Teaching Ideas and Units - Teaching Unit

Teaching Poetry: a forum for teachers
Poetry on Poetry
Poetry books and books about poetry -relevant bibliographies
Comments on Poetry
Poetry Play
P-glossary
An Opening Collection of Poems

Poetry on Poetry

Poetic comments about poetry and poets from a variety of poets in a variety of styles - not available on line at present; please contact Charles Morgan if interested.

Poetry collections

This section includes collections and anthologies of verse for children, young people, anyone; books on poetry and poets

for young people
contemporary verse/poetry collections/anthologies
writing poetry
commentaries on poetry for younger people
commentaries on poetry and poets

The following short lists should be treated as extended invitations to add new titles and headings related to poetry, poetry teaching and poetry making.

For Young People

Ahlberg, A. Please Mrs Butler Harmondsworth: Kestrel 1983

Ahlberg, A Heard It In The Playground London: Viking/Kestrel 1989

Belloc, H. Cautionary Tales (1907)

Curry, J. The Beaver Book of School Verse London: Beaver Books 1981

Dahl, R. Revolting Rhymes London: Puffin 1982

Dahl, R. Dirty Beasts Puffin 1986

De La Mare, W. Songs of Childhood London: 1902

De La Mare, W. Come Hither London: 1923

Eliot, T.S. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats London: 1939

Grahame, E.(ed) A Puffin Book of Verse Harmondsworth: Puffin 1953

Hughes, T. Seasons Songs London: Faber 1976

Koch, K. & Farrell, K. Sleeping on the Wing New York: Vintage 1982

Lear, E. Nonsense Verse 1846 (in various contemporary editions)

Merriam, E. Outloud New York; Atheneum 1973

Merriam, E. It Doesn’t Always Have to Rhyme New York: Atheneum 1975

Merriam, E. Blackberry Ink 1985

Merriam, E. You be Good and I’ll be right: Jump on the Bed Poems 1999

Merriam, E. On My Street 2000

Monahan, S. Fun With Poetry Melbourne: Longman/Cheshire1982

McGough, R. & Rosen, M. You Tell Me Harmondsworth: Puffin 1981

McGough, R. Strictly Private London: Penguin 1981

McGough, R. Until I Met Dudley : How Everyday Things Really Work Chris Riddell (Illustrator)) London: Puffin 1998

McKenzie, J. Lines to Times Port Melbourne, Vic: Heinemann 1999 (3rd Edition)

Owen, G. Song Of The City London: Fontana Lions 1985

Patten, B. The Puffin book of twentieth-century children's verse London: Puffin 1999

Prelutsky, J. The Headless Horsmen Rides Tonight: More Poems to Trouble Your Sleep London: A&C Black 1984

Prelutsky, J. The Twentieth Century Children’s Poetry Treasury 1999

Rosen, M. Mind Your Own Business London: Collins 1975

Rosen, M. Wouldn’t You Like To Know Harmondsworth: Puffin1977

Rosen, M. Quick, Let’s Get Out Of Here Harmondsworth: Puffin 1983

Rosen, M.(ed) Classic Poetry:An Illustrated Collection 1998

Silverstein, S. Where The Sidewalk Ends London: Cape 1982

Stevenson, R.L. A Child’s Garden of Verses 1885 (in various contemporary editions)

Strauss, G. Trail of Stones London: Julia McCrae 1990

Thiele, C. Songs For My Thongs Adelaide: Rigby 1983

Webb, K. I Like This Poem Harmondsworth: Puffin 1979

Wright, K. Rabbiting On Harmondsworth:Puffin 1980

Wright, K. Hot Dog Harmondsworth: Kestrel 1981

Contemporary Verse/Poetry Collections/Anthologies

Forbes, P. (ed) Scanning The Century: The Penguin Book of The Twentieth in Poetry London: Viking in conjunction with The Poetry Society 1999

Ferguson, M. Salter, M.J. & Stallworthy, J. The Norton Anthology of Poetry New York: Norton 1996

Harrison, M. Writing Poems Oxford: OUP 1985 & Stuart-Clark, C. (includes commentary on poetic form and writing)

Heaney, S. & Hughes, T. The Rattle Bag London: Faber 1982

Heaney,S. & Hughes, T. The School Bag London: Faber 1998

Koch, K. & Farrell, K Sleeping on the Wing: An Anthology of Modern Poetry with Essays on Reading and Writing New York: Vintage Books1982

Milosz, C. A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry New York: Harcourt Brace 1996

Porter, P. (ed) The Oxford Book of Modern Australian Verse Melbourne: OUP 1996

Ricks, C. The Oxford Book of English Verse Oxford: OUP 1999

Rothenberg, J. & Joris, P. Poems for the Millennium: Book of Poetry of Modern and Post Modern Poetry Vol 1: From Fin-de-Siécle to Negritude Berkeley: Uni of California 1995

Rothenberg, J. & Joris, P. Poems for the Millennium: Book of Poetry of Modern and Post Modern Poetry Vol 2: From Postwar to Millennium Berkeley: Uni of Cafornia 1998

Writing Poetry

Brownjohn, S. What Rhymes with Secret? London: Hodder & Stoughton 1982

Brownjohn, S. Does It have to Rhyme? - Teaching Children to Write Poetry London: Hodder & Stoughton 1983

Koch, K. Wishes, Lies and Dreams New York: Harper and Row 1970

Harris, R. & McFarlane, P. A Book To Write Poems By Adelaide: AATE 1983

Powell, B. Making Poetry Ontario: Collier Macmillan 1973

Purves, A.C. & Monson, D.L. Experiencing Children’s Literature Glenview, Illinois: Scott Foresman 1984 (See section: Poetry and Picture Books)

Moffett, J. Active Voice Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook 1981

Nodelman, P. The Pleasures of Children’s Poetry New York: Longman 1992 (Chapter 9)

Langdon, M. #9; #9; Let the Children Write: An Explanation of Intensive Writing London: Longmans1961

Stillman, P. Writing Your Way Upper Monclair,NJ:Boynton/Cook 1984

Commentaries on poetry for younger people

Carpenter, H. & Prichard, M. The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature Oxford: OUP 1984

Chambers, N. The Signal Approach To Children’s Books Harmondsworth: Kestrel 1980

Harrison, M. Writiing Poems Oxford: OUP 1985 & Stuart-Clark, C. (includes an interesting anthology)

Hearne, B & Kaye, M. Celebrating Children’s Books New York: Lothrop,Lee & Shepard Books 1981 (See section on Nonsense Verse)

McVitty, W. (ed.) Word Magic: Poetry as a Shared Adventure Sydney: PETA 1985

Nodelman, P. The Pleasures of Children’s Poetry New York: Longman 1992

Purves, A.C.& Monson, D.L. Experiencing Children’s Literature Glenview, Illinois: Scott Foresman 1984

(See section: Poetry and Picture Books)

Saxby, M. & Winch, G. Give Them Wings; The Experience of Children’s Literature South Melbourne: Macmillan 1987 (see the Gordon Winch essay)

Saxby, M. The Proof of the Puddin’: Australian Children’s Literature 1970-1990 Sydney: Ashton Scholastic 1993 (see section on poetry and verse)

Tunica, M. For the Love of Poetry #9; Newtown, NSW: PETA 1995 (includes comments on poetry writing and annotated bibliography)

Commentaries on Poetry and Poets

Bloom, H. The Western Canon: The Books and School of The Ages New York:Harcourt, Brace 1994 (The reading lists in this work, in particular, are worth a look.)

Cuddon, J.A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms Harmondsworth: Penguin 1979

Dobryn, S. Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry 1997

Kermode, F. An Appetite for Poetry London:Collins, 1989

Koch, K. Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry 1998

Lentricchia, F. & McLaughin, T. #9; Critical Terms for Literary Study Chicago: Uni of Chicago 1990

McArthur, T. The Oxford Companion to the English Language Oxford: OUP 1992

Mitchell, W.T. Picture Theory Chicago: Uni of Chicago1994 (especially chapters 4&5)

Quinn, K. How Literature Works Sydney: ABC Books 1982

Reeves.J. Understanding Poetry London: Pan Piper 1965

Roberts, P.D. How Poetry Works London: Penguin 1986

Richards, I.A. Poetries and Sciences London: RKP (revised edition) 1935

Rosenblatt, L. The Reader, The Text and The Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work Carbondale, Illinois: South Illinois Uni Press1978

Schmidt, M. Lives of the Poets London: Phoenix 1998

Stanford, W.B. Enemies of Poetry London: RKP 1980

Vendler, H. Seamus Heaney Cambridge, Mass: Harvard 1998

Vendler, H. The Music of What Happens: Poems, Poets, Critics

Cambridge, Mass: Harvard 1988

Warnock, M. Imagination London: Faber 1976 (especially Part III)

Commenting on Poetry - Food for thought

This section is an anthology of thoughts about poetry from a variety of sources. The thoughts are provided to invite various reflections upon the place and nature of poetry.

From Latin Poetry

Be brief in what you say, in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full…

It has always been and always will be allowed to issue word bearing the stamp of the present day. As the forest changes its leaves at the decline of the year, so, among words, the oldest lie; and like all things young, the new ones grow and flourish.

Horace The Art of Poetry (1st Century Poetry)

One word cannot be lost [from a poem] but the whole work fails…everyone word having his natural seat, which seat must needs make the words remembered.

Sir Philip Sydney Apology for Poetry, 1580

And in a few words, I dare say, that of all the Studies of men, nothing may be sooner obtain’d, than this vicious abundance of Phrase, this trick of Metaphor, this volubility of Tongue, which makes so great a noise in the World. But I spend words in vain; for the evil is now so inveterate, that it is hard to know whom to blame, or where to begin to reform……It will suffice my present purpose, to point out, what has been done by the Royal Society, towards the correcting of its excesses in Natural Philosophy; to which it is, of all others, a most profest enemy.

They have therefore been most rigorous in putting in execution, the only Remedy, that can be found for this extravagance: and that has been the constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when deliver’d so many things, almost in equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members a close, naked natural way of speaking; positive expressions, clear senses; a native easiness: bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the languages of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants before that of Wits, or Scholars

Thomas Sprat History of The Royal Society, 1667

From A Defence of Poetry

‘The functions of the poetic faculty are two-fold, by one it creates new material of knowledge and power, by the other it engenders in the mind a desire to reproduce and arrange them according to a certain rhythm and order which may be called the beautiful and the good.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

There has always been controversy over the nature of poetic language. To some poetic language should be special, removed from the language of the everyday (thus Thomas Gray’s dictum ‘ the language of an age is never the language of poetry’) To others it should be closely in touch with everyday, or perhaps, be ‘current language heightened’ (Gerard Manley Hopkins). To Ralph Waldo Emerson, the whole of language is in any case ‘fossil poetry’.

Statements of this kind to some extent miss the point, which is to stress the enormous range of linguistic expression that is found under the heading of poetry. At one extreme, there are poems that are as far removed from everyday speech as it is possible to imagine; at the other, there are poems that, if it were not for division into lines, would closely resemble prose.

David Crystal Language Cambridge, 1987, p73

A poem like a piece of music, offers merely a text, which strictly speaking, is only a kind of recipe; the cook who follows it plays an essential part. To speak a poem in itself, to judge a poem in itself has nor real or precise meaning. It is to speak of a potentiality. The poem is an abstraction, a piece of writing that stands waiting, a law that lives only in some human mouth, and that mouth is simply that a mouth.

Paul Valéry The Art of Poetry (translated by Denise Folliot) NY 1961 p.162

A poem is produced at the intersection of two histories, the history of the formal possibilities available to the poet - conventions, themes, language - and the history of the individual as a particular expressive ‘medium’, a product of his own time and place.

Stan Smith Inviolable voice: History and Twentieth Century Poetry Dublin: 1982 p.9

I have not attempted any definition of poetry, because I can think of none which does not assume that the reader already knows what it is, or which does not falsify by leaving too much out more than it can include. Poetry begins, I dare say, with a savage beating of a drum in a jungle, or it retains that essential percussion or rhythm; hyperbolically one might say that the poet is older than the other human beings - but I do not want to be tempted to ending on such a flourish. I have insisted on the variety of poetry, variety so great that all the kinds some to have nothing in common except the rhythm of verse instead the rhythm of prose and that does not tell you much about all poetry. Poetry is of course, not to be defined by its uses. If it commemorates a public occasion, or amuses a crowd, so much the better. It may effect revolutions in sensibility such as are periodically needed; they help break up the conventional modes of perception and valuation which are perpetually forming and make people see the world afresh, or some new part of it. It may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves and evasion of the visible and sensible worlds. But to say this is only to say what you know already, if you have felt poetry and though about your feelings.

T.S.Eliot The Use of Poetry London 1933, p153

Poetry is not ‘writing about’, but exploring experience metaphorically, bringing aspects of experience with which we have not come to terms, into order, and to access. In this sense poetry goes in advance of ordinary human consciousness.

For poetry is a development of metaphor. Metaphor is not, as we were taught at school, a figure of speech. In language it is the means by which we extend our awareness of experience into new realms. Poetry is part of this process of giving apparent order to the flux of experience.

David Hobrook English for Maturity 1964 p69

"But in classical antiquity literary works were normally read aloud even by readers who were reading for themselves alone, as is attested as late as the end of the fourth century AD by Saint Augustine’s surprise at finding Saint Ambrose reading a book silently.’

W. B.Stanford Enemies of Poetry 1980 p150

‘Poetry is never better understood than in childhood when it is felt in the blood and along the bones. Later, it may be intricately interpreted, explained or demonstrated, as something made of language. To enjoy poetry is to revel in it, to explore sadness, loss, in ways that language makes possible. Poetry is also about language as a plaything. Pop goes the weasel, scatological parodies, children’s versions of Michael Jackson songs, all the memorable ways by which words deal with varied troublesome, irrational, unnameable aspects of sense and feelings are also threaded through our literate lives in poetry, sometimes without our lives being fully aware of it. At the same time poetry shows that language makes and remakes texts in ways that relate that word to texture and textile. The attractiveness of any poem includes its shape, its constructedness

Margaret Meek On Being Literate London 1991, p182

‘Hard is his lot, that here by fortune plac’d

Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;

With ev’ry meteor of caprice must play,

And chase the new-born bubbles of the day

Samuel Johnson (‘Prologue for David Garrick)

‘[The critic] is part detective, part lawyer, part judge, in a country in which crimes and deeds of glory look alike, and in which the public not only, therefore, confuses one withe other, but does not know that one or the other has been committed: not because the news has not got out, but because what counts as one or the other cannot be defined until it happens; and when it has happened there is no sure way he can get the news out; and no way at all without risking something like a crime or glory of his own’

Stanley Cavell Must We Mean What We Say? 1976 p.191

The hermeneutical critics - who look for meaning, import, philosophy, social truth - remind us of the links between literature and its social and philosophical milieu; the explorers of the bliss of writing remind us of the links between literature and the other expressive arts - music, painting and sculpture.

Helen Vendler The Music of What Happens: Poems, Poets, Critics. 1988, p 16.

‘No one can read a poem unless he realises that it is a physical object as well as an abstract vehicle for conveying ideas. A poem has a material existence like a piece of music or sculpture or a plate of meat. It can’t be appreciated or understood unless it is read aloud to oneself, or at least mouthed to oneself to obtain a feel of the words. Listening to a poem read aloud by someone else is not enough. A poem must be ‘played’ by the reader himself so that he creates his own sound through the feel of the words as he speaks them.’

George MacBeth Poetry 1900 To 1965 London: 1967

‘One thing that encouraged me was how playful and inventive children’s talk sometimes was. They said true things in fresh and surprising ways. Another was how much they enjoyed making works of art - drawings, painting, and collages. I was aware of the breakthrough in teaching children art some forty years ago. I have seen how my daughter and other children profited from the new ways of helping them discover and use their natural talents. That hadn’t happened yet in poetry. Some children’s poetry was marvellous, but most seemed uncomfortably imitative of adult poetry or else childishly cute. It seemed restricted somehow, and it obviously lacked the happy, creative energy of children’s art. I wanted to find, if I could, a way for children to get as much from poetry as they did form painting.

Kenneth Koch Wishes, Lies and Dreams New York: Perennial Library 1970 p.8

‘In contrast with the enemies of poetry who masquerade as therapists, moralistic critics have been openly and avowedly hostile since the sixth century BC. Taking the opposite view to the factualists, the condemned poets for being irresponsible liars or else for causing immorality by the bad example of the characters they portrayed. The assumption here is utilitarian: poets should make people into better citizens, as Plato insisted. They should be teachers, not entertainers. But the fact is that the greater poets of antiquity, with a few notable exceptions, seldom express moralistic, or didactic, or utilitarian aims - though of course their poems could be used for purposes of that kind. The primary aim of poetry, as implied by many Greek poets and as emphatically asserted by Aristotle in his Poetics, is to give pleasure. There is a curious reluctance among classical critics to admit this principle, as if it were an unworthy motive for writing or reading poetry.’

W.B.Stanford Enemies of Poetry 1980

Every poem has of course many macro-levels: phonetic, etymological, prosodic, stanzaic, tonal, grammatical, syntactic, imagistic, dynamic and so on

Helen Vendler The Breaking of Style 1995 p.5-6

Poetry is thus a means whereby, through the imaginistic use of language, we may be made aware of the values of a culture as they have (and have not) made possible the communal life of the individuals of whom it is composed.’

Roy Harvey Pearce The Continuity of American Poetry 1967 p.3

…is there such a thing? The conventional answer might be that poetry for children is a contradiction in terms; that children, by virtue of being children, are unable to appreciate the depth and subtlety that to make up poetry. On the other hand, verse, which plays with words and has attractive rhythms, is acceptable. Eleanor Grahame noted in the Preface to the significantly titled A Puffin Book of Verse that ‘I have had a simple standard to find verses which sing in the ear and catch the mind…that have clear appeal to the simplicity of youth.’

Peter Hunt Criticism, Theory, & Children’s Literature 1991p195-196

Because most people today, even serious readers, read more novels than poems and because novels are written prose, it’s easy to think of prose as the normal medium of literary expression, and of poetry as something special, a survival from the past, still hanging on, still not quite dead. The novel is now the international literary form: major novels in French, German, Spanish, Russian are available in translation, often within a year of publication. The audience for poems is minute in comparison and doesn’t easily cross national or linguistic frontiers.

............................

It is easy to see why verse came first. Common sense tells us that, when man first acquired the power of speech (when he began to communicate with his fellow man by means of something more than grunt and groan), he must have spoken a kind of crude prose. To make what he said memorable, it had to be given a perceptible structure, an air of rightness and finality. This to begin with only verse could supply. The urge to communicate wasn’t enough; what verse could provide and prose could not was a consciousness of form. Form dictates rules which could be learnt, rules of a different kind from the rules of grammar. The rules of verse aren’t aimed at securing meaning but at transforming statement into something permanent, something that conveys more than it says in so many words, more than is easily pinned down. The result is a structure which has shape; striking, pleasurable shape; the verbal construct is exciting, worth remembering. It produces in us a feeling of finality; something just right, not to be tinkered with.

Kenneth Quinn How Literature Works Sydney 1981 p128-130

In every age, audiences and spectators have tended to resist artistic innovation. Any half-educated person can feel at home with yesterday’s art; it is difficult to be self-assured with new art, especially as each new production seems to overturn all that went before. ‘Why this obscurity?’ people complain. ‘Why are poets (or painters or composers) of today so incomprehensible? Give a good old fashioned nineteenth-century poem (or painting or symphony) any day!’ In fact, this conflict is the basis of all art and will never change unless, of course, we completely alter our notions of what art is and what it does. Without novelty, with innovation and experiment, with a continual move away from the old and a relentless desire to ‘make it new’, we lose the very basis of art.

Philip Davies Roberts How Poetry Works London: 1986 p130

All we can fairly ask of a poet is that ‘he shall show himself to have been fully alive in our time.’

F.R.Leavis New Bearings in English Poetry 1932

Playing with Poetic Forms

This section is about playing with language and form and provides ideas for writing poetry/verse with students.

Acrostic
a poetic form in which the first (or the last) letters of each line spell a word or a sentence.

Haiku (originating in Japan)
based upon the number of syllables in a line: a haiku is composed of seventeen syllables in three lines. The first line has five syllables, the second has seven and the third five.

Diamante
a seven line poem used to go from opposites

Cinquain
a kind of English Haiku or Tanka
it has five lines and 22 syllables

Listings
I wish I...................(as many items and lines as needed)

I wish that................(as many items and lines as needed)

Similes/Comparison
All the ways that x might be like y for you (or him or her or them)

An emerald is as green as grass:
A ruby red as blood:
A sapphire as blue as heaven.......

Christian Rossetti

X is xxxxxx
Winter is............; Summer is............; Water is............ and so on

(listing as many attributes as the writer can find)

Names
Gareth Owen offers the example made up from names of people whose names appear in the sporting headlines on television and in the press. His list is slightly out of date now but that suggests that it needs updating and the Olympics might just provide an interesting time to try to do it .

Name Poem
Borg and Best and Geoffrey Boycott,
Marvellous Marvin, Little Mo,
Graham Souness, Peter Shilton,
Johan Cruyff, Sebastian Coe.

Steve Ovett and Olga Korbut,
Willie Carson, Raymond Floyd,
Kevin Keegan, Trevor Brooking,
Zola Budd, Chris Evert-Lloyd.

Joel Garner, Amold Palmer
BarryJohn, Torvill and Dean,
Nel Tarlton, Bobby Charlton,
Vivian Richards, Barry Sheene.

Navratilova, Betty Stove,
Di Stefanno, Denis Law,
Botham, Willey, Dennis Lillee,
Mohammad Ali, Garry Shaw.

Charlie Nicholas, Jack Nicklaus,
Joe Louis, Sugar Ray,
Zico, Faldo, Pelé, Falcoa,
Michael Holding, Andy Gray.

Franz Klammer, David Gower,
Sharron Davies, Terry Paine,
Whirlwind White and Giant Haystacks,
Alex Higgins the Hurricane.

Occasion Poems
a poem that is, for instance:

a lullaby, a farewell, a greeting, an expression of praise, a lament, a catalogue, a prophecy........(the form used for each of these may vary)(Write any or all of these from within the character of another person.)

Songs
write new words for a familiar melody - old ballads brought up to date?

make your own melody and set music to it

make an ‘opera’ - story in song

a song format to play with:

Picture Poems
based upon an arresting photograph or a painting, or a clip from a movie put the photo or painting into words.

Rondeau
a fixed form consisting of ten or thirteen lines, with only two rhymes, and an unrhymed refrain of the first two lines, partially repeated in the middle and at the end of the poem.

Villanelle
a fixed form, usually containing five three-line stanzas and a final four line stanza, with only two rhymes throughout

Anthology
students in small groups make anthologies of poetry to be read and displayed for special occasions during the school year

A Preliminary Glossary

This section is an alphabetical list of terms used by poets and critics in discussing poetry. It includes examples of many of the terms.

alexandrine
In French prosody a line of twelve syllables and known as tétramètre. The equivalent in English poetry is the iambic pentameter.

allegory
the term derives from the Greek allegoria ‘speaking otherwise’. As a rule, an allegory is a story in verse or prose with a double meaning; a primary or surface meaning; and a secondary or under-the-surface meaning. It is a story, therefore, that can be read, understood and interpreted at two levels at least. It is closely related to the fable and fairy tale.(Orwell’s Animal Farm ; E.B.White’s Charlotte’s Web)

Alliteration
(from Latin ‘repeating and playing on the same letter) A figure of speech in which consonants, especially at the beginning of words, or stressed syllables, are repeated. It is a very old device indeed in English verse (older than rhyme) and is common in verse generally.

‘Swarthy smoke-blackened smiths, smudged with soot.’

allusion
Usually an implicit reference, perhaps to another work of literature or art, to a person or an event. It is often a kind of appeal to a reader to share some experience with the writer.

ambiguity
Words connote at least as much as they denote and very often more. It refers to any verbal nuance which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language. It is said that this nuancing, this ambiguity, is one of the important roots of poetry.

anapest
(Greek for ‘beaten back’) a metrical foot comprising two unstressed syllables and one stressed: u u /.

anthology
(Greek for ‘collection of flowers’) a collection of verses from several sources

anthropomorphism
giving human shape or characteristics to a god, an animal, or an inanimate thing. ‘The house crouched waiting.’ is an example

aphorism
(Greek ‘marking off by boundaries’) A terse statement of a truth or dogma; a very condensed generalisation which may or may not be witty.

‘Conscience is a cur that will let you get past it, but that you cannot keep from barking.’ (anon)

art for art’s sake
The view that a work of art has an intrinsic value with didactic or moral purpose.

assonance
Sometimes call ‘vocalic rhyme’, it consists of the repetition of similar vowel sounds, usually close together. Shakespeare’s line from ‘The Tempest’ is a frequently used example:

‘Full fathom five thy father lies…’

there is a repeated long ‘I’ sound joining ‘five’, ‘thy’ and ‘lies’ (the line also alliterates on on the initial /f/.

ballad
ballad is a poetic/verse form of great antiquity. The ballad writer/maker draws materials from community life, from local and national history, from legend and folklore. The verse tales are usually of adventure, war, love, death and the supernatural.

ballad metre is a traditionally a four-line stanza (verse) or quatrain containing alternating for stress and three stress lines. The rhyme scheme is usually abcb; sometimes abab. A refrain is common.

blank verse
It consists of unrhymed five stress lines; properly iambic pentameter. It is closest to the rhythms of everyday speech.

cadence
In particular the term refers to the melodic pattern preceding the end of a sentence; for instance, in an interrogation or exhortation; and also the rhythm of accented units.

caesura
an extra metrical pause in a line - two stresses on one side of the caesura and two on the other.

Windshield wiper

chain rhyme
a rhyming scheme where the last syllable of the line is repeated in the first syllable of the next line but while the sound is the same the sense is different. The term is also applied to a verse where the last line of each stanza becomes the first line of the next.

closed couplet
two metrical lines (almost always rhyming) whose sense and grammatical structure conclude at the end of the second line.

concrete verse
the object is to present each poem as a different shape - the lines and verses (stanzas) are arranged so that form a design on the page and take the shape of the subject of the poem. It is thus a matter of pictorial typography -it may be on a page, or on glass, stone, wood or other materials.

connotation
the suggestion(s) or implication(s) evoked by a word or phrase or even a quite long statement over and above what they mean in strict dictionary meaning (denote)

consonant
any speech-sound made by stopping and releasing the air stream (/p,t, k,b,d,g,/; or by stopping it at one point while it escapes at another (/m, n, ng, l, r/); by forcing it through a loosely closed or very narrow passage (/f,v, s, z, sh,.../) or by a combination of these means.

couplet
two successive lines which rhyme - it is one of the main verse units of Western literature and is a very, very old form

crossed rhyme
In long couplets, words in the middle of each line rhyme.

dactyl
(Greek: finger) a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable follow by two unstressed ones: / u u . Just like finger joints.

denotation
the dictionary meaning of a word or phrase to be contrasted with the connotation and the range of meanings which the word has in certain contexts and situations.

ellipsis
(Greek: ‘leaving out’) a figurative device where a word or several words is left out in order to achieve more compact expression.

end-stopped line
verse where the sense and metre coincide in a pause at the end of a line.

enjambment
where the meaning in a poem carries on beyond the end of any line - often supported by punctuation

epic
a long narrative poem on some subject which is thought to be great and serious.

‘Beowulf’ in Old English, Dante’s’ Divine Comedy’; Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’

epigram
(Greek: ‘inscription’) usually a short, witty statement in verse or prose which may complimentary, satiric or aphoristic.

‘The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears that this is true.’ (J.H.Cabell

epigraph
four meanings for this term: i) an inscription on a statue, stone or building; ii) the writing (legend) on a coin; iii) a quotation on the title page of a book; iv) a motto heading a new section or paragraph

euphemism
(Greek: ‘fair speech’) the substitution of a mild and pleasant expression for a harsh and blunt one.

eye-rhyme
a rhyme which gives to the eye the impression of an exact rhyme but does not possess identical sounds [come/home; forth/worth]

figurative language
the use of language in a non-literal way to convey meanings with greater vivacity or impact includes: simile, metaphor, hyperbole and personification

foot
the traditional unit of metre; common feet in English are iamb (u - ) support; trochee (- u) labour; dactyl(- uu)memory; anapest(uu - ) amputee; spondee(- -) red light

form
the choice of structural units - couplets, quatrains and so on - and their arrangement with the overall poem; the layout of a poem on the page.

some forms for young poets
acrostics, cinquain, haiku, senryu, renka tanka, diamante,
gravestones, ‘thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird’

free verse
poetry with no regular metre.

I am the Poet

I am the poet of reality
I say the earth is not an echo
Nor man an apparition;
But that all things seen are real,
The witness and albic dawn of things equally real
I have split the earth and the hard coal and rocks and the solid bed
of the sea
And went down to reconnoitre there a long time,
And bring back a report,
And I understand that those are positive and dense every one
And that what they seem to the child they are
(And that world is not a joke,
Nor any part of it a sham).

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

iambics
a rhythmic pattern: frequently in the form of iambic pentameters (five foot line) like the following from William Shakespeare:

Each foot contains to syllables; the first unstressed (weak) and the second stressed (strong)

image/imagery
vivid descriptions of places, people, events. Also used to mean figurative language in general.

irony
A language convention which allows an expression or an utterance which may be different from the denotation of the words. The term is also used to differing ‘readings of events’.

hyperbole
exaggerated descriptions or comments - common example: ‘I simply died of embarrassment.’

Howard Nemerov (1920 - )

Hyperbole (I)

On the ground he's only the twitch of a nose,
The switch of a tail, and a tremor in between;
The Woody Allen of the animals,
Epitome of the at-all-times-terrified life.

Come near his tree, he gets 'round the other side
At the speed of a shadow hiding from the sun;
And he digs so many Swiss numbered accounts
He can't remember where he hid the nuts.

But going aloft he's got Olympic poise:
The flow of fur along the outer limb,
The synapse-crossing leap from tree to tree;

Maybe above all the death-defying act
On the high wire, quick as a telegram
Whatever the message never losing its cool.

kenning
from old English - a kind of metonymy in which one thing is represented by another usually associated with it [‘the whale’s road’ another way of saying ‘the sea’]

limerick
a comic poem - sometimes obscene - printed in five lines and rhyming as - a a bb a —

A Teacher from Harrow

There was a young teacher from Harrow
Whose nose was too long and too narrow.
It gave so much trouble
That he bent it up double
And wheeled it round school in a barrow.

Anon

litotes
a figure of language in which understatement heightens the effect.

lyric

‘Of the lyre’. It is frequently a short poem about sacred or secular love. It has come to include personal statements and revelations of innermost thoughts and feelings.(‘Lyric’ also refers to the words of a song)

metaphor
figurative language in which one thing is described in terms of another - life is a journey; beauty is flower

Metaphor Man

The metaphor man
stays slim and lean,
spry and athletic,
young and keen:

exercising judgment,
he keeps on his toes,
jumps to conclusions,
follows his nose;

drives a hard bargain,
stays footloose and free,
gets hopping mad
when he's all at sea;

while running for office
he stands foursquare
and leans over backwards
to be fair;

flies in a rage
although he's no bird,
and he always likes
to have the last word.
(It's ZYZZOGETON)

Eve Merriam

metonymy
figurative language in which one thing is described in terms of something commonly associated with it.

metre
Literally ‘measure’, the word refers to the abstract regular pattern of strong and weak syllables realised through the rhythms of successive lines.

octave
the opening eight lines of an Italian style sonnet

onomatopoeia
a word whose sound echoes, is like, symbolizes the meaning - ‘hiss’; ‘crash’;’thud’;……

oxymoron
an apparently self-contradictory phrase - ‘a sorrowful joy’; ‘a happy sorrow’………

personification
quite like anthropomorphism but in this case it is treating an inanimate something as if it were a person.

The Wind

The wind stood up and gave a shout
He whistled on his fingers, and

Kicked the withered leaves about,
And thumped the branches with his hand.

James Stephens

phonemic patterns
the repetition of certain sounds in strong syllables; common phonemic patterns in English are rhyme and alliteration (‘the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves’)

pleonasm
a phrase which contains redundant words: ‘unmarried bachelor’

poetic diction
used to describe special selections from the language to include in poetry (Thomas Gray: ‘the language of the age is never the language of poetry’); poetic diction despite efforts to bring prose and poetry together is still regarded as being more rarefied and ‘flowery’.)

poetic prose
prose that shows characteristics widely associated with poetry: vivid imagery and marked rhythms - sometimes used to evoke heightened emotions

poetry
one meaning includes any kind of metrical composition. It is frequently contrasted with verse however. Shakespeare’s and Milton’s sonnets are poetry but the lines of Ogden Nash or the equivalent might be called ‘verse’ - their works are all in verse form. Usually people speak of light verse but not of light poetry.

Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn't tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

Howard Nemerov (1920-1991)

prosody
the study of versification concerned usually with metre, phonemic patterns, stanza forms, figurative language and the like.

quatrain
four line stanza or group of lines - frequently rhymed

rhyme
the main phonemic pattern of recent English poetry in which the vowel and closing consonant sounds of a stressed syllable are repeated [ one syllable: house/mouse; two syllable: cooking/looking; three syllable: bicycle/tricycle - one syllable rhyme has traditionally been called masculine rhyme and two syllable feminine rhyme]

scansion
descriptive analysis of the metrical pattern of a poem

sestet
a six line stanza or group of six lines usually with a rhyming scheme. Often refers to the last six lines of an Italian sonnet

simile
the comparison of two things which is made explicit by the use of ‘like’ or ‘as’

An emerald is as green as grass:
A ruby red as blood:
A sapphire as blue as heaven...

Christian Rossetti

sonnet
a fixed form usually of fourteen lines - two principle types Shakespearean (English) and Petrachan (Italian). Shakespearean consists of a douzain (twelve lines) and a couplet. Petrachan consists of an octave and a sestet

spondee
a metrical foot of two syllables, both long in quantitive terms: /- -/

stanza
a group of lines forming one the divisions of a poem. A stanzaic poem commonly uses the same stanza form throughout repeating rhyming scheme and metre

stress
a major feature of the English language in which certain words, or syllables, are given prominence - stress can be achieved by increased loudness, raised pitch, and prolongation of the stressed word or syllable

synecdoche
a figure of speech/language/thought in which a part is used for a whole - an individual for a whole class, a material for a thing - ‘all hands on deck’

syntax
this refers to the arrangement of words in a sentences; disruption of common syntax is frequent in poetry

tautology
a statement which says something more than once: ‘empty phases were devoid of meaning’

tercet (terzet)
a three line stanza or group of lines within a longer stanza

terza rima
a three line stanza form in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and last lines of the stanza which follows: abc, bcb, cdc and so on

villanelle
contains usually five three line stanzas and a final four line stanza with only two rhymes throughout

The Last Exam: A villanelle

A villanelle was a round song sung by Frenchfarmers in the Middle Ages.

To read the questions carefully
I hold my breath like a balloon.
After this one I'll be free

of European History,
of desks and people in this room,
after this one I'll be free.

'In the thirteenth century....’
It's much too hot this afternoon
to read the questions carefully.

I watch them scribble busily
as if there were no flaming June....
after this one I'll be free

to fish and swim down by the sea,
to lie and dream or watch the moon.
To read the questions carefully,

and answer them, I have to be
a wingless bug in a cocoon.
After this one I'll be free

to fly and make some history.
So I begin, in silent gloom,
to read the questions carefully.
After this one I'll be free.

Jane Whittle

An Opening Collection of poems

This section has titles of an open and opening collection of poetry, some for children, exploring topics and poetic form. If you are interested in these poems, please contact Charles Morgan