What is Poetry? 2

A poetic form is a type of poem with specific rules for rhyme, rhythm and/or subject matter. Two poetic forms are haikus and sonnets.

A haiku is a traditional Japanese poetic form. It consists of three unrhymed lines with specific syllable counts: five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second and five in the third. Haikus are often about nature and the seasons.

A sonnet is a 14-line poem with a set rhyme scheme and a particular syllable pattern called iambic pentameter. Different types of sonnets have different rhyme schemes. An English, or Shakespearean, sonnet usually follows the rhyme scheme of: ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The final two lines, a couplet, summarize the main idea of the poem.

According to the passage, one of the differences between haikus and sonnets is

• A the number of adjectives used in the poems.

• B the number of lines in the poems.

• C the type of writer who composes the poems.

• D the types of verbs used in the poems.

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Sometimes you can tell right away that you’re looking at a poem. How? Because the lines will break before they reach the right margin of the page. A verse can refer to a single line of poetry. It can also refer to a group of lines or a section of a poem. A stanza is like a poem’s paragraph; it is a group of lines bound together. Stanzas are separated by a line of space and are sometimes numbered.

Read the poem “The Book of Questions” by Pablo Neruda.

Tell me, is the rose naked

or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal

the splendor of their roots?

Who hears the regrets

of the thieving automobile?

Is there anything in the world sadder

than a train standing in the rain?

How is this poem organized?

• A It contains four stanzas with two lines each.

• B It contains two stanzas with four lines each.

• C It contains 25 lines arranged in one stanza.

• D It does not contain any stanzas.

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When you use figurative language, you say or write something in a creative way. Your writing goes beyond the literal meaning of your words.

Metaphor and simile are two types of figurative language. Both use comparisons. A simile compares two things that are alike in some way using the words “like” or “as.” Metaphors do not use the words “like” or “as” and instead suggest that one thing is the other.

Writers use personification when they give a human quality to something nonhuman.

Which of the excerpts is an example of personification?

• A Well, son, I’ll tell you:/ Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair./ It’s had tacks in it,/ And splinters,/ And boards torn up,/ And places with no carpet on the floors/ Bare.

• B I’d love to take a poem to lunch/ or treat it to a wholesome brunch/ of fresh cut fruit and apple crunch.

• C I wandered lonely as a cloud/ That floats on high o'er vales and hills,/ When all at once I saw a crowd,/ A host, of golden daffodils;

• D The Moon’s a snowball. See the drifts/ Of white that cross the sphere./ The Moon’s a snowball, melted down/ A dozen times a year.

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A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem. We can describe rhyme scheme using letters to indicate different rhymes.

Imagine a four-line poem, or quatrain. If every line rhymed, we’d say this poem had a rhyme scheme of AAAA. If every other line rhymed, the rhyme scheme would be ABAB. ABAC would mean only lines 1 and 3 rhymed.

Read the excerpt from the poem “The Ecchoing Green” by William Blake.

The sun does arise,

And make happy the skies.

The merry bells ring

To welcome the Spring.

What is the rhyme scheme in this poem?

• A. ABAB

• B. ABAC

• C. ABBA

• D. AABB

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A poem that doesn’t follow specific rules for rhythm or rhyme is written in free verse. What makes a piece of writing a poem if it has no rhyme or rhythm? For a start, it is written in verse instead of in prose. But beyond that, the language is rich with imagery and poetic devices, including personification and metaphor.

Read the poem “The Fog” by Carl Sandburg.

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

This poem is an example of free verse in part because

• A it refers to an animal.

• B it is written in the third person.

• C its first line has three syllables.

• D it doesn’t follow a specific rhyme scheme.

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A sound device is a tool poets use to express meaning through the sound of their words. Alliteration and onomatopoeia are two sound devices, but there are others.

Alliteration is the repetition of the first consonant sounds of words.

Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound that it’s describing, like “clang” or “sizzle.”

Which of the following excerpts includes onomatopoeia?

• A Listen my children and you shall hear/ Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere/ On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:/ Hardly a man is now alive

• B Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand.

• C Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before

• D It SHUSHES/ It hushes/ The loudness in the road./ It flitter-twitters,/ And laughs away from me.

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