Poetry

Do and Dont

Sentimentality
Do not take shortcuts to emotions Sentimentality undermines sophisticated poetry The-Blind-Puppy-On-The-Freeway

Self-Pity
Have we heard it before? Self-pity is unavoidable, but it makes pitiful poetry Work for objectivity and perspective I-Bleed-I-Die-For-You Poetry

Clear As Mud
Purposely vague Ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity Playing games with your reader Shyness cause? Just dont know lack of insight

Sound
Subtlety in Sound
End rhyme or enjambment End forces a stop Enjambment doesnt
Punctuation . = STOP

Invaded and invader, I went overhand on that flat sky.

Rhyme Schemes
True or Slant

,= Pause

Free Verse Sound should enhance the meaning

Cat/Hat

or

= no pause

or dreams/times

Images
Poetry may deal with abstract concepts, but does so with concrete nouns Love = Abstract Rose = Concrete Most poetry is rooted in concrete details Images = descriptive details An image is any concrete detail
Perceived with the five senses Not always symbolic or of fig. language

Other Uses for Images

Symbol = image exists as part of the poem Simile = linking of elements Metaphor = implies a relationship
Shortened and compressed more impactful, transformation

Images
Literal Image = green grass Comparison = grass + wheat = grass is like wheat is like Simile = happiness + green grass = Happy as the grass was green as Metaphor = I + Prince = I was prince of the apple towns Symbol = apple picking + life/death = After apple picking

The Rural Carrier Stops to Kill a Nine-Foot Cottonmouth

Lord God, I saw the son-of a bitch uncoil In the road ahead of me, uncoil and squirm For the ditch, squirm a hell of a long time. Missed him with the car. When I got back to him, he was all But gone, nothing left on the road, but the tip end Of his tail, and that disappearing into Johnson grass. I leaned over the ditch and saw him, balled up now, hiss I aimed for the mouth and shot him. And shot him again. Then I got a good strong stick and dragged him out. He was long and evil, thick as the top of my arm. There are things in this world a man can't look at without Wanting to kill. Don't ask me why. I was calm Enough, I thought. But I felt my spine Squirm, suddenly. I admit it. It was mine. --T. R. Hummer

Narrative Poetry
Poetry that tells a series of events using poetic devices such as rhythm, rhyme, compact language, and attention to sound. In other words, a narrative poem tells a story, but it does it with poetic flair! Many of the same elements that are found in a short story are also found in a narrative poem.

character - Can be the speaker or other/s setting - Use what you know. Is it relevant? conflict - You need some. Dont think grandiose plot - You need events Speaker - Narrator Choose carefully.

You are not necessarily in need of retelling an entire novel length story, we arent all Homers. You can retell an event one glimpse into a moment of time

Form Poetry
Stanza: in metered verse are normally of uniformed length and seperated by a space.

Couplets: Two metered and rhymed lines. We real cool. We Left school. We

Triplet: Three lined stanzas Hell pinch my pinky until he mouse starts squeaking. The floorlamp casts a halo around his big, stuffed chair. Be strong Be tough! It is my father speaking.
From Michael Ryans Milk the Mouse

Form x2
Quatrain: Four lined stanza. Closest to the paragraph of a prose. The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. From Roethkes My Papas Waltz Sonnet: 14 lined, metered and rhymed poem. When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. Shakespeares Sonnet 29

Haiku
Haiku: Small verse consisting of 3 lines in which the syllables fall as follows 5-7-5 If it really is the last suit you'll ever wear, It'll get smelly. Men in Black by Dave Of all the gin joints in all the world, she goes to war-torn Morocco Casablanca by Tim

Rhyme Scheme
Rhyme Scheme: A regular, reoccurring use of rhyme in a poem. Usually labeled with corresponding letters Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. Wilfred Owen Dulce Et Decorum Est

Figurative Language
Hyperbole
If I fail this test Ill DIE!!!

Metaphor
I was the well that fed the lake

Simile
She jumped like a cat

Symbolism
Duh

Bedtime Denise Levertov

We are a meadow where the bees hum, Mind and body are almost one As the fire snaps in the stove And our eyes close,

And mouth to mouth, the covers Pulled over our shoulders,

We drowse as horses drowse afield, In accord; though the fall cold Surrounds our warm bed, and though By day we are singular and often lonely

Fog Carl Sandburg

THE FOG comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on