Free verse

Free verse: a type of poem that doesn't have pattern, meter, rhyme.
ex: The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Elegies

Elegies: a type of poem for the dead.
ex:

I before my death,  Have composed,  An elegy of the Earth,  Which (after war)  Roodali of the Air will sing,  Weeping and wailing,  Sitting amid the burnt  Decomposed bodies

Odes

Odes: a poem that is written on a particular subject.
ex:

Ode To A Nightingale

by
John Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

Sonnet

Sonnet: a type of poem that is written in 14 lines.
ex:

Red Blushed And All Cut UpBy Paul McCann

Talking to myself there
Someone had overheard.
I was lost for a word.
There was nothing to share.
Embarrassed I was there.
Left awkward and absurd .
A broken wingless bird.
With nowhere to fly there.
Caught red faced there was I.
Didn't want to be seen.
I just wanted to die.
I just wanted to scream.
I'm so terribly shy.
Lost for words it would seem.

Lyric

Lyric: a type of poem that express personal feelings.
ex:

“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading - treading - till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through - 

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum -

Kept beating - beating - till I thought

My Mind was going numb -  And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race

Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down -

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing - then - ”

Epic

Epic: a narrative poem that tells about a heroes.
ex:

Tiddalick - The Frog Who Caused a Flood

In the time of dreaming
Before the earth was old
Myths were in the making
Legends yet untold

Here began a story
Of one huge enormous frog
Solemn in his glory
He drank from every bog

Tiddalick the great one
Had to quench his mighty thirst
He drank from all the waterholes
So much he nearly burst

He drained the lake and river
The stream and billabong
Soon there was no water left
It was very wrong .....

Ballads

Ballads: a poem that tells a simple story and can be sung as a song.
ex:

 The Mermaid

by
Unknown author

Oh the ocean waves may roll,
And the stormy winds may blow,
While we poor sailors go skipping aloft
And the land lubbers lay down below, below, below
And the land lubbers lay down below.

Narrative

Narrative: a type of poem that tells a story.
ex: "There was three kings into the east, 
Three kings both great and high, 
And they hae sworn a solemn oath 
John Barleycorn should die."
Excerpt from John Barleycorn by Robert Burns

Assonance

Assonance: the same vowel sound. 

ex: Try to light the fire.
Significance: It creates rhymes to make a poem more interesting.

Alliteration

Alliteration: the repetition of the leading consonant sound.

ex: Mike's microphone made much music.
Significance: Alliteration makes a poem more interesting but it is challenging when readers are trying to read fast.

Meter

Meter: the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

ex: Daily, daily, / sing to Mary,

Sing my soul her praises due:

All her feasts, her / actions honor,

With the heart's devotion true.

Now in wond'ring / contemplation,

Be her majesty confessed;

Call her Mother / call her Virgin,

Happy Mother, Virgin blest.

Significance: Meter gives rhymes to a poem and makes it sound like a song.

Couplet

Couplet: when two stanza lines rhyme with each other.

ex: It is such a shame
     That i didn't do the same
Significance: Couplet is the most common way to recognize rhymes in the poem.

Elegy

Elegy: a type of poem for the dead.

ex:

I before my death,  Have composed,  An elegy of the Earth,  Which (after war)  Roodali of the Air will sing,  Weeping and wailing,  Sitting amid the burnt  Decomposed bodies. Significance: It makes people memorize the dead.

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia: words that describe sounds.

ex: Kaboom!
     Buzz!
     Bang!
Significance: Onomatopoeia is the best way to describe sounds and make the readers easier to imagine.

Line

Line: a sentence in a poem.

ex: Victory can't be achieve without sacrifice.
Significance: Every lines in a poem contain a different ideas and each different poem has unique lines.

Rhyme

Rhyme: a repetition of two or more words that sound alike.

ex: It begins as a noise in the background
keeping steady beat as it makes its round
it can be found at any time of day
it's so simple, just push play

Significance: Rhyme makes a poem easily to catch readers' attentions.

Rhythm

Rhythm: The beat of a poem.

ex: Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room

Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

Significance: It makes a poem more interesting by creating beats and it makes the poem more fun to read.

Interpretation

Interpretation: an analysis that helps you understand the poem.

ex: That boy is talking with a girl
     That girl is talking with a boy
     They are talking together
analysis: the girl and the boy are chatting together.
significance: Interpretation is very important when you read a poem and it helps you understand the poem better by analyzing and breaking the sentences, vocabs, theme.

Symbol

Symbol: something that represents a subject or an idea.

ex: Pigeon represents for peace.
Hammer & sickle represents communism.

Significance: Symbol can make a poem more interesting by using symbol and replaces for words to make it more creative.

Tone

Tone: a feeling or an attitude in a poem

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring; (light, informing tone) 
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away ("only" tone - reservation) 
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may): (supplementary, possibility) 
I sha'n't be gone long. -- You come too. (free tone, assuring) (after thought, inviting) "Rather well for me" -- 

I'm going out to fetch the little calf (Similar, free, persuasive, assuring 
That's standing by the mother. It's so young, and inviting tones in second stanza) 
It totters when she licks it with her tongue. 
I sha'n't be gone long. -- You come too. 
Significance:
The tone of a poem gives the reader the feelings of the authors through the words by bringing emotions to the poem.

Personification

Personification: Giving something a human like quality or ability to something that is not human.





ex:  
The Cat & The Fiddle

Hey diddle, Diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Significance: Personification makes the poem more interesting by giving human's ability to an object, so object can have emotion and feeling.

Speaker

Speaker: A person who is giving a lecture in a poem through his point of view.

Ex: I am evil
But i am not a devil

Significance: Speaker helps us  know the feeling of the writer to understand the point of view of the author.

Simile

Simile: A simile poem, or a simile is comparing 2 things with "like", or "as". 

An emerald is as green as grass,

A ruby red as blood;

A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;

A flint lies in the mud.

A diamond is a brilliant stone,

To catch the world's desire;

An opal holds a fiery spark;

But a flint holds a fire

Significance: Simile helps the reader compare between things with things and it makes the poem more interesting but don't mistake it from a metaphor.

Extended Metaphor

Extended Metaphor: A metaphor compares two things that are not alike and it takes a metaphor and compares it throughout the entire poem.

He is the pointing gun, we are the bullets of his desire.

All the world's a stage and men and women merely players.

Let me count my loves of thee, my rose garden, my heart, my fixed mark, my beginning and my end

Significance: Extend Metaphor makes the poem more creative and interesting than normal metaphor poems.

Metaphor

Metaphor: It is a way to describe one thing in terms of another.

A Candle


Lost in darkness of that day

I saw a distant candle

Being that I saw a way

I requested her handle.



I must have toiled half the way

To connect from such a length

Upon extending her my say

She bent over with sheer strength.



My wick absorbed her purity

I no longer realized that dark

When asked for my seniority

I just showed this glaring spark.

Significance: Metaphor can be challenging for the readers sometime but it makes the poem more creative and  it also makes the readers to ask themselves.   

Stanza

Stanza: A stanza is a group of lines within a poem. It is a form of a paragraph in a poem.


Ex: I met a man who'd kept a snail as pet
beneath a cold stone house which had no wife;
too dank it was for even cats to thrive.
Inside an old fish tank his snail friend slept.

The man's round back was proof he'd not forget
to spend good time in keeping things alive
between his care-filled self and his shelled bride.
All day he'd curve around her as she crept

Significance: Stanza's job is to divide verses of a poem. It is also a good way to expand the ideas in a poem.

Imagery

Imagery: A type of poetry which the words of the poem make the reader see in their imagination.

The winter evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways.

Six o'clock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

And now a gusty shower wraps

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves about your feet

And newspapers from vacant lots;

The showers beat

On broken blinds and chimney-pots,

And at the corner of the street

A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.

 Significance: Imagery helps the reader to image a picture by words to make them understand what it likes in the poem.

 

Poetry

Poetry: the art or work of a poet that is used to describe or expand the feeling by the use of distinctive style and rhythm.

Ex: There is a god.
     He has a dog.
  But the dog is his lord.
 So who is higher, lord or dog?


Significance: A poetry is an art and a poet is an artist. Anyone can be an artist by creating a poem.