POETRY

Ms. Hall's Class

• TP-CASTT

• SOAPS(IS)

• Understanding the Meaning of Poetry

• Structure

• Figurative Devices

• Sound Devices

• Meter and Rhythm

• Poetry Analysis Guidelines

• Poetry Scoring Guide

• Critical Reading: A Guide

TP-CASTT

SOAPS(IS)

Understanding the Meaning

of Poetry

Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it. -Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

STRUCTURE

Form: Ballad, Concrete, Elegy, Epic, Free Verse, Haiku, Limerick, Lyric, Ode, Sonnet, Villanelle

Stanza pattern: Couplets, Triplets, Quatrains, etc.

Rhyme Schemes: ABAB; ABA, ABA; AA; etc.

Rhythm: The "flow" of the poem. Does the poem have a regular "beat?" (see below)

Line length: the number of metrical feet in a line (1) monometer (2) dimeter (3) trimeter (4) tetrameter (5) pentameter

Enjambment: When the idea or grammar does not stop naturally at the end of the line but flows into the next line without a pause.

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;

My heart is like an apple tree

Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these,

Because my love has come to me.

Catalectic: To stop short.

Caesura: A special kind of pause, usually in the middle of a line.

I don't care too much for money, Money can't buy me love.

FIGURATIVE DEVICES

Archetype: an image or symbol which is psychologically inherent to our imaginations. They recur in a civilization's mythology and thus are important to poetry.

For example,rivers as symbols of time, floods as symbols of rebirth, Snakes as symbols of evil, Dragons as symbols of evil or luck, and the phoenix as a symbol of death and rebirth

Connotation: An idea associated with a word or phrase.

Denotation: The explicit meaning of a word

Euphemism: an indirect statement used instead of a direct one to avoid unpleasantness or bluntness

Hyperbole: Exaggeration used for effect. "tons of money", "a million thanks,"

Imagery: What do you see in the poem?

Whirl up sea --

whirl your pointed pines

(the image of a forest of pine trees swaying back and forth like the cresting waves of a stormy sea.)

Irony: One thing is said, but the opposite meaning is intended

Juxtaposition: purposeful placement of words or ideas side by side for a particular purpose such as to emphasize contrasting ideas

Metaphor: A comparison without "like" or "as".

Where were the greenhouses going,

Lunging into the lashing

Wind driving water

So far down the river

All the faucets stopped?

Metonymy: A person or thing is not named directly, but by some associated thing. The prisoner addressed the bench.

Motifs: Ideas, or elements that recur throughout the poem.

Oxymoron: Words with opposite meanings tight slacks, Old New York, bitter-sweet, sweet sorrow, good grief, sanitary landfill

Paradox: A statement, which at first, seems contradictory or absurd.

Personification: Human qualities are attributed to an animal, object, or idea.

I am silver and exact.

I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful--

Pun: Words with a double meaning. A bear walks into a bar and says: "How about a gin and .......................... ............................................................................. tonic? The bartender asks: "What's with the big pause?" The bear replies: "Just born with them, I guess."

Repetition: A word or phrase is used more than once for emphasis.

Two roads diverged in the wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

Simile: A comparison using "like" or "as".

her lower lip

was like an orange

mint. and i was a crying

little boy

in the candy store.

Symbolism: Something that stands for something else. (Myths & Legends)

SOUND DEVICES

Alliteration: Two or more words in close succession beginning with the same letter or sound. I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds: Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain; Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.

Consonance: Repetition of consonant sounds: You crash over the trees, You crack the live branch: the branch is white, the green crushed, each leaf is rent like split wood. "bra" and "cr" mimic the sound of branches cracking. "sh" and "ch" imitate the sound of wind and rain.

Onomatopoeia: The word imitates the sound associated with an object or action. crack, splash, squeak, creak, ding dong of the bells, pitter patter of raindrops, buzzer, the gong, murmuring, etc.

Sounds:

Euphony: pleasing sounds

Cacophony: harsh, unpleasant sounds

Sound Systems:

Liquids: A consonant articulated without friction and capable of being prolonged like a vowel R, L

Glides: A sound that has the quality of one of the high vowels and that functions as a consonant before or after vowels, as the initial sounds of yell and well and the final sounds of coy and cow. W, Y

Plosives: Of, relating to, or being a speech sound produced by complete closure of the oral passage and subsequent release accompanied by a burst of air, as in the sound (p) in pit or (d) in dog. G, K, B, D, J, P, T

Nasals: Articulated by lowering the soft palate so that air resonates in the nasal cavities and passes out the nose, as in the pronunciation of the consonants M, N, NG

Fricative: A consonant, such as f or s in English, produced by the forcing of breath through a constricted passage. ZH, TH (think or this), CH, F, SH, Z, S, H

Soft-sounding, multiple-syllable words can be used when you want the feel of the line to be slow and dreamy. If you want the line to be read quickly, use short words with hard consonant sounds, such as T and K.

POETIC METER AND RHYTHM

Meter in poetry is defined as a way of measuring poetic rhythms and the length. This is a list of the different kinds of meter. Meter is measured in metric feet.

The different kinds of meter:

Monometer: contains one metric foot.

Dimeter: contains two metric feet.

Trimeter: contains three metric feet.

Tetrameter: contains four metric feet.

Pentameter: contains five metric feet. (eg. sonnets, blank verse) (etc)

The different types of feet:

A metric "foot" is decided in many different ways. The most recent way of deciding what a "foot" consists of is by counting all of the stressed syllables. However, throughout history, many names have been given to metric feet. Here are a few with examples: Please note that "/" means a stressed syllable and "-" means an unstressed syllable and they don't line up exactly.

Iamb : an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. This is the most common metric foot. (poetry written mostly with iambs is known as "iambic."

-        /   -     /    -        /    -     /

I heard a thousand blended notes

from "Line written in Early Spring" by William Wordsworth

Trochee - a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. This appears most often at the beginning of iambic poetry. (Though it is not restricted as such.)

/    -    /  -      /     -     /     -    /

Glory be to God for dappled things

from "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

  -    -      /        / -  -  -    /      -       /

On the wide level of a mountain's head

from "Time, Real and Imaginary. An Allegory." by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

note that this line contains an anapest followed by a trochee and then another anapest followed by an iamb.

Dactyl(-ic) - a single stressed syllable followed by two unstressed.

/ - -           / - -

Malachi Mulligan

from Ulysses (a novel) by James Joyce.

Poetry Analysis

1.        In writing about a poem, avoid "the poet says" approach. Instead, refer to the "speaker," or "persona." Sometimes one can identify the voice as that of a lover, parent, child, farmer, lifeguard etc.

2.        What audience does the voice address? The self? A particular individual? Humankind in general?

3.        An animal? An inanimate object? An abstraction?

4.        Out of what situation does the poem arise? What circumstances provide the context for this speech?

5.        To what past events does it refer? What is happening at the moment? Does the poem imply a set of stage directions? (Does the voice speak in the past, present, or future tense?)

6.        Try to identify the speaker’s tone (his/her/its relationship to the subject, audience, and self). Is the speaker distant from the subject and calmly objective or close to the subject and emotionally involved? Is the tone exuberant ironic, bitter, depressed, nostalgic, wistful, nervous, serene, angry, amused?

7.        What kind of language does the voice use—familiar or unusual, monosyllabic or polysyllabic, concrete or abstract, sensory or non-sensory, archaic or modern or even technical? Remember that meter and rhyme help to create mood and atmosphere.

8.        Early in the discussion of a poem, provide an overview of the external structure: meter or free verse; stanzas or verse paragraphs.

9.        Do the lines conform to a predictable pattern? Does the poem follow a stanza pattern, continuous form (blank verse, couplets, terza rima), or a fixed form (sonnet, ballad stanza, villanelle, sestina)?

10.     What does the poem do? Does it praise, condemn, complain, plead, pray, argue, or boast? Does the poem describe a scene (real or imaginary?), tell a story, define a problem, meditate? Describe the poem’s internal structure.

11.     Does the poem make a general statement and give examples? Ask a question and give an answer? Present evidence and draw a conclusion? Is there a turning point, a change or shift of mood, an unexpected development, or a climactic moment? Sometimes a lyric poem moves in one direction only to reach a turn or a reversal. Often a poem resembles a drama in miniature. Something happens.

12.     Division into parts or stanzas helps to organize the ideas and events of a poem. Each of the three quatrains of an English sonnet may center on a different image, with the final couplet providing a comment. The octave and the sestet of an Italian sonnet may state a problem then offer a solution.

13.     Describe the "events" of the poem, stage by stage.

14.     Does the poem employ imagery? In each part or stanza, discuss the dominant image, idea, or both.

15.     To which sense or senses do images appeal (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, or the kinesthetic sense of muscular tension and balance)?

16.     Does the poem include figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification)? Does it draw an analogy? Does it speak symbolically? Does it use irony, understatement, or overstatement (hyperbole)?

17.     Does the poem employ allegory? Does it contain allusions (historical, mythological, etc.)?

18.     Do sounds recur in the poem (alliteration, assonance, rhyme, double rhyme)? Do the sounds of language imitate the sounds of nature (onomatopoeia)? In addition to marking the ends of lines and creating musical effects, rhyme, assonance, and alliteration can call attention to similarities or contrasts between the meanings of sound-linked words. (Do tower and power carry similar ideas? What about power and flower? Power and cower?)

19.     Does the language of the poem contain inconsistencies? Does the poem appear to contradict itself?

Poetry Scoring Guide

9-8 These well-organized and well-written essays clearly demonstrate an understanding of how the speaker / author in _____ uses _____ to convey _____. In their references, they are apt and specific. Though not without flaws, these papers will offer a convincing interpretation of the poem, as well as consistent control over the virtues of effective composition, including the language unique to the criticism of poetry. They demonstrate the writer's ability to read perceptively and to write with clarity and sophistication.

7-6 These essays also demonstrate an understanding of _____'s poem; but, compared to the best essays, they are less thorough or less precise in their analysis of how the speaker / author uses _____ to convey _____. In addition to minor flaws in interpretation, their analysis is likely to be less well-supported and less incisive. While these essays demonstrate the writer's ability to express ideas clearly, they do so with less mastery and control over the hallmarks of mature composition than do papers in the 9-8 range.

5 While these essays deal with the assigned task without important errors, they have little to say beyond what is easiest to grasp. Their analysis of how _____ conveys _____ may be vague. As a critical explanation, they deal with the poem in a cursory way. Though the writing is sufficient to convey the writer's thoughts, these essays are typically pedestrian, not as well conceived, organized, or developed as upper-half papers. They may reveal simplistic thinking or immature writing.

4-3 These lower-half essays often reflect an incomplete or over-simplified understanding of the poem. Typically, they fail to respond adequately to part of the question. Their analysis may be weak, meager or irrelevant, inaccurate or unclear. The writing demonstrates uncertain control over the elements of effective composition. These essays usually contain recurrent stylistic flaws and/or misreadings, and they often lack persuasive evidence from the text. Essays scored 3 exhibit more than one of the above infelicities; they are marred by a significant misinterpretation, insufficient development, or serious omissions.

2-1 These essays compound the weaknesses of the papers in the 4-3 range. Writers may seriously misread the poem. Frequently, these essays are unacceptably brief. They are poorly written on several counts and may contain many distracting errors in grammar and mechanics. While some attempt may have been made to answer the question, the writer's observations are presented with little clarity, organization, or supporting evidence. Essays that are especially inexact, vacuous, and/or mechanically unsound should be scored 1.

0 This is a response with no more than a reference to the task or no response at all.