Types of Poetry: Free Verse

DEFINITION: A poem that doesn't contain a particular rhythm and can possibly break poetry rules

EXAMPLE:

Dance with me.

We'll invent a Finnish tango

and wow all the cool people

at the Copacabana, or

slide a lunar waltz under disco starlight with every

eye watching you.

A sexual Pasa Doblé

in peak hour Times Square traffic

showing New York commuters what

quick step really means as

they funeral march home.

Let's cut a jive in five

eight time to Garth Brooks on

some freaky western drug trip and

hear the applause as

you sashay a foxtrot on

their mundane front lawns.

Take my lead and

we can turn the entire bloody

world

                                                into our dance floor.

SIGNIFICANCE: I personally think free verse is the most less complicated way to write poetry since in free verse poetry, you are able to break poetry rules as long as you realize you are breaking them. Basically, you can just throw any words you want into the poem.

Types of Poetry: Elegy

DEFINITION: A poem especially written for the death of someone

EXAMPLE:   life after death is silent
as in a cemetery

mourners came and went
dirge and elegy are gone

death does not hear
even a silent prayer

death does not see
even the dark underground

when death does speak
you do not hear

when death does smile
you do not see

a song of those who are no more
cannot be sung

the singer of another world
cannot be seen

life is not a drama
world is not a stage

the theater is empty
in a drunken town 

SIGNIFICANCE:  People who write elegy can express how much they miss and feel about the loss of someone special to them.

Types of Poetry: Ode

DEFINITION: A long poem that celebrates an idea or a person

EXAMPLE: An Ode to Christmas by Bronti Phillips

  When you see lovely lights
Of greens, reds, and whites
You know it is Christmas Time

When snow falls down from the skies
Soft and thick it lies
You know it is Christmas Time

When you hear Christmas jingles
And your skin begins to tingle
You know it is Christmas Time

An Ode for the scent of pine
An Ode to the dainty decorations that are so divine
An Ode to Christmas Time

When you get rosy cheeks
And children dash with squeals and shrieks
You know it is Christmas Time

When the young and old sit in front of the fire and come together
To get away from the cold weather
You know it is Christmas Time

When you warm up with your sweet heart
Unable to keep apart
You know it is Christmas Time

An Ode to Hot Chocolate with marshmallows
An Ode to the Jolly fellows

An Ode to Santa Claus
An Ode to decking the halls
An Ode to Christmas Time 

SIGNIFICANCE:  Odes are based on what a person has done great or how an idea is great. It shows appreciation to the person or idea through words written in poetic form.

Types of Poetry: Sonnet

DEFINITION: A poem that has 14 lines with rhyming schemes

EXAMPLE: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

SIGNIFICANCE: As I know of, Shakespeare has multiple Sonnet poems. Sonnet has a certain amount of lines, therefeore the poem can't go on forever which can possibly bored readers.

Types of Poetry: Lyric

DEFINITION: A poem where poets express feelings and thoughts

EXAMPLE: I HEAR A SONG BY JOE FAZIO

  In the song of life, all lyrics need a melody.

You are the lyric and you are the melody.
You are the lyric of my heart and of my soul.

The beauty of the rose, speaks a lyric of love.
Love, speaks a lyric of you.

The silent lyric of goodness, echoes from within you.
My heart, speaks the lyric of love...to only you.

Let the words...the lyric...that bind, pass between us.
Let the lyric, of you...of me...be as one.

A million words I can speak of you and the lyrics
would be the same...I love you now. I always will  

SIGNIFICANCE: What is good about lyric poetry is that it contains people's feelings and thoughts. It's not full of stories, but what a person feels.

Types of Poetry: Epic

DEFINITION: A poem that tells a story about a hero or a heroic figure person

EXAMPLE: Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings,
leader beloved, and long he ruled
in fame with all folk, since his father had gone
away from the world, till awoke an heir,
haughty Healfdene, who held through life,
sage and sturdy, the Scyldings glad.
Then, one after one, there woke to him,
to the chieftain of clansmen, children four:
Heorogar, then Hrothgar, then Halga brave;
and I heard that -- was -- 's queen,
the Heathoscylfing's helpmate dear.

MORE PARTS

SIGNIFICANCE: Rather than writing one page about a hero or a hero-like, epic poems are quicker. At the same time, you can easily be descriptive using metaphors, personification, and much more.

Types of Poetry: Ballad

DEFINITION: a type of poem that can be based on love, death, betrayal

EXAMPLE:  BE WITH ME BY JAMES DICKENSON

This is a ballad for the good times
So put a battery in your leg
Put a rock beat over anything
Get it stuck there in your head
You can be with me

I got nothing to rely on
I've broken every bone
Everybody's stop believing
But you know you're not alone
You can be with me

This is a ballad for the good times
And all the dignity we had
Don't get het up on the evil things
You ain't coming back
You can be with me
If you want to be
You can be with me.... 

SIGNIFICANCE: It's good to write ballads if you want to base your poems on more than one theme. In ballads, you'll be able to express different things in one poem.

Types of Poetry: Narrative

DEFINITION: A poem that tells a story

EXAMPLE:

John Barleycorn
by
Robert Burns

There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.
But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris'd them all.
The sultry suns of Summer came,
And he grew thick and strong,
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.
The sober Autumn enter'd mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.
His coulour sicken'd more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.
They've taen a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.
They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe,
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
They toss'd him to and fro.
They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a Miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise,
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy:
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!

SIGNIFICANCE: Narrative poem is like a shorter way to tell a story, but at the same time it can be interesting using poetic devices like rhyming.

Lines

DEFINITION: Row of words which creates a sentence; in poetry, multiple lines will form a verse

EXAMPLE: I love to go out with my friends

                    Not only friends, but family too.

SIGNIFICANCE: In poetry, lines are counted therefore when people are looking for specific parts of the poem, it can be easily identified.

Symbol

DEFINITION:  A mark or sign that represents something else 

EXAMPLE: Symbol of peace would be the picture above

SIGNIFICANCE: Much easier for the readers/audience to understand, however one sign can represent various things depending on the person.

Onomatopoeia

DEFINITION: word that is the sound of the something that it represents

EXAMPLE: MEOW! ~ For cats

SIGNIFICANCE: Allows the readers to visualize the actions in the poem

Assonance

DEFINITION: Multiple words that contain the same vowel sounds but different consonants.

EXAMPLE: Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese

SIGNIFICANCE: Assonance is just like alliteration however, assonance refers to the vowel sounds. It can be seen in many poems that are based on assonance which makes it fun to read. I think assonance is a poetic device too along with metaphor, personification, etc.

Alliteration

DEFINITION: Multiple words made of the same consonant sounds in the beginning

EXAMPLE: Silly Sally Sat on Someone

SIGNIFICANCE: it's cool to see alliterations in poems because in other types of writings like essays, you rarely see them.

Meter

DEFINITION: The pattern for how each verse in poems should be read

EXAMPLE:

SIGNIFICANCE: It's good to know how each poem should be read because without it, a person can read it without stopping and it wouldn't have expressions in it.

Elegy

DEFINITION: A poem especially written for the lost of someone

EXAMPLE: O Captain! My Captain by Walt Whitman is an elegy (one of the poems read in class)

SIGNIFICANCE: An elegy poem can show how much someone meant to them through the words they write. It's a way people who have lost someone to express themselves.

Couplet

DEFINITION: Two lines of verses that rhymes at the end

EXAMPLE: Mother's beautiful ring is blue

                    Mother all the clouds are too!

SIGNIFICANCE: Just like other poetic devices, reading couplets makes the poem interesting to read.

RHYME

DEFINITION: Words having the same sounds, mostly heard on the last syllable

EXAMPLE: The cat has a bat on his hat.

SIGNIFICANCE: Rhymes often make poems for children fun to read and sometimes for older audiences too. Rhymes, similes, personification, and other ways to write sentences are like creative ways to get people's interest.

RHYTHM

DEFINITION: The rise and fall of words in poems or any similar type of writing.

EXAMPLE: da da da DUM da da da DUM da da da DUM

SIGNIFICANCE: Rhythm is important in any type of writing like poem or when speaking since without it, words will just keep going on in a boring way and without expressions.

PERSONIFICATION

DEFINITION: A figure of speech where an object is given human characteristics.

EXAMPLE: The wind was so strong that the trees danced around.

SIGNIFICANCE: Giving objects human characteristics is interesting to read and visualize rather than describing it the way it's usually described which is its own characteristics.

SPEAKER

DEFINITION: Speaking in the point-of-view of a person or character in a poem

EXAMPLE: Ever since we met that day
After the vacation
In the library corridor way
Our friendship was not the same
It had become more lame.

We had a fight last night?
No, almost passed a fortnight
But still you remember it.
Cant you please get rid of it.

The first day you ignored me
Now stopped talking to me
I am not a person who can remove knots between fights
Cause when we were friends i didnt have a need to.

Now my inner mind says
I am not a person whom i used t be
That is just because we are not friends
Dear friend understand that was the feeling between you and me

SIGNIFICANCE: Since it's in the point-of-view of a certain person or character, the reader of the poem can be that person/character while reading. It allows the reader to relate and know what feelings is being said.

The Start of Poetry Terms ;)

IMAGERY

 

DEFINITION: The use of senses in descriptive language to allow the reader/audience to have a visual.

EXAMPLE: The winter evening settles down

                       With smell of steaks in passageways.

SIGNIFICANCE: With the usage of descriptive language, we can get our audience to visualize the poem in their mind without  further explanation.

STANZA

DEFINITION: Multiple paragraphs of lines which creates a poem

EXAMPLE:   there are other ways        some make another ocean

many ways in fact                                     inside their cupped hands

to create worlds,
                                                              when i talk to myself

some do it in hiding                                   when everyone else leaves

the world is a corner
a nook of few clutters                                for their own homes

                                                              on delicate whispers of the heart

SIGNIFICANCE: Stanzas is like the divider of the topics since with it, it makes the reading less complicated.

METAPHOR:

DEFINITION: It's a figure of speech which compares two ideas WITHOUT using "as or like"

EXAMPLE: Life is one long scary roller coaster.

SIGNIFICANCE: Makes reading poems interesting and it uses objects/ideas in a way that we often don't see it as. 

EXTENDED METAPHOR 

DEFINITION: A metaphor that continues further into the next coming lines of the poem.

EXAMPLE: All that inhabit this great earth,

                      Whatever be their rank or worth,

                      Are kindred and allied by birth,

                      And made of the same clay.

SIGNIFICANCE: Just like metaphors, it's interesting to read, but it may get confusing. The more you read extended metaphors, you can see how much topics can be compared to each other in many sentences. 

SIMILE

 

DEFINITION: A figure of speech which compares two things that may be similar or dissimilar by using "like or as"

EXAMPLE: The book was so thick that it was as heavy as a motorbike.

SIGNIFICANCE: With the use of similes, it makes it very simple to understand more than metaphors mostly for young children.

INTERPRETATION

DEFINITION: The explanation to the meaning of something or a symbol of it

EXAMPLE:

SIGNIFICANCE: Interpretation is important because words can be easily understood mostly when descriptive than pictures since in each pictures, it can get people to think different opinions. 

TONE

DEFINITION: The quality of something that depends on pitch, strength, etc.

EXAMPLE: 

SIGNIFICANCE: Tones is important in poems, music, and in other things because without it, it'll sound dull and uninteresting.

What is Poetry?

DEFINITION: A type of literature where anything like feelings can be expressed in words using rhythm or style.

EXAMPLE:   

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze

SIGNIFICANCE: Whether you're reading or writing poetry,  some sort of feeling is used to show what it means to the poet. Poetry is not only a type literature but also a common way to express feelings. To me, don't just write poems. Instead use your thoughts and feelings and that will create meaningful words.