POETRY NOTES
Let's not get 'sniffy' about poetry. There are times when the fun stuff appeals, and at other times something a little 'deeper' suits our mood. Poetry is there to pick up and put down as the spirit moves us. It's also fun to have a go at writing your own.
RECOMMENDED a useful book if you wish to acquire a good understanding of the forms and technicalities of writing poetry... The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry ISBN 0 09 179661 X
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There are many elements that go into writing a good poem - here are a few points that you might think about when writing your own poetry. Try spotting them in well known accomplished verse written by famous poets.
FULL RHYME occurs when the rhyming word repeats the sound exactly
I walked my dog along the lane
And as we went I felt the rain
SLANT RHYME has assonance an echo of sound that is less pronounced than full rhyme. The rhyming sounds are similar but not exact, with identical, stressed vowel sounds and unmatched consonants.
No night passed when we did not feed
Our hungry minds on broken dreams
The opposite of assonance is consonance
Consonance is when consonant sounds following stressed vowel sounds remain the same, such as the paring of 'feel' with 'call; For example:
...where nobody could feel
his loss or hear his call...
Full consonance is when the consonant sounds at each end of a stressed vowel sound are identical i.e.
'heel' with 'hall', or 'wish' with 'wash'
Alliteration - the repetition of consonant sounds in close or adjacent words - although not rhyming it has a poetical aura. For example:
Sweet sleep stifles thought, forces phantoms to fly.
FULL RHYME occurs when the rhyming word repeats the sound exactly
I walked my dog along the lane
And as we went I felt the rain
SLANT RHYME has assonance an echo of sound that is less pronounced than full rhyme. The rhyming sounds are similar but not exact, with identical, stressed vowel sounds and unmatched consonants.
No night passed when we did not feed
Our hungry minds on broken dreams
The opposite of assonance is consonance
Consonance is when consonant sounds following stressed vowel sounds remain the same, such as the paring of 'feel' with 'call; For example:
...where nobody could feel
his loss or hear his call...
Full consonance is when the consonant sounds at each end of a stressed vowel sound are identical i.e.
'heel' with 'hall', or 'wish' with 'wash'
Alliteration - the repetition of consonant sounds in close or adjacent words - although not rhyming it has a poetical aura. For example:
Sweet sleep stifles thought, forces phantoms to fly.
POETRY FORMS - here are a few of the many poetry forms
FREE VERSE has no regular meter or line length and depends on natural speech rhythms and the counterpoint of stressed and unstressed syllables. In the hands of a gifted poet it can acquire rhythms and melodies of its own. Its origins are obscure but some of the notable poets who employed this form are Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ezra Pound, T S Elliot, D H Lawrence and William Carlos Williams. The following example comes from Whitman’s After the Sea-ship:
After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
After the white-grey sails taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating, waves, liquid, uneven emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface…
_____________________________________________________________
BLANK VERSE originated in the 16th century and comprises unrhymed five-stress lines; i.e. iambic pentameters. It has become a widely used verse form and is close to the rhythms of everyday speech.
This form is used in Milton’sParadise Lost (1667).
All the poets of the Romantic period wrote blank verse extensively, for
example Wordsworth’s The Prelude.
__________________________________________________
CONCRETE POETRY the object is to present the poem as shape. It is thus a matter of pictorial typography which produces 'visual poetry'. It is very difficult to do well but when worked with subtle skill it can be very effective. The shape of the poem should reflect the subject matter of the poem.
__________________________________________________
FOUND POETRY - this can be good fun - the idea is that you use 'found' words e.g. words on a sauce bottle, notice board, snatchets of text from almost anywhere. With a little tweaking you can present your 'found' words as a poem. For example, here's one I did by taking the titles of radio programmes from the Radio Times. The title and each line of the example below is an actual radio programme. All I have done is list the titles in a certain order without altering their syntax and just adding punctuation.
Poetry Please
Start the week
today.
Witness
with great pleasure
the unbelievable truth,
from fact to fiction.
Beyond belief,
a point of view.
loose ends.
Any questions?
_____________________________________________
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET Also known as the English Sonnet. A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameters consisting of three quatrains and a concluding couplet.
That is: 3 x 4 lines = 12 lines plus a 2 line summing up. The iambic pentameter works out at 10 syllables per line. 1 iamb = two beats with the stress on the second beat. Each line has 5 iambs = 10 beats.
Think of the first line of Shakespeare's famous sonnet and look where the stresses fall...
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
_________________________________________________
HAIKU A true Haiku has no title and no punctuation. This is a Janpanese form of poetry that began in the 12th century and the all time master of this form was named Basho.
Although many people churn out Haiku these days the purists tell us that Haiku has a very strict ethos. The idea is that you capture a moment, a split second, in nature. You should aim for contrast to illustrate the 'moment' - a Haiku does not rhyme.
The usual form of Haiku in this country is three lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables. Not many words in which to illustrate your 'moment'.
In the amber dusk
Each island dreams its own night
The sea swarms with gold (James Kirkup)
From these 15 words I get an image of small islands isolated by water and the sunset has turned the surrounding waters to a golden colour.
__________________________________________________
LIMERICK jokey little jingles with a set rhythm and rhyme pattern.
da-de-da da-de-da da-de da (A)
da-de-da da-de-da da-de-da (A)
da-de-da da-de-da (B)
da-de-de da-de-da (B)
da-de-da da-de-da da-de-da (A)
___________________________________________________
CLERIHEW A non-metrical comical and bigraphical quatrain (4 line stanza) whose first line is the name of its subject.
Mr Jack Brown
Known always to frown
When hearing my gaff
Decided to laugh (anon)
_____________________________________________________
CINQUAIN
A stanza of five lines with a variable metre and rhyme scheme.
The American poet Adelaide Crapsey worked out a particular kind of cinquain consisting of five lines with a fixed number of syllables i.e. two, four, six, eight, two respectively.
______________________________________________________
VILLANELLE
A villanelle is written in three line stanzas (or tercets). Some sources quote 5 stanzas and some 6. The rhyming scheme is precise and lines are repeated at certain points in the poem. Dylan Thomas wrote a famous villanelle "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" - Stephen Fry declares it to be a perfect villanelle.
Copyright law prevents me from posting examples of other poets' published work here but if you feel up to the challenge of writing a villanelle do look at the Dylan Thomas poem - look at the rhyming scheme and the placing of repeated lines.
_______________________________________________________
BALLAD (not to be confused with ballade)
Usually a lengthy poem telling a story.
For a good example look at 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' by Oscar Wilde published in 1898. It's about the hanging of a murderer, Charles Thomas Wooldrige.
_______________________________________________________
QUATRAIN
A quatrain is a group of four lines. It can be a short poem in its own right or one four-line stanza of a longer poem.
_______________________________________________________
OTTAVA RIMA
_______________________________________________________
RHYME ROYAL
_______________________________________________________
TERZA RIMA
Terza Rima is an interesting form as the rhyming scheme gives it a good 'flow'. There is no set length or metrical pattern but iambic pentameter is usual.
The rhyming scheme is bab, bcb, cdc, ded, etc. i.e. the first and last lines rhyme and then the first and last lines of the next stanza rhyme with the centre line of the preceding stanza.
The poem should end with a single line or a rhyming couplet (2 lines)
If your terza rima has 14 lines including the ending, it can be referred to as a terza rima sonnet.
A three-line stanza is also called a tercet.
_______________________________________________________
FREE VERSE has no regular meter or line length and depends on natural speech rhythms and the counterpoint of stressed and unstressed syllables. In the hands of a gifted poet it can acquire rhythms and melodies of its own. Its origins are obscure but some of the notable poets who employed this form are Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ezra Pound, T S Elliot, D H Lawrence and William Carlos Williams. The following example comes from Whitman’s After the Sea-ship:
After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
After the white-grey sails taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating, waves, liquid, uneven emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface…
_____________________________________________________________
BLANK VERSE originated in the 16th century and comprises unrhymed five-stress lines; i.e. iambic pentameters. It has become a widely used verse form and is close to the rhythms of everyday speech.
This form is used in Milton’sParadise Lost (1667).
All the poets of the Romantic period wrote blank verse extensively, for
example Wordsworth’s The Prelude.
__________________________________________________
CONCRETE POETRY the object is to present the poem as shape. It is thus a matter of pictorial typography which produces 'visual poetry'. It is very difficult to do well but when worked with subtle skill it can be very effective. The shape of the poem should reflect the subject matter of the poem.
__________________________________________________
FOUND POETRY - this can be good fun - the idea is that you use 'found' words e.g. words on a sauce bottle, notice board, snatchets of text from almost anywhere. With a little tweaking you can present your 'found' words as a poem. For example, here's one I did by taking the titles of radio programmes from the Radio Times. The title and each line of the example below is an actual radio programme. All I have done is list the titles in a certain order without altering their syntax and just adding punctuation.
Poetry Please
Start the week
today.
Witness
with great pleasure
the unbelievable truth,
from fact to fiction.
Beyond belief,
a point of view.
loose ends.
Any questions?
_____________________________________________
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET Also known as the English Sonnet. A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameters consisting of three quatrains and a concluding couplet.
That is: 3 x 4 lines = 12 lines plus a 2 line summing up. The iambic pentameter works out at 10 syllables per line. 1 iamb = two beats with the stress on the second beat. Each line has 5 iambs = 10 beats.
Think of the first line of Shakespeare's famous sonnet and look where the stresses fall...
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
_________________________________________________
HAIKU A true Haiku has no title and no punctuation. This is a Janpanese form of poetry that began in the 12th century and the all time master of this form was named Basho.
Although many people churn out Haiku these days the purists tell us that Haiku has a very strict ethos. The idea is that you capture a moment, a split second, in nature. You should aim for contrast to illustrate the 'moment' - a Haiku does not rhyme.
The usual form of Haiku in this country is three lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables. Not many words in which to illustrate your 'moment'.
In the amber dusk
Each island dreams its own night
The sea swarms with gold (James Kirkup)
From these 15 words I get an image of small islands isolated by water and the sunset has turned the surrounding waters to a golden colour.
__________________________________________________
LIMERICK jokey little jingles with a set rhythm and rhyme pattern.
da-de-da da-de-da da-de da (A)
da-de-da da-de-da da-de-da (A)
da-de-da da-de-da (B)
da-de-de da-de-da (B)
da-de-da da-de-da da-de-da (A)
___________________________________________________
CLERIHEW A non-metrical comical and bigraphical quatrain (4 line stanza) whose first line is the name of its subject.
Mr Jack Brown
Known always to frown
When hearing my gaff
Decided to laugh (anon)
_____________________________________________________
CINQUAIN
A stanza of five lines with a variable metre and rhyme scheme.
The American poet Adelaide Crapsey worked out a particular kind of cinquain consisting of five lines with a fixed number of syllables i.e. two, four, six, eight, two respectively.
______________________________________________________
VILLANELLE
A villanelle is written in three line stanzas (or tercets). Some sources quote 5 stanzas and some 6. The rhyming scheme is precise and lines are repeated at certain points in the poem. Dylan Thomas wrote a famous villanelle "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" - Stephen Fry declares it to be a perfect villanelle.
Copyright law prevents me from posting examples of other poets' published work here but if you feel up to the challenge of writing a villanelle do look at the Dylan Thomas poem - look at the rhyming scheme and the placing of repeated lines.
_______________________________________________________
BALLAD (not to be confused with ballade)
Usually a lengthy poem telling a story.
For a good example look at 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' by Oscar Wilde published in 1898. It's about the hanging of a murderer, Charles Thomas Wooldrige.
_______________________________________________________
QUATRAIN
A quatrain is a group of four lines. It can be a short poem in its own right or one four-line stanza of a longer poem.
_______________________________________________________
OTTAVA RIMA
_______________________________________________________
RHYME ROYAL
_______________________________________________________
TERZA RIMA
Terza Rima is an interesting form as the rhyming scheme gives it a good 'flow'. There is no set length or metrical pattern but iambic pentameter is usual.
The rhyming scheme is bab, bcb, cdc, ded, etc. i.e. the first and last lines rhyme and then the first and last lines of the next stanza rhyme with the centre line of the preceding stanza.
The poem should end with a single line or a rhyming couplet (2 lines)
If your terza rima has 14 lines including the ending, it can be referred to as a terza rima sonnet.
A three-line stanza is also called a tercet.
_______________________________________________________