Poem

Poem

by Rai Parmana

​Lord Byron, ‘She Walks in Beauty’.

​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 …

​This is a quintessential romantic poem (a male poet praising a woman’s beauty) but also a Romantic poem, belonging to the movement in literature and art known as Romanticism. The mood is of praise for the woman’s natural beauty, and the ways in which her prettiness is in harmony with the natural world of the starry sky and the night time.

​Poetry

• I think that I shall never see --> A

  a poem lovely as a tree…--> A

  poems are made by fools like me,--> B

  but only God can make a tree.--> B

  (Joyce Kilmer, Trees)

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  ​The poem employs a fairly standard rhyme scheme (AABB, lines 1 and 2 rhymes together and lines 3 and 4 rhymes together), and a meter called “iambic tetrameter,” which is commonly employed in children’s rhymes.

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• ​Poetry existed long before people became literate. Ancient poems were memorized and passed down from one generation to another orally. Indian Vedas, Zoroaster’s Gathas and Odyssey are examples of ancient poetry.

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  Poetry is defined as a literary form of art, evoked in language. It can be written on its own or in combination with other arts as in poetic drama, poetic hymns, lyrical poetry and prose poetry.

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  Poetry is distinguished from other forms of writing by its use of repetition, verse, rhyme and aesthetics. It uses words and speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy.

• A poem is the arrangement of words that contain meaning and musical elements. It is a piece of writing that expresses the writer’s thought and feelings in order to set a mood; it can be happy or sad, simple or complex. In just a few words, a poem can say a lot. It can inspire and awe and can be a welcome escape into something that is totally wonderful.

  A poem can either be rhyming or non-rhyming. It uses symbols and has lines and stanzas that have sentences, fragments of sentences or both. It uses metaphor and alliteration, especially in poems for children.

• A poetry is one of the forms of fine arts.

• A poem is the fundamental unit of poetry.

• It can thus be said that poetry is made of poems.

• In other words, you can say that poems constitute the art form of poetry.

• The word poem is often used in the sense of an individual piece of work. Poetry is a collected work. In other words it is a collective term used to indicate many pieces of individual poems. Poetry is a literary form whereas a poem is a written piece of work.

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• Poetry is a literary form, whereas a poem is a written piece of work.

  Poetry is an art form, whereas a poem is a composed work.

  He who composes poems occasionally cannot be called a poet but can be called a versifier.

•  A poem is the fundamental unit of poetry. It can thus be said that poetry is made of poems.

​Main elements of a poem

 

There are so many different kinds of poems and it's almost impossible to define, but usually a poem ​is a piece of writing in which the words are chosen for their beauty and sound and are carefully arranged, often in short lines that rhyme.

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​1.Title The name of the poem. ​

2.Author/Poet The person who writes the poem. They usually leave their signature.

3.Stanza A group of lines which are together and separated by an empty line from other stanzas. Names for stanzas:

Haiku/Monoku ( 1 line)​

Couplet (2 lines).

Tercet/triplet/haiku (3 lines).

Quatrain (4 lines).

Cinquain/tanka (5 lines).

Sestet/sexain/stanza (6 lines).

Septet/rondelet (7 lines).

​Octave/rondeau (8 lines). 

The number of lines in a stanza​

• Stanza Spenserian (9 lines)

• Keatsian Ode (10 lines)

• Roundel ( 11 lines)

• Scottish Stanza (12 lines )

• Terza (13 lines )

• Sonnet / Stanza Onegin / Terza (14 lines )

• Terza (15 lines )

• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Form ( 16 lines )

• 17 lines – ___

• McCarron Couplet ( 18 lines )

• Villanelle ( 19 lines )

• 20 lines – ___

• Other (Free Verse, Prose poetry, etc.)

4.Space: A gap between stanzas. ​

5.Verse:

A single line in a poem. It gives a structure to poetry form. Here are the most common types of verses:

• Rhymed verse: It's the most common and it usually has a metrical form that rhymes throughout.

  Blank verse: It has no rhyme scheme. However, it has a consistent meter with 10 syllables in each line (pentameter); where, unstressed syllables are followed by stressed ones.

  Free verse: It doesn't follow the rules, and has no rhyme. However, it's still an artistic expression.

• 6.Form

• Here are the 3 most common types of poems according to form:

  Lyrics poetry: It expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.

  Narrative poetry: It's a form of poetry that tells a story, often making the voices of a narrator and characters as well.

  Descriptive poetry: It describes the world that surrounds the speaker. It uses elaborate imagery and adjectives.

• 7.Rhyme

• Words that end with similar sounds; usually at the end of a line. Rhyme is principally a function of sound rather than spelling. For example, words rhyme that end with the same vowel sound but have different spellings: right, kite, and  height.  Here are some types of rhyme:

  Perfect rhyme - The ending sound of each word matches exactly: soap and hope.

  Rich rhyme - It involves words that are pronounced the same but are not spelled alike and have different meanings: break and brake.

  Eye rhyme - Two words that look similar on a page, but do not actually rhyme in spoken pronunciation: move and love.  

  8.Rhyme scheme

• The pattern of rhymes at the end of each verse or line in poetry. ​ Here are some types of rhyme scheme:

  Alternate rhyme: It follows the pattern ABAB CDCD EFEF and so on.

  Ballade rhyme: It's a lyric poem that follows the rhyme scheme ABABBCBC.

  Coupled rhyme: The rhymes occur in pairs, such as AABBCC.

  Enclosed rhyme: The pattern is ABBA, in which A encloses the B.

• 9.Mood

• Emotions involved in a poem. ​

  10.Theme

• This is what the poem is all about. ​

  11.Centered

• This is the way a poem is arranged on a page.

  12.Capital letters

• Each line of a poem must begin with capital letters.

​Types of poem

1. 1.Haiku​ - A type of Japanese poem consisting of three unrhymed lines, with mostly five, seven, and five syllables in each line.

1. 2.Free Verse – Consists of non–rhyming lines, without any metrical pattern, but which follow a natural rhythm.

2. 3.Epic – A form of lengthy poem, often written in blank verse, in which poet shows a protagonist in action of historical significance, or a great mythic.

3. 4.Ballad – A type of narrative poem in which a story often talks about folk or legendary tales. It may take the form of a moral lesson or a song.

• 5.Sonnet - ​It is a form of lyrical poem containing fourteen lines, with iambic pentameter and tone or mood changes after the eighth line.

• 6.Elegy – A melancholic poem in which the poet laments the death of a subject, though he gives consolation towards the end.

• 7.Epitaph – A small poem used as an inscription on a tombstone.

• 8.Hymn – This type of a poem praises spirituality or God’s splendor.

• 9.Limerick – This is a type of humorous poem with five anapestic lines in which the first, second, and fifth lines have three feet, and the third and fourth lines have two feet, with a strict rhyme scheme of aabba.

• 10.Villanelle – A French styled poem with nineteen lines, composed of three–line stanza, with five tercets and a final quatrain. It uses refrain at the first and third lines of each stanza.

​Poem

​“By the shore of Gitchie Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

At the doorway of his wigwam,

In the pleasant Summer morning,

Hiawatha stood and waited…”

When studying poems in-depth, look at these individual elements:

1. Theme: Poetry often conveys a message through figurative language. The central idea and the subject matter can reveal the underlying theme of a poem.

2. Language: From word choice to imagery, language creates the mood and tone of a poem. The way language is arranged also impacts the rhythm of a poem.

3. Sound and rhythm: The syllabic patterns and stresses create the metrical pattern of a poem.

4. Structure: The framework of a poem’s structure affects how it is meant to be read. A poet sculpts their story around stanzas, line breaks, rhyme patterns, punctuation, and pauses.

5. Context: The who, what, where, when, and why of a poem can help explain its purpose. Look at these elements to discover the context of a poem.

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• A poet is one who composes poems and creates poetry in the process. He is just like a potter who is adept in making pots and creating the art form of pottery in the process. He alone can be called a poet who creates poetry frequently. He who composes poems occasionally cannot be called a poet but can be called a versifier.

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  Poetry is the result of the delineation of concepts and feelings by means of the use of the various elements of a language. Sounds and rhythms of words constitute the elements of language.

• Poetry is made by or rather a poem is made by putting sense and sound together. For a poem to be created, a poet pays much attention to the words he chooses. The words chosen by the poet should carry some kind of rhythm as well as a meaning. Since rhythm means so much in poetry we find different techniques in poetry connected to sound such as alliteration, onomatopoeia etc.

• Poetry is characterized by what is called prosody. Prosody is the science of patterns of rhythms. Since rhythms form the basis of poetry, it is often compared to music. This is because of the fact that music too is qualified by the presence of rhythms.