Unit Notes Introduction to Poetry

Unit Notes:
Introduction to Poetry

What is poetry?
Poetry is one of the three major types of literature, the
others being prose and drama. Most poems make use of
highly compact, musical, and emotionally charged
language. Many also make use of imagery, figurative
language, and special devices of sound such as rhyme.
Poems are often divided into lines and stanzas and often
employ regular rhythmical patterns, or meters. Poetry
that does not follow a regular metrical pattern is called
free verse.

What is poetry?
Think of poetry like paintings. There are paintings that
are classic and easy to understand such as a painting of a
valley or a portrait and then there are abstract paintings
that might just be a bunch of colors spattered on a
canvas. They make you feel different and you understand
them differently. You could look at poetry in a similar
way. There are structured poems that rhyme, have a
shape, or a pattern of some sort (and a poem can have
all this or none!). A good poet is really trying to make
you feel something when you read it.

Poems are things that are truly expressed in
words that are beautiful.
- Dante
Poems are the best words in the best order.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poems are the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings.
-William Wordsworth
Poems are musical thought.
-Thomas Carlyle

Stanza
An arrangement of a certain number of
lines, two or more, sometimes having a
fixed length, meter, or rhyme scheme,
forming a division of a poem.

“My River Runs to Thee” by Emily Dickinson
My river runs to thee:
Blue sea, wilt welcome me?
My river waits reply.
Oh sea, look graciously!
I ’ll fetch thee brooks
From spotted nooks,—
Say, sea,
Take me!

Literal Language
Definition: Refers to words that do not deviate
from their defined meaning. A literal usage is
the “normal” meanings of the words. Literal
language means exactly what it says.

Figurative Language
Definition: Refers to words, and groups of words, that
exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of the
component words for effect. Figurative language is
the opposite of literal language and means
something different to (and usually more than) what it
says on the surface.
Example:
He ran fast. (literal language)
He ran like the wind. (figurative language)

The Speaker of the Poem
The speaker is the voice or "persona" of a poem.
One should not assume that the poet is the speaker,
because the poet may be writing from a perspective
entirely different from his own, even with the voice of
another gender, race or species, or even of a
material object. The reader or listener must do more
than just hear the voice of the poem to identify the
speaker. It is important to examine the other
elements of the poem, such as the situation,
structure, descriptive details, figurative language and
rhythms to help determine the speaker’s identity.

Popular Themes & Subjects for Poetry
love
life
death
relationships
sports
nature
beauty
food
desire
change
friendship
war
women
men
poverty
politics
mothers
fathers
ghosts
illness
rain
snow
storms
heat
seasons
paradise
education
journeys
freedom
night
day
religion
suicide
birth
loneliness
depression
failure
success
victory
loss
moon
stars

Tone & Mood
Tone and mood are NOT the same.
The tone of a piece of literature is the
speaker’s or narrator’s attitude towards
the subject or reader, rather than what
the reader feels, as in mood which is the
general feeling or atmosphere that a
piece of writing creates within the reader.

Tone
Definition: Tone is the attitude(s) toward
the subject and/or audience implied in a
literary work.
Example: A love letter to your high school crush
might have a playful, sweet, and romantic tone,
but a letter to end the relationship with a
significant other after having found out that they
were cheating on you behind your back will have
a serious, hateful, and angry tone.

IMAGERY

Imagery
An image is a representation of anything we can see,
hear, taste, touch, or smell. A painter or sculptor can
create an image of an apple so true to life that we’d
like to eat it or feel its weight and roundness in our
hands. A poet, using only words, can make us see,
feel, taste, and smell an apple by describing it as
“rosy,” “shiny,” “heavy,” “mushy,” “sweet.” The
language that appeals to our five senses and creates
images in our minds is called imagery.