A30 Poetry

Devices

enjambment: incomplete syntax at the end of a poetic line of verse; runs over without terminal punctuation
internal rhyme: within a line
incremental repetition: repeats slightly altered words of a line
slant/near/imperfect rhyme: sucky
poetic license: bending the rules of writing
assonance: repetition at close intervals of vowel sounds of syllables
sibiliant: has or produces a “s”, “sh”, or “z” sound
elision: omits a final or initial sound or word/unstressed vowels or syllables in a verse; uniform rhythm

{{Concrete{{

shape poems
visual arrangement of letter and words convey meaning and reflect content

40 - Love

Robert McGough
“middle aged couple playing tennis when the game ends and they go home the net will still be between them”

The Critical Putt

George Gabor
“Swings PALMER the putt looks good it’s over the rise yes it missed by 14 feet”

Love as Art

Jess Bush
“ONE, ONE, ONE, ONE, ONE”
The umbrella conveys the dominant personality in a relationship
People encounter love often by chance rather than by design

Titanic Versus Iceberg

Patrick Pidduck
“It was a great party until the TITANIC ICEBERG affair, after which it was all downhill for the TITANIC”
The shape of “Titanic” represents the ship’s smokestacks and prow. The shape of “iceberg” is larger below the surface

Tractor-Factor

Gene Dawson
“When you’re a green hand on a dirt farm and the boss send you out on a tractor alone, it doesn’t matter a damn whether it’s a Ford International John Deere Massey-Harris or Caterpillar - pulling a disc drill weeders shear plow 8 bottom harrow or spreader. If the field looks like this when you stop, you’re in Big Trouble in any Case.”
humorous

{{Sonnet (Italian){{

14 lines
10 syllables
octave (abba abba) describes situation or problem
sestet (three couplets or two triplets) contains theme

Remember

Christina Rossetti
Forget the pain of death

Thief of Dreams

Shauna Hanus
Overcoming procrastination allows us to fulfill our dreams

On His Blindness

John Milton
God does not require our talents

Death, Be Not Proud

John Donne
Death doesn’t not have power over humans

{{Lyric{{

short
regular rhyme and rhythm
fixed stanza length
e.g. epigram, elegy

Maternity

Alice Meynell
“One wept whose only child was dead, / Newborn, ten years ago. / ‘Weep not; he is in bliss,’ they said. / She answered, ‘Even so. / ‘Ten years ago was born in pain / A child, not now forlorn. / But oh, ten years ago, in vain / A mother, a mother was born.’”
Motherhood is everlasting, no matter the duration of mothering.

Richard Cory

E.A. Robinson
Opulence does not guarantee happiness
ironic

I Never Saw A Moor

Emily Dickinson
“I never saw a moor, / I never saw the sea; / Yet know I how the heather looks, / And what a wave must be. / I never spoke with God, / Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot / As if the chart were given.”
Seeing isn’t necessary for believing. Faith is knowing

The Sky Is Low

Emily Dickinson
“The Sky is low - the Clouds are mean. / A Travelling Flake of Snow / Across a Barn through a Rut / Debates if it will go - / A Narrow Wing complains all Day / How some one treated him ; Nature, like Us, is sometimes caught / Without her diadem.”
Nature and humanity are unpredictable some days and unpleasant and miserable on others

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost
Making decisions and living with them isn’t always easy

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost
While people need to take time to admire beauty, they also need to be responsible.

The Look

Sara Teasedale
“Stephon kissed me in the spring, / Robin in the fall, / But Colin looked at me / And never kissed at all. / Stephon’s kiss was lost in jest, / Robin’s lost in play, / But the kiss in Colin’s eyes / Haunts me night and day.”
Subtle affections are often more memorable than those that are ostentatious.

Thoughts

Sara Teasedale
“When I can make my thought come forth / To walk like ladies up and down, / Each one puts on before the glass / Her most becoming hat and gown. / But, oh the shy and eager thoughts / That hide and will not get them dressed / Why is it that they always seem / So much more lovely than the rest?”
Although some ideas occur quick and easy, we need patience to coax our best ideas.

Dreams

Langston Hughes
“Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Like is a broken-winged bird/ That cannot fly. / Hold fast to dreams / For when dreams go / Life is a barren field / Frozen with snow.”
Without aspirations, life becomes purposeless.

Incident

Countee Cullen
“Once riding in old Baltimore / Heart-filled, head-filled with glee / I saw a Baltimorean / Keep looking straight at me. / Now I was eight and very small, / And he was no whit bigger, / And so I smiled, but he poked out / His tongue, and called me, ‘Nigger’. / I saw the whole of Baltimore / From May until December; / Of all the things that happened there, / that’s all that I remember.”
Passing prejudice leaves a lasting impression. Racial incidence destroys innocence.

Cross

Langston Hughes
“My old man’s a white old man / And my old mother’s black. / If ever I cursed my white old man / I take my curses back. / If ever I cursed my black old mother / And wished she were in hell, / I’m sorry for that evil wish / And now I wish her well. / My old man died in a fine big house. / My ma died in a shack. / I wonder where I’m going to die, / Being neither white nor black?”
Cross connotations - mixed ethnicity + allusion to Jesus’ execution (lynchings)

A Poison Tree

William Blake
When anger is nurtured, it becomes a poison that destroys people.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen
War is not honourable or glorious; it is horror-filled.

They

Siegfried Sassoon
War seldom changes people for the better. It is easy for people like politicians and bishops to promote it as a noble cause since they aren’t risking injury or death.

When I Think About Myself

Maya Angelou
In order to defeat the racism that plagues society, people need to speak out about it rather than laugh at unbelievable injustices or patiently enduring it.

Elegy

mournful tone
a serious reflection upon death or loss
lament for the dead

O Captain! My Captain!

Walt Whitman
metaphor and apostrophe
Victory is often accompanied by rejoicing as well as loss

Epigrams

short, pithy saying in verse with a satirical twist

Preparedness

Edwin Markham
“For all you days prepare, / And meet them ever alike: / When you are the anvil, bear - / When you are the hammer, strike.”
Be ready to endure or to seize opportunities

Outwitted

Edwin Markham
“He drew a circle that shut me out - / Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. / But Love and I had the wit to win: / We drew a circle that took him in!”
Love and inclusion overcomes resistance

The Avengers

Edwin Markham
The laws are the secret avengers, / And they rule above all lands; / They come on wool-soft sandals,/ But they strike with iron hands.”
Laws have the power to protect and punish

Epigram from the French

Alexander Pope
“Sir, I admit your general rule / That every poet is a fool: / But you yourself may serve to show it, / That every fool is not a poet.”

A Word to Husbands

Ogden Nash
“To keep you marriage brimming, / With love in the loving cup, / Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; / Whenever you’re right, shut up.”
playful, whimsical
A humble husband preserves his marriage

The Turtle

Odgen Nash
“The turtle lives ‘twixt plated decks / Which practically conceal its sex. / I think it clever of the turtle / In such a fix to be so fertile.”

What is an Epigram?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole, / Its body brevity, and wit its soul.”

{{Sonnet (Shakespearean){{

14 lines
10 syllables
three quatrains (abab cdcd efef gg) and concluding rhyming couplet

Sonnet 73: “That time of year thou may’st in me behold”

William Shakespeare
The impermanence of life makes love stronger.

“Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”

William Shakespeare
True love is constant and unchanging, enduring all

Viva La Vida

Coldplay
Solitude robs us of our pride and power

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be

John Keats
We fear death and mortality because it inhibits us from achieving what we hope for.

{{Imagist{{

short
words and phrases appeal to the senses
no regular rhyme or rhythm
purpose is to vividly re-create an experience
paints a word picture
every word contributes to overall purpose described

This Is Just to Say

William Carlos Williams
“I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold.”

Nantucket

William Carlos Williams
“Flower through the window lavender and yellow change by white curtains - Smell of cleanliness - Sunshine of late afternoon - On the glass tray a glass pitcher, the tumbler turned down, by which a key is lying - And the immaculate white bed.”

Young Woman At A Window

William Carlos Williams
“She sits with tears on her cheek her cheek on her hand the child in her lap her nose pressed to the glass”

The Act

William Carlos Williams
“There were the roses, in the rain, Don’t cut them, I pleaded. They won’t last, she said But they’re so beautiful where they are. Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said, and cut them and gave them to me in my hand.”

Suicide’s Note

Langston Hughes
“The calm, / Cool face of the river / Asked me for a kiss.”
metaphor
Suicide brings peace for some.

{{Narrative{{

long
tells a story (specific details about characters and setting)
no regular rhyme (imitates natural speech)
stanzas?

Forsaken

Duncan Campbell Scott * Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs * Enforcer of Cultural Genocide
A Chippewa women protects her baby in a storm. Years later, she is abandoned in the snow and dies alone.
“Valiant, unshaken”

What Do I Remember of the Evacuation?

Joy Kogawa
Even though children may not understand prejudice, they scarred by it.

{{Ballad{{

long
tells a story (names characters and details of places)
regular rhyme
quatrains and refrain

{{Free Verse{{

short, medium, or long
no regular rhyme or rhythm
varied stanza length

Harlem

Langston Hughes
“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore - And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over - like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”
When dreams fade to black, they often weigh on one’s back.

Mother to Son

Langston Hughes
Persist despite adversity.

{{Villanelle{{

19 lines, 10 syllables
6 stanzas: 5 tercets, last is a quatrain
2 rhyme sounds
line 1 and 3 → concluding couplet
line 1 → last line of stanza 2 and 4
line 3 → last line of stanza 3 and 5
iambic pentameter

The Villanelle

Billy Collins (paradelle)
The fixed form of the villanelle restricts a poet’s expression.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Dylan Thomas
Resist death’s universality and inescapability