Poetry - Sound and Rhythm

Poetry

• Literary work in which special intention is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm

• Poetry is a condensed form of writing that evokes a range of emotions

What makes poetry unique?

• Poems have many forms ranging from traditional rhymed poems such as sonnets to contemporary free verse

• They have a deep linked history with music due to emphasis on the sound of the poem

Line

Individual unit of language in a poem

Stanzas

A group of lines that form a unit

Figurative language

An umbrella term used to describe various literary techniques where words/phrases have meaning beyond the literal

Sound devices

An umbrella term used to describe techniques meant to enhance the sound of a piece

Repetition

When words or phrases are repeated for effect

Rhythm

• The ordered (planned) or free occurrence of sound in poetry broken down into specific patterns

• The beat or flow of a poem

• Made up of beat and repetition

• Created by stressed and unstressed syllables

• Sometimes referred to as the meter of the poem

Why do we identify elements in poetry?

It helps to understand the deeper meaning of the poem which leads to analysis of the poem which leads to analysis of that meaning

How to analyze a poem

• Read the poem multiple times, at least once out loud

• Summarize the poem, breaking it into smaller chunks as needed

• Annotate the poem and look for literary devices, unknown words, heavily connoted words, attitude/tone of the poem, shifts in attitude/tone, style of the poem, the overall message/theme of the poem

Meter

Pattern of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables

Foot

The group of stressed and unstressed syllables

Rhythm poems

Poems written in a given meter

Blank verse

Poems written in unrhymed Iambic pentameter

Free verse

Poems with no discernible meter or rhyme (also typically use unpredictable number of lines and stanzas)

Lines of feet

• Monometer (1)

• Dimeter (2)

• Trimeter (3)

• Tetrameter (4)

• Pentameter (5)

• Hexameter (6)

• Heptameter (7)

• Octameter (8)

Meters with two syllable feet

• Iambic (x /)

• Trochaic (/ x)

• Spondiac (/ /)

Meters with three syllable feet

• Anapestic (x x /)

• Dactylic (/ x x)

Analyzing poems for rhythm

• If the lines have the same number of syllables there is likely a rhythm to the poem

• Look for recurring patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables

Sound in poetry

The quality of how a poem sounds when spoken out loud

Rhyme

Words that have similar ending sounds

Rhyme scheme

Determining the pattern of rhyming words in a poem noting each new rhyme with a letter from the alphabet

Alliteration

Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds in close proximity

Consonance

Words share the same consonant sounds, but they come after different vowel sounds

Onomatopoeia

The use of a words whose sound suggests its meaning