Understanding Poetry: Types, Voice and Perspective

What is Poetry?

• Poetry uses creative language for expressing thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
• Poetry is a literary art form which uses language to evoke emotions and express ideas.
• Poetry emphasizes the beauty and expressive qualities of words.
• Poetry arranges words in ways that intensify meaning and impact.
• Narrative, dramatic, and lyric are the three main poetic categories.
• Narrative poetry tells a story.
• Lyric poetry refers to a short poem that expresses the speaker's personal feelings and emotions, often with song-like qualities.
• Dramatic poem tells a story and connects the reader to an audience through emotions or behaviors.

Perspective and Voice

• The speaker is the narrative voice in the poem, not always the poet.
• Persona refers to the character whom the poem is about; the persona and the speaker are the same in a poem with a first-person point of view.
• A poet is a person who writes poetry.
• Point of view refers to the perspective from which the poem is written (e.g., first-person, third-person).

Structural Elements

• A line is a single row of text in a poem that may or may not be a complete sentence.
• A stanza is a group of lines arranged together, similar to a paragraph in prose.
• Shape is the poem's visual arrangement on the page, reflecting its theme (e.g., concrete poetry).
• Couplet: two-line stanza.
• Tercet: three-line stanza.
• Quatrain: four-line stanza.
• Cinquain: five-line stanza.
• Sestet: six-line stanza.
• Octave: eight-line stanza
• Meter the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.
• Rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyme that comes at the end of each line or verse and is indicated using the letters of the alphabet (e.g., ABBA, ABAB).
• Enjambment occurs when there is no written or natural pause at the end of a poetic line, so that the word-flow carries over to the next line.
• Free verse is poetry with no strict structure, regular meter, rhyme, fixed length, or specific stanza pattern.
• Blank verse is poetry that does not rhyme but follows a regular rhythmical pattern or meter.
• Iambic pentameter means each line has five sets of two syllables that follow an unstressed-stressed pattern.

Sound Devices

• Rhyme is the repetition of similar sounds, often at the end of lines (e.g., "night" and "light").
• Rhythm is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates a musical quality.
• Meter is the structured rhythm in a poem, measured in feet (e.g., iambic pentameter).
• Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words (e.g., "silent sea").
• Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within words (e.g., "light of the fire").
• Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words (e.g., "stroke of luck").
• Onomatopoeia refers to words that imitate sounds (e.g., "buzz," "hiss").

Figurative Language

• A metaphor is a direct comparison between two unlike things (e.g., "time is a thief").
• A simile is a comparison using "like" or "as" (e.g., "as brave as a lion").
• Personification involves giving human qualities to non-human entities (e.g., "the wind whispered").
• Symbolism uses objects, colors, or actions to represent larger ideas (e.g., a dove for peace).
• Irony describes something by using opposite language; for example, saying the opposite of what you mean (verbal irony), or when what is expected occurs (situational irony).
• Hyperbole is gross exaggeration.

Other Literary Devices

• Repetition involves repeating the same word or phrase for emphasis or reinforcement.
• Contrast means opposing entities and differences.
• Allusion is a direct or indirect reference to a person, place, event, literary work, or cultural idea.
• Oxymoron combines two contradictory words or ideas to create a unique and thought-provoking expression.
• Paradox differs from an oxymoron because it is a sentence or a phrase that appears contradictory but implies truth.

Other Poetic Elements

• Imagery uses vivid and descriptive language to appeal to the senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell).
• Theme refers to the central ideas or messages of the poem, often reflecting universal truths or personal experiences.
• Tone is the poet's attitude toward the subject or audience, which can range from serious to playful or melancholic.
• Mood is the emotional atmosphere created by the poem, influencing how the reader feels.
• Diction pertains to the poet's choice of words.
• Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or phrase across lines without a pause.