Elements of Poetry

A. THEME- the central idea, the thesis, the message a story conveys, or a generalization or an abstraction from it.

B. TONE- the attitude of the poet towards the audience.

- refers to the intellectual and emotional attitudes of the poet towards his or her intended audience
- there are many varieties of tone that an aspiring poet can assume. He/she can be dead serious or humorous, formal or
casual, intimate or distant, solemn or flippant, somber or
cheerful, ironic or poignant, deferential or condescending, among others.

C. STANZAS- series of lines grouped together and separated by an empty line from other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a
paragraph in an essay. One way to identify a stanza is to count the number of lines. Thus:

 couplet (2 lines)
 tercet (3 lines)
 quatrain (4 lines)
 cinquain (5 lines)
 sestet (6 lines) (sometimes it's called a sexain)
 septet (7 lines)
 octave (8 lines)

D. FORM: A poem may or may not have a specific number of lines, rhyme scheme and/or metrical pattern, but it can still be
labeled according to its form or style. Here are the three most common types of poems according to form:

1. Lyric Poetry: It is any poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who expresses strong thoughts and feelings. Most
poems, especially modern ones, are lyric poems.
Subtypes:
a) Ode: It is usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a serious subject, an elevated style, and an elaborate stanza
pattern.
b) Elegy: It is a lyric poem that mourns the dead. [It's not to be confused with a eulogy.]It has no set metric or stanzaic
pattern, but it usually begins by reminiscing about the dead person, then laments the reason for the death, and then
resolves the grief by concluding that death leads to immortality. It often uses "apostrophe" (calling out to the dead person)
as a literary technique. It can have a fairly formal style, and sound similar to an ode.
c) Sonnet: It is a lyric poem consisting of 14 lines and, in the English version, is usually written in iambic pentameter.

2 major types
1. Italian/ Petrarchian sonnet is distinguished by its division into the octave (octet) and
sestet (sextet). The octave rhyming abbaabba and the sestet cdecde, cdcdcd, or cdedce
- Usually made up of iambic hexameters or six pairs of iambic or also known as
ALEXANDRINE LINES

2. English/ Shakesperean sonnet- it has 3 quatrains and 1 couplet; the rhyming scheme is
abab cdcdc efef gg; made up of iambic
pentameters or five pairs of iambs.

2. Narrative Poem: It is a poem that tells a story; its structure resembles the plot line of a story [i.e. the introduction of
conflict and characters, rising action, climax and the denouement].

Subtypes:

a) Ballad: It is a narrative poem that has a musical rhythm and can be sung. A ballad is usually organized into quatrains or
cinquains, has a simple rhythm structure, and tells the tales of ordinary people.

b) Epic: It is a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero.

Qualities of an Epic Poem:

 narrative poem of great scope; dealing with the founding of a nation or some other heroic theme requires a
dignified theme requires an organic unity requires orderly progress of the action always has a heroic figure or
figures involves supernatural forces written in deliberately ceremonial style
3. Descriptive Poem: It is a poem that describes the world that surrounds the speaker. It uses elaborate imagery and
adjectives. While emotional, it is more "outward-focused" than lyric poetry, which is more personal and introspective

Subtypes:

a) Haiku: It has an unrhymed verse form having three lines (a tercet) and usually 5,7,5 syllables, respectively. It's usually
considered a lyric poem.
b) Limerick: It has a very structured poem, usually humorous & composed of five lines (a cinquain), in an aabba rhyming
pattern; beat must be anapestic (weak, weak, strong) with 3 feet in lines 1, 2, & 5 and 2 feet in lines 3 & 4. It's usually a
narrative poem based upon a short and often ribald anecdote.

CONVENTIONAL FORMS- are poetry that follows metric rules for amount of words, amount of
paragraphs, amount of rhymes. As in Sonnets or Haikus, both ancient.

Example:
 SHORT TAGALOG POEMS
 JAPANESE POETRY

a. HAIKU- Japanese fixed poetic form; composed of 3 unrhymed lines with 17 syllables

- TOPIC is NATURE
- Very known writer is Matsuo Basho
Example:
Soon it will die
Yet no trace of this
In the cicada’s screech

b. TANKA- composed of 5 unrhymed lines composing 30 syllables

- 5-7-5-7-7
- TOPIC is highly personal reflection on love and powerful
emotions.

VILLANELLE is a fixed lyrical form of poetry composed of nineteen lines that follows a certain set
pattern or rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme is aba aba aba aba aba abaa.

E. RHYME- is the repetition of similar sounds. It shows musicality in a verse which offers a melodic pattern. It is used to give
more substance to the lines. When words rhyme, the readers pay close attention and try to make meaning out of the lines.

Different Types of Rhymes

1. According to the position of the rhyming words in the line

a. end rhyme words occurs at the end of lines
Example:
First, A Poem Must Be A Magical
Jose Garcia Villa

First, a poem must be magical,

Then musical as a sea gull,
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird’s flowering.

b. internal rhyme occurs at some part after the beginning but before the end of each line or a middle word and the
end word of different lines.
 Example:
In Burnham Park
I walk
With nobody to talk to
But myself.

c. leonine rhyme is a special kind of internal rhyming between the last stressed syllable before the caesura (the
natural pause or break in a line of verse) and the last stressed syllable of the line.
Example:
There’s a whisper down the field where the year has
shot her yield.

d. beginning rhyme occurs in the first syllable or first few syllables of several lines
Example:
Why should I have returned?
My knowledge should not fit into theirs.
I found untouched the desert of the unknown…

2. Other types of Rhymes

a. Slant rhyme is also known as imperfect rhyme, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, off rhyme or pararhyme. It
usually occurs when assonance or consonance are deployed instead of true rhyme.
Example:
If love is like a bridge
Or maybe like a grudge
And time is like a river
That kills us with a shiver.
Then what have all these mornings meant
But aging into love

b. Eye rhyme is also known as visual rhyme or printer’s rhyme. It occurs when words appear to rhyme on
the printed page because of the similarity of their terminal letters, but do not sound the same at all when read
aloud.
Example:

Alas, how can I interpret my mood?

They took away the language of my blood.

RHYMING SCHEME refers to the way a poet deliberately arranges the terminal words or syllable of certain stanzas or
entire poems to form a set pattern

Example: From William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? A

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. B
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, A
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. B

In this particular sonnet, Shakespeare used the A-B-A-B rhyme scheme.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF RHYME SCHEME

1. ALTERNATE RHYME is also known as OPEN RHYME or CROSS RHYMING. It consists in the repeated alternation of
two different rhymes in aseries of four or more lines that can be schematically diagrammed as abab.
Example:
May
Flying
Today
Drying

2. ENCLOSED RHYME is also known as enclosing rhyme. It refers to the rhyme scheme abba.
Example:
Pride
 Fire
Mire
Aside

3. CHAIN RHYME is also known as interlocking rhyme or chain verse. This is most apparent in the Spenserian sonnet that
has the rhyme scheme abab, bcbc, cdcd, dede, ff

4. MONORHYME is a rhyme scheme in which all the lines of the poem have an identical rhyme.
Example:
Spent
Went
Meant
Invest
Cent

5. Couplet refers to a couple of lines in poetry that usually rhyme (aa.

Example:
See
Thee

6. TRIPLET is a tercet in all three lines follow the rhyme that can be schematically diagrammed as aaa bbb ccc.

F. RHYTHM- refers to the tempo or beat created through the stressed and unstressed syllables presented in the lines.

G. METER: the systematic regularity in rhythm; this systematic rhythm (or sound pattern) is usually identified by examining the
type of "foot" and the number of feet

a. TYPE OF FOOT

= a stressed (or strong, or LOUD) syllable

U = an unstressed (or weak, or quiet) syllable

In other words, any line of poetry with a systematic rhythm has a certain number of feet, and each foot has two or three
syllables with a constant beat pattern .

a. Iamb (Iambic) - weak syllable followed by strong syllable. [Note that the pattern is sometimes fairly hard to maintain, as in the
third foot.]

b. Trochee (Trochaic): strong syllable followed by a weak syllable.

c. Anapest (Anapestic): two weak syllables followed by a strong syllable.

e.g.
In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed...

From "The Writer", by Richard Wilbur

d. Dactyl (Dactylic): a strong syllable followed by two weak syllables.

DD

Here's another (silly) example of dactylic rhythm.

DDDA was an / archer, who / shot at a / frog
DDDB was a / butcher, and / had a great / dog
DDDC was a / captain, all / covered with / lace
DDDD was a / drunkard, and / had a red / face.

e. Spondee (Spondaic): two strong syllables (not common as lines, but appears as a foot). A spondee usually appears at the end
of a line.

b. NUMBER OF FOOT
To familiarize this type, it is necessary to know that one meter is consisted by two vowel

sounds.

 MONOMETER is a verse line having a single metrical foot.

Example: Robert Herrick’s “Upon His Departure Hence”

Thus I
Pass by,
And die:
As one,
Unknown,
And gone:
I’m made
A shade,
And laid
I’th grave
There have
My Cave.
 DIMETER consists of a line showing double metrical feet.
Example: Thomas Hardy’s “The Robin”

When winter frost

Makes earth as steel
I search and search
But find no meal,
And most unhappy
Then I feel.
 TRIMETER is a line having three metrical feet.
Example: Robert Bridges’ “The Idle Life I Lead”

The idle life I lead

Is like a pleasant sleep,
Wherein I rest and heed
The dreams that by me sweep.
 TETRAMETER refers to a line showing four metrical feet.
Example: William Blake’s “Milton”

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
 PENTAMETER shows a line with five metrical feet.
Example: William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”
 If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! It had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
 HEXAMETER also called ALEXANDRINE, has six metrical feet in a line.
Example: HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW’S “EVANGELINE”

Now had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and longer,
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.

POETRY TECHNIQUES

1. Writing about abstract ideas

Topics that appeals to the senses such as people, tourist attractions, animal life, recreational activities, and a lot more are
easy to write than abstract ideas like courage, compassion, fear, and despair. Yet, there are techniques to ease it. Here are those
techniques:

 The poet must be specific.

 Narrow down chosen subject if it is so broad. Example: “overcoming one’s fear” is broad; narrow it by citing means or ways
in getting rid of fear
 Relate subject to the personal experience

2. Developing substance and structure

 List down all your ideas through clustering and free association
 Organize the ideas from most significant to least significant, and vice versa
 Focus on the number of lines, stanzas, syllables per line, and rhythmic pattern if you like a standard form.
 Focus on the emotions, tone, and mood which will be reflected in the poem
 Plan if you establish a certain metrical pattern and rhyme

3. Composing and revising your poem

 Keep in mind that great creations are not made in an instant, rather, they are made after several attempts.

LITERARY DEVICES

Any technique used to help the author achieve his or her purpose is called a literary device. Typically, these devices are
used for an aesthetic purpose – that is, they’re intended to make the piece more beautiful.

Literary Devices in Poetry

Allegory

An allegory is a story, poem, or other written work that can be interpreted to have a secondary meaning.

Aesop’s Fables are examples of allegories, as they are ostensibly about one thing (such as “The Ant and the Grasshopper”) but
actually have a secondary meaning. Fables are particularly literal examples of allegories, but there are many others, as well, such as
George Orwell’s Animal Farm or Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Fruit.”

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of a sound or letter at the beginning of multiple words in a series.
 “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”

- Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven”

Poe uses alliteration with the “wh,” sound at the beginning of multiple words. The repetition here mimics the sound of the wind
(something you might hear on a dreary night), and also sounds a little soothing—something that’s interrupted in the next couple of
lines by a different sound, just as Poe interrupts his soothing, round vowel sounds with repetition of the ‘p’ sound in “suddenly
there came a tapping, / As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door….”

Allusion

An allusion is an indirect reference to something.

“The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them hardest.”

- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Lee isn’t speaking of a literal crash—she’s referencing the stock market crash of the late 1920s, which left many people without
money. Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird’s narrator, references the stock market crash in a way that’s appropriate for her context,
which readers can gather from the novel’s setting.

Using this allusion allows Lee to do some quick scene-setting. Not only does it establish the novel firmly within its setting,
but it also shows that Scout herself is a clear part of that setting—she speaks to the audience in the way that a child of
that era would speak, giving the story a greater sense of realism.

Apostrophe

An apostrophe is a poetic device where the writer addresses a person or thing that isn’t present with an
exclamation.

“O stranger of the future!

O inconceivable being!
whatever the shape of your house,
no matter how strange and colorless the clothes you
may wear,
I bet nobody there likes a wet dog either.
I bet everybody in your pub
even the children, pushes her away.”

- Billy Collins, “To A Stranger Born In Some Distant Country Hundreds Of Years From Now”

Though we know from the title that Collins is addressing a stranger from the future, in the final stanza of the poem he addresses
that stranger directly. Apostrophe was particularly common in older forms of poetry, going all the way back to
Ancient Greece—many works of Greek literature begin with an invocation of the Muses, typically by saying something like, “Sing
in me, O Muse.” Because the narrator of Collins’ poem is calling out to someone in the future, he mimics the language of the past
and situates this poem in a larger context.

Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of vowel or diphthong sounds in one or more words found close together.

“ Hear the loud alarum bells—

Brazen bells!/ What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune….”

- Edgar Allen Poe, “The Bells”

When Poe talks about alarm bells, he uses sharp, high-pitch vowels to echo their sound: notice the repetition of long “e” and “i”
sounds, both of which sound a bit like screams.
 Blank Verse

Blank verse refers to poetry written without rhyme, especially if that poetry is written in iambic pentameter.

“But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,

So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must. …”

- William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Many of Shakespeare’s plays are written in blank verse, including much of “Hamlet.” Here, the dialog is without rhymes, which
makes it sound more realistic, but it still follows a strict meter—iambic pentameter. This lends it a sense of grandiosity
beyond if Shakespeare had tried to mimic natural speech, and the deliberate space of stressed and unstressed syllables gives it a
satisfying sense of rhythm.

Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of specific consonant sounds in close proximity.

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” - William Blake, “The Tyger”

Black repeatedly uses multiple sounds in the first stanza of this famous poem. One of the most prominent is ‘r,’ which shows up in
every line of the first stanza, and almost every line of the poem as a whole. As Blake is writing about the tiger, he’s musing on its
fearsome nature and where it comes from, with the repeated ‘r’ sound mimicking the tiger’s growl like a small, subtle
threat in the poem’s background.

Enjambment

An enjambment is the continuation of a sentence beyond a line break, couplet, or stanza without an expected
pause.

“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?”

- Langston Hughes, “Harlem”

Hughes plays with multiple methods of ending lines in this poem, including enjambment. The first two lines of the second stanza
and the second-to-last stanza are examples of enjambment, as the thought continues from one line to the next without any
punctuation. Notice the way these lines feel in comparison to the others, especially the second example, isolated in its own stanza.
The way it’s written mimics the exhaustion of carrying a heavy load, as you can’t pause for breath the way that
you do with the lines ended with punctuation.

Irony
Irony is when a statement is used to express an opposite meaning than the one literally expressed by it. There are three types of
irony in literature:
  Verbal irony: When someone says something but means the opposite (similar to sarcasm).

 Situational irony: When something happens that's the opposite of what was expected or intended to happen.

Dramatic irony: When the audience is aware of the true intentions or outcomes, while the characters are not. As a result,
certain actions and/or events take on different meanings for the audience than they do for the characters involved.
Examples:

 Verbal irony: One example of this type of irony can be found in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." In this
short story, a man named Montresor plans to get revenge on another man named Fortunato. As they toast, Montresor says,
"And I, Fortunato—I drink to your long life." This statement is ironic because we the readers already know by this point
that Montresor plans to kill Fortunato.

 Situational irony: A girl wakes up late for school and quickly rushes to get there. As soon as she arrives, though, she
realizes that it's Saturday and there is no school.

 Dramatic irony: In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo commits suicide in order to be with Juliet;
however, the audience (unlike poor Romeo) knows that Juliet is not actually dead—just asleep.

Metaphor

A metaphor is when a writer compares one thing to another.

“An emotional rollercoaster” is a common example of a metaphor—so common, in fact, that it’s become cliche. Experiencing
multiple emotions in a short period of time can feel a lot like riding a roller coaster, as you have a series of extreme highs and lows.

Meter

Meter refers to the rhythm of a poem or other written work as it’s expressed through the number and length of
the feet in each line.

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief…”

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare famously wrote frequently in iambic pentameter, a specific type of meter containing five iambic feet. Iambs are a foot
—a unit of rhythm—consisting of one unstressed and one stressed syllable. In the first line of this passage, you have five iambs,
which produces a sort of heartbeat-esque rhythm.

“But soft / what light / through yon- / -der win- / -dow breaks?”

Meter like this gives readers expectations about how each line will go, which can be very useful if you want to subvert them, such as
how Shakespeare does in Hamlet:

“To be / or not / to be / that is / the ques- / -ion.”

Because we expect iambic pentameter, the rule-breaking here clues us in that something isn’t right with Hamlet.

Pun

A pun is a play on words, using multiple meanings or similar sounds to make a joke.

"Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

"It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?" And she kept
on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking...."

- Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Here, Alice clearly misunderstands what the mouse is saying—he says ‘tale,’ referring to his long and sad story, and she hears ‘tail,’
referring to his literal tail. The result is a misunderstanding between the two that ends with Alice looking rude and uncaring.

Though it makes Alice look bad, it’s quite entertaining for the reader. The world of Wonderland is full of strangeness, so
it’s not really a surprise that Alice wouldn’t understand what’s happening. However, in this case it’s a legitimate misunderstanding,
heightening the comedy as Alice’s worldview is once again shaken.

Repetition

Repetition is fairly self-explanatory—it’s the process of repeating certain words or phrases.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.”

- Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

Throughout this poem, Thomas repeats the lines, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the
light.” The two lines don’t appear together until the final couplet of the poem, cementing their importance in relation to one
another. But before that, the repetition of each line clues you in to their importance. No matter what else is said, the
repetition tells you that it all comes back to those two lines.

Rhetorical Question

A rhetorical question is a question asked to make a point rather than in expectation of an answer.

“Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a
woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I
have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus
heard me! And ain't I a woman?”

- Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Sojourner Truth’s question to the Women’s Convention of 1981 in Akron, Ohio isn’t a question that needs an answer. Of course
she’s a woman—she, as well as everybody else in the audience, knew that perfectly well. However, Sojourner Truth was a black
woman in the time of slavery. Many white women wouldn’t have considered her to be part of the women’s rights movement despite
her gender.

By asking the question, Sojourner Truth is raising the point that she is a woman, and therefore should be part of the conversation
about women’s rights. “Ain’t I a woman?” isn’t a question of gender, but a question of race—if it’s a conference about women’s
rights, why weren’t black women included? By asking a question about an undeniable truth, Sojourner Truth was in
fact pointing out the hypocrisy of the conference.

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of syllables at the end of words, often at the end of a line of poetry, but there are many
unique kinds of rhymes.

“It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
 By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.”

- Edgar Allen Poe, “Annabel Lee”

Poe’s poem starts off with a fairly typical ABAB rhyme scheme—the first line rhymes with the third, the second with the fourth.
However, in line five, we get a jarring line that does not rhyme, which is carried through the rest of the poem. The rhyming sounds
hearken back to classic songs and stories, but is undone by something that doesn’t sound right, just as the classic love story of the
narrator and Annabel Lee is undone by tragedy.

Rhythm

Rhythm refers to the pattern of long, short, stressed, and unstressed syllables in writing.

“Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake…”

- William Shakespeare, Macbeth

In this scene from Macbeth, the witches are positioned as being strange and unnatural, and the rhyme scheme Shakespeare uses is
also unnatural. It lends the passage a sing-song quality that isn’t present in other parts of the play, which is easy to get stuck in
your head. This is important, because their prophecies also get stuck in Macbeth’s head, leading him to commit his horrible crimes.