A poet can choose one word or another, a longer or shorter word, or emphasize one word rather than another. It all adds to the meaning. Musicians who rhyme have to match their lyrics to the rhythm of the music, if the music comes first (or vice versa), but certain music forms like Hip-hop have set rhythms and beats that the artist has to stick to. Show There are no easy ways to dispel these biases. Poetry is difficult because very often its language is indirect. But so is experience - those things we think, feel, and do. The lazy reader wants to be told things and usually avoids poetry because it demands commitment and energy. Moreover, much of what poetry has to offer is not in the form of hidden meanings. Many poets like to "play" with the sound of language or offer an emotional insight by describing what they see in highly descriptive language. In fact, there can many different ways to enjoy poetry; this reflects the many different styles and objectives of poets themselves. For an overview of the many ways to read a poem, click here. Finally, if you are the type to give up when something is unclear, just relax! Like we just said, there can be many different approaches to examining poetry; often these approaches (like looking for certain poetic devices or examining the meaning of a specific phrase) do not require a complete and exhaustive analysis of a poem. So, enjoy what you do understand!
Read the poem (many students neglect this step). Identify the speaker and the situation. Feel free to read it more than once! Read the sentences literally. Use your prose reading skills to clarify what the poem is about.Read each line separately, noting unusual words and associations. Look up words you are unsure of and struggle with word associations that may not seem logical to you.Note any changes in the form of the poem that might signal a shift in point of view. Study the structure of the poem, including its rhyme and rhythm (if any). Re-read the poem slowly, thinking about what message and emotion the poem communicates to you.
An important method of analyzing a poem is to look at the stanza structure or style of a poem. Generally speaking, structure has to do with the overall organization of lines and/or the conventional patterns of sound. Again, many modern poems may not have any identifiable structure (i.e. they are free verse), so don't panic if you can't find it! STANZAS: Stanzas are a series of lines grouped together and separated by an empty line from other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a paragraph in an essay. One way to identify a stanza is to count the number of lines. Thus:
In a sense, almost all poems, whether they have consistent patterns of sound and/or structure, or are free verse, are in one of the three categories above. Or, of course, they may be a combination of 2 or 3 of the above styles! Here are some more types of poems that are subtypes of the three styles above:
Other types of poems include:
For more about poetic forms, see the Open School Notes on Poetry Forms.
Three other elements of poetry are rhyme scheme, meter (ie. regular rhythm) and word sounds (like alliteration). These are sometimes collectively called sound play because they take advantage of the performative, spoken nature of poetry.
Rhyme is the repetition of similar sounds. In poetry, the most common kind of rhyme is the end rhyme, which occurs at the end of two or more lines. It is usually identified with lower case letters, and a new letter is used to identify each new end sound. Take a look at the rhyme scheme for the following poem :
The rhyme scheme of the poem is abab. . Internal rhyme occurs in the middle of a line, as in these lines from Coleridge, "In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud" or "Whiles all the night through fog-smoke white" ("The Ancient Mariner"). Remember that most modern poems do not have rhyme. NOTE: Rhyme (above) and rhythm (below) are two different concepts!
I recommend starting with this podcast on rhythm and meter.
I said earlier that poetry is not always about hidden or indirect meanings (sometimes called meaning play). Nevertheless, if often is a major part of poetry, so here some of the important things to remember:
In general, poetry deals with particular things in concrete language, since our emotions most readily respond to these things. From the poem's particular situation, the reader may then generalize; the generalities arise by implication from the particular. In other words, a poem is most often concrete and particular; the "message," if there is any, is general and abstract; it's implied by the images. Images, in turn, suggest meanings beyond the mere identity of the specific object. Poetry "plays" with meaning when it identifies resemblances or makes comparisons between things; common examples of this "figurative" comparison include:
Such terms as connotation, simile, metaphor, allegory, and symbol are aspects of this comparison. These expressions are generally called figurative or metaphorical language. DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION Word meanings are not only restricted to dictionary meanings. The full meaning of a word includes both the dictionary definition and the special meanings and associations a word takes in a given phrase or expression. For example, a tiger is a carnivorous animal of the cat family. This is the literal or denotative meaning. But we have certain associations with the word: sinuous movement, jungle violence, and aggression. These are the suggestive, figurative or connotative meanings.
Thus, if we recognize that much of the essential quality of our experience is more complex than a simple denotative statement can describe, then we must recognize the value of the poet's need to search for a language agile enough to capture the complexity of that experience. Consider this four-line stanza:
The center of the poem is the lover's desire to be reunited with his beloved (lines 3 and 4). But the full meaning of the poem depends on the first two lines also. Obviously, the lover associates his grief with the wind and rain, but the poet leaves to implication, to indirection, just how the lover's situation and the wind and rain are related. We note that they are related in several ways: the need for experiencing and manifesting love is an inherent need, like nature's need for rain; in a word, love, like the wind and rain, is natural. Secondly, the lover is living in a kind of drought or arid state that can only be slaked by the soothing presence of the beloved. Thirdly, the rising of the wind and the coming of the rain can neither be controlled nor foretold exactly, and human affairs, like the lover's predicament, are subject to the same sort of chance. Undoubtedly, too, there are associations with specific words, like "Western" or "small rain" that the reader is only half aware of but which nonetheless contribute to meaning. These associations or connotations afford a few indirections that enrich the entire poem. For example, "small rain" at once describes the kind of rain that the lover wants to fall and suggests the joy and peace of lover's tears, and "small" alone might suggest the daintiness or femininity of the beloved. What is sound in elements of poetry?Sound devices are special tools the poet can use to create certain effects in the poem to convey and reinforce meaning through sound. The four most common sound devices are repetition, rhyme, alliteration, and assonance.
How do sound devices affect a poem?Sound devices help readers develop strong visual images, reinforcing the mood and tone of the literary piece. The goal is to use sound devices to evoke an emotional response in readers. Poets typically stress specific syllables, known as accents, to emphasize particular sounds and create a powerful rhythm.
What is the most important element of poetry?Imagery. The only thing that will make your poetry powerful and enticing is great imagery. This goes along with the line you always hear “show don't tell.” Only with poetry, it's ALL show and NO tell. For the love of god, don't just say that love hurts, give us a metaphor.
What are the 3 elements of a poem?There are three distinct elements that contribute to the structure of a poem: The statement and voice. The rhythm. The rhyme.
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