
word that
expresses sound…

Zip,
zoom,
bang,
boom Check it out!
 Words that spell out sounds;
words that sound like what they
Examples: mean.
growl, hiss, pop, boom, crack, ptthhhbbb.
 Noise Day
Let’s see what by Shel Silverstein
this looks like in Let’s have one day for girls and boyses

a poem. When you can make the grandest noises.

Screech, scream, holler, and yell –
Onomatopoeia Buzz a buzzer, clang a bell,
Sneeze – hiccup – whistle – shout,
Laugh until your lungs wear out,
Toot a whistle, kick a can,
Several other Bang a spoon against a pan,
words not
highlighted could Sing, yodel, bellow, hum,
also be
considered as Blow a horn, beat a drum,
onomatopoeia. Rattle a window, slam a door,
Can you find any?
Scrape a rake across the floor . . ..
 An exaggeration for the sake of
emphasis.
Examples:
I may sweat to death.
The blood bank needs a river of blood.
 What is Symbolism?
O A symbol is something that stands for
itself, but also something larger than
itself.
O It may be a person, an animal, an
inanimate object, or an action
O A writer often uses a concrete object to express an abstract
idea, a quality, or a belief.
O A symbol may appeal to a reader's emotions and can
provide a way to express an idea, communicate a message,
or clarify meaning
 What is Symbolism?

O A writer often uses a concrete object

to express an abstract idea, a quality,
or a belief.
O A symbol may appeal to a reader's
emotions and can provide a way to
express an idea, communicate a
message, or clarify meaning.
 A reference to another piece of literature or to
history.
Example: “She hath Dian’s wit” (from Romeo and Juliet).
This is an allusion to Roman mythology and the
goddess Diana.
The three most common types of allusion refer to
mythology, the Bible, and Shakespeare’s writings.
 Lines and Stanzas
O Most poems are written March
in lines. A blue day
O A group of lines in a
A blue jay
poem is called a
stanza. And a good
O Stanzas separate ideas beginning.
in a poem. They act
like paragraphs. One crow,
O This poem has two Melting snow –
stanzas.
Spring’s winning!

By Eleanor Farjeon 91
 Mood
O Mood is the atmosphere, or
emotion, in the poem created
by the poet.
O Can be happy, angry, silly,
sad, excited, fearful or
thoughtful.
O Poet uses words and images
to create mood.
O Author’s purpose helps
determine mood.

92
 Mood - Barefoot Days
Barefoot Days by Rachel Field
In the morning, very early,
That’s the time I love to go
Barefoot where the fern grows curly
And grass is cool between each toe,
On a summer morning-O!
On a summer morning!
That is when the birds go by
Up the sunny slopes of air,
And each rose has a butterfly
Or a golden bee to wear;
And I am glad in every toe – The mood in this poem is
Such a summer morning-O! happy. What clues in the
poem can you use to
Such a summer morning!
determine the mood?
93
 Mood - Mad Song
Mad Song
I shut my door
To keep you out
Won’t do no good
To stand and shout
Won’t listen to
A thing you say
Just time you took
Yourself away
I lock my door
To keep me here The mood in this poem is
Until I’m sure angry. What clues in the
You disappear. poem can you use to
determine the mood?
By Myra Cohn Livingston

94
 Mood - Poem

Poem
I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There’s nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began –
I loved my friend:
The mood in this poem is
By Langston Hughes
sad. What clues in the
poem can you use to
determine the mood?
95
 Diction

O Diction refers to the language of a poem, and

how each word is chosen to convey a precise
meaning.
O Poets are very deliberate in choosing each
word for its particular effect,
O It's important to know the denotation and
connotations of the words in a poem, not to
mention their literal meaning, too.

96
 Diction
O Example:
O T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton

"Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the
burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.”

Notice the choice of harsh words like “burden” and

“strain”.

97
Tone is the attitude writers
take towards their subject .

Would this poem have a

different meaning for the
reader if the tone was
changed?
“There’s This that I like About Hockey,
My Lad” by John Kieran (continued)

There’s thisthat
There’s this thatIIlike
likeabout
about hockey,old
oldchap
chap;
I think you’ll agree that I’m right;
Although you may get an occasional rap,
good fun
There’s always good fun in the fight.
So toss in the puck, for the players are set;
enemy net
Sing ho! For the dash on the enemy net;
And ho! For the smash as a challenge is met;
glorious night!
And hey! For a glorious night
Author’s Attitude towards Hockey
Author is speaking to
 Don’t Confuse Tone &
*Tone and moodMood!
are two different aspects
of a poem!
* Tone is the author's or the poet's attitude
towards his or her subject.
*Mood is how the poem makes the reader or
the listener feel.
 Reading for Meaning
O To find meaning in a poem, readers ask questions as they read.
There are many things to pay attention to when reading a poem:
TITLE – Provides clues about – topic, mood, speaker, author’s
purpose?
RHYTHM – Fast or slow? Why?
SOUND DEVICES – What effects do they have?
IMAGERY – What pictures do we make in our minds?
FIGURES OF SPEECH – What do they tell us about the subject?
VOICE – Who is speaking - poet or character; one voice or more?
AUTHOR’S PURPOSE – Sending message, sharing feelings, telling
story,
being funny, being descriptive?
MOOD – Happy, sad, angry, thoughtful, silly, excited, frightened?
PLOT – What is happening in the poem?
Remember, to make meaning, readers must make connections and
tap into their background knowledge and prior experiences as they
read.

101
OUTSTANDING POEMS
Oscar Wilde may be the most notorious "bad boy" in the annals of poetry and literature. He was flamboyantly gay at a time
when polite society was prim, proper and violently homophobic. As a result, he was sentenced to hard labor at Reading Gaol
and died soon after his release. Wilde is justly famous for his disdain for dull and dulling conformity, as his witty epigrams
attest. But the lovely, wonderfully moving poem below proves that he was also a true poet capable of creating timeless art.

Requiescat
by Oscar Wilde

Tread lightly, she is near

Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair

Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow,

She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone,

Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear

Lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
.
William Butler Yeats was the most famous Irish poet of all time, and his poems of
unrequited love for the beautiful and dangerous revolutionary Maud Gonne have
left her almost as famous. The first poem below is a loose translation of a
Ronsard poem, in which Yeats imagines the love of his life in her later years,
tending a fire. The second poem, "The Wild Swans at Coole," is surely one of the
most beautiful poems ever written, in any language.

When You Are Old

by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an early advocate of women's rights, and a staunch opponent of slavery. When she
married Robert Browning, theirs became the most famous coupling in the annals of English poetry.

How Do I Love Thee?

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
D. H. Lawrence is better known today for his novels, which include
the then-infamous Lady Chatterley's Lover, but he was one of the
better early modernist poets.

Piano
by D. H. Lawrence

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she
sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cozy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
More Poetry Terminology
 TERMS
◼ Alliteration ◼ Personification

◼ Assonance ◼ Onomatopoeia

◼ Hyperbole ◼ Oxymoron

◼ Imagery ◼ Repetition

◼ Irony ◼ Rhyme

◼ Metaphor ◼ Simile
 ASSONANCE
◼ The repetition of the vowel sounds followed by
different consonants in two or more stressed
syllables.

◼ EXAMPLE: As high as a kite in a bright sky

 IMAGERY
◼ Usually these words or phrases create a picture
in the reader’s mind. Some imagery appeals to
the other four senses (hearing, touch, taste,
smell).
◼ EXAMPLES:
◼ Sight – smoke mysteriously puffed our from his ears
◼ Sound – he could hear a faint but distant thump
◼ Touch – the burlap wall covering scraped his skin
◼ Taste – a salty tear ran down his cheek
◼ Smell – the scent of cinnamon floated into his nostrils
 IRONY
◼ The general name given to the literary
techniques that involve differences between
appearance and reality, expectations and result,
or meaning and intention.
◼ EXAMPLE:
◼ It was ironic that the police station was robbed.
◼ It was ironic that the Olympic swimmer drowned in the
bathtub.
◼ It was ironic that the soldier survived the war and then was
shot on his own front porch after returning home safely.
 OXYMORON
◼ The junction of words which, at first view, seem
to be contradictory, but surprisingly this
contradictions expresses a truth or dramatic
effect.

◼ EXAMPLES: Pretty ugly, Icy hot

 REPETITION
◼ The use, more than once, of any element of
language – a sound, a word, a phrase, a clause,
or a sentence.
◼ EXAMPLE: By Edgar Allan Poe
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells
Of the bells
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells
 To review… to
summarize…to
remember….
 Figurative Language
is also called figures of speech.
It changes the literal meaning of
words • to express complexity,
• to capture a physical or sensory
effect, or
• to extend meaning.
There are a number of
figures of speech.
Some of the more common ones are:
 Simile
Making a comparison between unlike
things, using “like” or “as.”
Forrest Gump’s famous simile is
“Life is like a box of chocolates. You
never know what you’re gonna get.”
 Metaphor
Making a comparison between unlike
things without the use “like” or “as.”

An example is, “Your eyes are the

windows to your soul.” – Immanuel Kant.
 Hyberbole
An exaggeration.
For example:
I told you a million times to be quiet.
You never speak to me.
The teacher gave us tons of work.
He ate a thousand pounds of pizza.
Personification
Giving human qualities to an
animal, thing or idea.
The wind screamed my name.
The window flew open.
The book jumped out of my locker.
 Narrator
Someone who tells the story.

There are 3 types:

Protagonist - main character
Observer - person who is indirectly
involved in the story
Non-participant - not at all involved,
can be omniscient (knows everything)
 Tone
The attitude an author takes toward the
audience, subject or character.
The tone is conveyed through the
author’s words and details.

Think of when someone says, “Don’t use

that tone with me!” Your tone can
change the meaning of what you say.
 Theme
A theme is the main idea of a story,
or the message the author is
conveying. This message is usually
about life, society or human nature.

Flashbacks
A scene in a narrative that returns to an
earlier time.
 Irony
is a literary device for conveying meaning
by saying the exact opposite of
what is really meant.
(Sarcasm is one kind of irony.
It is praise which is really an insult.
Sarcasm generally involves malice, the
desire to put someone down, for example
“This is my brilliant son who failed
out of college.”
Life is filled with ironies.
Listen to the following TRUE accounts…
1. The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after
the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At
a special ceremony, two of the most expensively
saved animals were released back into the wild amid
cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later,
they were both eaten by a killer whale.

2. Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet didn’t pay enough

postage on a letter bomb. It came back with “return
to sender” stamped on it. Forgetting it was the
bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits.
 Dramatic Monologue
• Dramatic says that it could be acted
out, and is a form of drama,

• while monologue defines it as a speech

that one person makes, either to
themselves or to another.

• A dramatic monologue is written to

reveal both the situation at hand and the
character herself.
THANK YOU…