Elements of Poetry
Poets use everyday language in different ways to encourage readers to see familiar things in a new light, to draw on their senses, and to fantasize.
Poets also use certain devices to create medleys of sounds, to suggest visual interpretations, and to communicate messages.
The criteria for selecting poetry for children suggests the importance of the following five poetic elements: (1) rhythm (2) rhyme (3) repetition (4) imagery and (5) shape.
Poets also use certain devices to create medleys of sounds, to suggest visual interpretations, and to communicate messages.
The criteria for selecting poetry for children suggests the importance of the following five poetic elements: (1) rhythm (2) rhyme (3) repetition (4) imagery and (5) shape.
Rhythm
The word rhythm is derived from the Greek rhythmos, meaning "to flow." In poetry, this flowing quality refers to the movement of words in the poem.
According to Through the Eyes of a Child: An Introduction to Children's Literature, "Poets use rhythm for four specific purposes: (1) To increase the enjoyment in hearing language. (2) To highlight and emphasize specific words. (3) To create dramatic effects. (4) To suggest mood.
For example, in his poem "The Pickety Fence," David McCord uses rhythm to suggest the sounds that a stick might make if a child dragged it along a fence.
According to Through the Eyes of a Child: An Introduction to Children's Literature, "Poets use rhythm for four specific purposes: (1) To increase the enjoyment in hearing language. (2) To highlight and emphasize specific words. (3) To create dramatic effects. (4) To suggest mood.
For example, in his poem "The Pickety Fence," David McCord uses rhythm to suggest the sounds that a stick might make if a child dragged it along a fence.
Rhyme |
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Sound is an important part of the pleasure of poetry. One of the ways in which poets can emphasize sound is with rhyme. Rhyming words may occur at the end of lines and within lines. Poets of nonsense verse even create their own words to achieve humorous rhyming effects.
For example, in her poem, "Poem to Mud," Zilpha Keatley Snyder uses rhyme to twist the tongue and to play with the ear:
Poem to Mud
Poem to mud--
Poem to ooze--
Patted in pies, or coating the shoes.
Poem to slooze--
Poem to crud--
Fed by a leak, or spread by a flood.
Wherever, whenever, whyever it goes,
Stirred by your finger, or strained by your toes,
There's nothing sloopier, slipperier, floppier,
There's nothing slickier, stickier, thickier,
There's nothing quickier to make grown-ups sickier,
Truilier coolier,
Than wonderful mud.
For example, in her poem, "Poem to Mud," Zilpha Keatley Snyder uses rhyme to twist the tongue and to play with the ear:
Poem to Mud
Poem to mud--
Poem to ooze--
Patted in pies, or coating the shoes.
Poem to slooze--
Poem to crud--
Fed by a leak, or spread by a flood.
Wherever, whenever, whyever it goes,
Stirred by your finger, or strained by your toes,
There's nothing sloopier, slipperier, floppier,
There's nothing slickier, stickier, thickier,
There's nothing quickier to make grown-ups sickier,
Truilier coolier,
Than wonderful mud.
Gorgeous instances of internal rhyme pop up in Robert Southey's classical poem "The Cataract of Lodore:"
Excerpt from Robert Southey’s“The Cataract of Lodore” (lines 108-117)
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
Excerpt from Robert Southey’s“The Cataract of Lodore” (lines 108-117)
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
Repetition
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Poets frequently use repetition to enrich or emphasize words, phrases, lines, or even whole verses in poems. In "Pickety Fence," David McCord uses repetition of whole lines. Lewis Carroll, in his poem from Alice in Wonderland, "Beautiful Soup," uses repetition to accent his feelings about soup.
Beautiful Soup
BEAUTIFUL Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!
Beautiful Soup
BEAUTIFUL Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!
Imagery |
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Imagery is a primary element in poetry. It encourages children to see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and touch the worlds created by poets. Poets use figurative language to clarify, add vividness, and encourage readers to experience things in new ways. Examples of figurative language are metaphor, simile, personification, and hyperbole.
Metaphors = implied comparisons between things that have something in common but are essentially different. Metaphors highlight certain qualities in things to make readers see them in new ways. In the introduction to Flashlight and Other Poems, Judith Thurman (1976) uses metaphor:
A poem is a flashlight, too: the flashlight of surprise. Pointed at a skinned knee or at an oil slick, at pretending to sleep or at kisses, at balloons, or snow, or at the soft scary nuzzle of a mare, a poem lets us feel and know each in a fresh, sudden, and strong light.
Whereas metaphors are implied comparisons, similes are direct comparisons between things that have something in common but are essentially different. The comparisons made by similes are considered direct because the word like or as is included in the comparison. In her poem "The Path on the Sea," Inna Miller uses simile to capture the mystery and allure of moonlight on the ocean. Notice the use of the word like in the first line. What are the commonalities between a silver sickle and a new moon?
The Path on the Sea
The moon this night is like a silver sickle
Mowing a field of stars.
It has spread a golden runner
Over the rippling waves.
With its winking shimmer
This magic carpet lures me
To fly to the moon on it.
Insightful comparisons can develop meaning that transcends words. Poetic imagery can open the minds of children to new worlds and can allow them to ascend to different levels of consciousness.
Metaphors = implied comparisons between things that have something in common but are essentially different. Metaphors highlight certain qualities in things to make readers see them in new ways. In the introduction to Flashlight and Other Poems, Judith Thurman (1976) uses metaphor:
A poem is a flashlight, too: the flashlight of surprise. Pointed at a skinned knee or at an oil slick, at pretending to sleep or at kisses, at balloons, or snow, or at the soft scary nuzzle of a mare, a poem lets us feel and know each in a fresh, sudden, and strong light.
Whereas metaphors are implied comparisons, similes are direct comparisons between things that have something in common but are essentially different. The comparisons made by similes are considered direct because the word like or as is included in the comparison. In her poem "The Path on the Sea," Inna Miller uses simile to capture the mystery and allure of moonlight on the ocean. Notice the use of the word like in the first line. What are the commonalities between a silver sickle and a new moon?
The Path on the Sea
The moon this night is like a silver sickle
Mowing a field of stars.
It has spread a golden runner
Over the rippling waves.
With its winking shimmer
This magic carpet lures me
To fly to the moon on it.
Insightful comparisons can develop meaning that transcends words. Poetic imagery can open the minds of children to new worlds and can allow them to ascend to different levels of consciousness.
Shape
Poets may place their words on pages in ways designed to supplement meaning and to create greater visual impact. Word division, line division, punctuation, and capitalization can emphasize content, as when Lewis Carroll writes about "Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!"
The shape of the poem may represent the thing or the physical experience that the poem describes. For example, Joan Bransfield Graham uses shape to reflect the content of her poem "Popsicle:"
"Popsicle" is an example of "concrete poetry."
Concrete poetry is a type of poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on.
Works of concrete poetry are as much pieces of visual art made with words as they are poems. Were one to hear a piece of concrete poetry read aloud, a substantial amount of its effect would be lost.
Examples of concrete poetry written by children...
Explanation of concrete poetry and instructions on how to write a concrete poem.
Concrete poetry is a type of poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on.
Works of concrete poetry are as much pieces of visual art made with words as they are poems. Were one to hear a piece of concrete poetry read aloud, a substantial amount of its effect would be lost.
Examples of concrete poetry written by children...
Explanation of concrete poetry and instructions on how to write a concrete poem.