Exploring Poetry - Basic Elements of Poetry

 

CHAPTER II:

Basic Elements of Poetry

A poet is limited in the materials he can use in creating his works: all he has are words to express his ideas and feelings. These words need to be precisely right on several levels at once:

•       they must sound right to the listener even as they delight his ear

•       they must have a meaning which might have been unanticipated, but seems to be the perfectly right one

•       they must be arranged in a relationship and placed on the page in ways that are at once easy to follow and assist the reader in understanding

•       they must probe the depths of human thought, emotion, and empathy, while appearing simple, self-contained, and unpretentious

Most people can recognize a poem when they see it. Poems usually come in lines instead of sentences and presents ideas in stanzas instead of paragraphs. But there are exceptions to every rule, and poems come in many varieties.

2.1.       Line

A line is a unit of language into which a poem or play is divided, which operates on principles which are distinct from and not necessarily coincident with grammatical structures, such as the sentence or single clauses in sentences. Although the word for a single poetic line is verse, that term now tends to be used to signify poetic form more generally.

In poetry, the line is like one sentence. And since poetry doesn’t conform to grammar rules, and no one is obliged to use a period, the end of a line is like a period would be in pros. It creates a natural pause, making a break in the flow. This is a tool you can use to control the rhythm of your poetry. So keeping the way you break your lines up in mind is crucial to writing great poems.

Poems are written in lines, which may have a certain rhythm or metre. If a natural meaning break comes at the end of the line we call it end-stopped:

My love is like a red red rose,

that's newly sprung in June.

If the line ends in the middle of a phrase and the meaning break comes in the succeeding line, we call this a run-on line or use the French word enjambement. In the example below there is also a pause in the middle of the line at the full stop after 'bear'. This is called a caesura - a break.

The zoo has entered the town. First

the blue lipped-rhino, then

the gross bear. I can already hear

the cry of the wild cats.

A distinct numbered group of lines in verse is normally called a stanza. A title, in some poems, is considered a line.

2.2.     Stanza

A division of a poem created by arranging the lines into a unit, often repeated in the same pattern of meter and rhyme throughout the poem; a unit of poetic lines (a “paragraph” within the poem). The stanzas within a poem are separated by blank lines called line break.

A stanza is a group of lines taken as a unit of measure and generally bound together by some scheme of rhymes. In general, it is easy to think of stanzas in poems as being equivalent to paragraphs in prose. That is to say that both stanzas and paragraphs contain related information, while new thoughts and concepts become the next stanza or paragraph. In some poems stanzas have regular meter and rhyme, though this is by no means a requirement for all stanzas in poetry.

The names given to describe the number of lines in a stanzaic unit, such as:

1.      Couplet: two line stanza

A couplet is either a two-line stanza (which may rhyme or not) or two lines next to each other that rhyme.

 

a     Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;

a     the proper study of mankind is man.

2.      Triplet: three line stanza

Terza Rima has a pattern of three-line stanzas rhymed a.b.a., b.c.b., c.d.c. and so on.

 

a      As we read on, our eyes met now and then,

b      and to our cheeks the changing colour started,

a      but just one moment overcame us – when

 

b    we read of the smile, desired of lips long-thwarted.

c    such smile, by such a lover kissed away,

b    he that may never more from me be parted.

 

When a poem has tercets that have a rhyme scheme of ABA, then BCB, then CDC and so forth, this is known as terza rima.

3.      Quatrain: four line stanza

There are fifteen possible rhyme schemes, but the most traditional and common are: AAAA, ABAB, and ABBA - as in this example from one of Wordsworth's Lucy Poems:

a       No motion has she now, no force;

b       she neither hears nor sees;

a       rolled round in earth's diurnal course

b       with rocks and stones and trees.

 

4.      Quintet: five line stanza

A Quintain, sometimes called a Quintet, is a poem or stanza with five lines. It can follow any meter or line length.

Poets can paint evocative scenes and prompt deep reflection in just five lines. That said, those five lines can be woven together in a number of ways. Let's start with the Cinquain. The cinquain is unique in its syllable count of each line. The first and last lines have two syllables. The second line has four, the third has six, and the fourth has eight. So, it is a 2-4-6-8-2 scheme. Here's an example:

There's two
And then there's four
And two plus four is six
Then two and two plus four is eight
We're done.

5.      Sestet: six line stanza

A stanza of 6 lines (when discussing Italian sonnets the appropriate term is sestet; the Italian sonnet form starts with an octave and is concluded by a sestet)

6.      Septet: seven line stanza

A poem or stanza consisting of seven lines, having any form or meter.

7.      Octet: eight line stanza

Octave or Octet has been derived from the Latin word octāva, which means “eighth part.” It can be any stanza in a poem that has eight lines and follows a rhymed or unrhymed meter.

“Chartless” (Emily Dickinson) 1 I never saw a moor, 2 Inever saw the sea, 3 Yet I know how the heather looks 4 and what a wave must be   5 I never spoke with God, 6 nor visited in Heaven, 7 Yet I am certain of the spot 8 as if the chart were given

Lines ·         A single line in a poem. ·         Often organized into stanzas This poem has 8 lines organized into 2 stanzas

“First and Last” By David MacCord A tadpole hasn’t a pole at all, And he doesn’t live in a hole in the wall   You’ve got it wrong: a polecat’s not A cat on a pole. And I’ll tell you what:   A bullfrog’s never a bull; and how Could a cowbird possibly be a cow?   A kingbird, though, is a king of king And he chases a crow like anything 4 stanzas in COUPLETS

STANZA It is the group of lines ·         Couplet – 2 lines ·         Triplet – 3 lines ·         Quatrain – 4 lines ·         Quintet – 5 lines ·         Sestet – 6 lines ·         Septet – 7 lines ·         Octet – 8 lines It develops and emphasizes one idea

2.3.     Rhythm

Poetry gives us pleasure because of its relationship to music. Just as we respond to the rhythm in music, we are swayed by the rhythmic effect of the sound patterns in poetry. Poetry expresses a rich imaginative awareness of experience through meaning, sound and rhythm. These three components (meaning, sound and rhythm) essentially give poetry its musical quality.

Poetry uses words which are expressions of both musical sound and meaningful speech. The language of poetry is the most expressive rhythmic language. 'Poetry is ordinary language heightened', says Hopkins. It is heightened by intensity of feeling and meaning, concentrated into an economical shape. A successful poem is like an organic body, a body of language in which words interact with one another to produce an intense life. One fundamental way of heightening the language of poetry may be compared to the heartbeat in our own body. Rhythm.

The rhythm of English words comes from their stress pattern. Words can be broken down into smaller segments called syllables and when we speak we pronounce certain syllables with more force

or prominence than others. We call these syllables 'stressed' and the other, less prominent ones, 'unstressed'. If we are listening for a regular rhythmic pattern in a poem ('scanning' it), we may call the stressed syllable the 'beat' and the unstressed syllable(s) the 'offbeat'.

All one-syllable words are accented/stressed when we say them alone—the, he, leads, by, stream, me. But when we put them into a sentence, the little words lose their accent.

 È   /       È    /   È    /

He leads me by the stream.

Some one-syllable words are almost always stressed. They are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Other one-syllable words are almost never stressed (unstressed). They are conjunctions, prepositions, and articles. Pronouns may be used either as stressed or unstressed words, depending on the words which surround them. Other parts of speech may also change from their natural accent depending on their surrounding words, but the smoothest poetry follows natural accent.

Rhythm, remember, is pattern, and pattern is repetition plus variety. Rhythm is developed by repeating varied units of stressed and unstressed syllables. Poetry has four main units of light and heavy stress/accent patterns, called meters. A foot of poetry includes one stressed syllable followed or preceded by one or two unstressed syllables. Each line of poetry includes one or more feet of a certain metrical rhythm pattern. Here are the four basic types of rhythm patterns or meters with examples of words to illustrate each meter:

Pattern	Name	Example
È /	Iamb/Iambic	Invite
/ È	Trochee/Trochaic	Deadline
ÈÈ /	Anapest/Anapestic	to the beach
/ ÈÈ	Dactyl/Dactylic	Frequently
/ /	Spondee/Spondaic	true blue

 

·         Read the following list of iambic words. Can you feel the rhythm?

alive                      depend            giraffe              July

become                 event                humane            kebab

collapse                forbear             intend              lament

 The shadows wrap their grimy gauze

Around the evening’s eerie halls.

Sometimes an iambic line ends with an extra unaccented syllable,

 È    /    È    /      È      /   È

The steeple stretches skyward.

·         Read and feel these trochaic words.

aster                      dollar               giver                jumper

butter                    ever                 hover               kinder

cover                    fuller                inner                lighter

 Morning flings her quilts aside,

Yawns and stretches, sparkle-eyed. 

Sometimes a trochaic line may end with an accented syllable.

 /          È  /        È     /       È    /

Beams of moon play hide and seek.

 

·         Read and feel these Anapestic phrases:

to the hills            with the Lord               of the earth

in a day                 on a path                      or a stream

at the top               through the woods       if you please

 È      È  /    È  È  /  È     È   /   È 

There is joy in the silence of morning.

 

·         Read and feel these Dactylic words and phrases:

actually                 exited                           India

bitterest                 favorite                        jumping to

character               gustily                          king of the

dominant              heavily                         life is a

 /   È  È     /   È    È    /       È    È    /

Noah was calling the cows and the crows.

 

2.4.       Meter

Metre is the measured arrangement of accents and syllables in poetry. In any kind of utterance we stress certain syllables and not others. For instance most people would probably stress the phrase ‘And how are you this morning’ something like this: And HOW are YOU this MORNing? Or possibly: And how ARE you this MORNing? Poetry employs the stresses that occur naturally in language utterance to construct regular patterns.

In most English poetry, we have a fixed number of stressed syllables in a line and also a fixed number of unstressed syllables coming before or after each stressed syllable. (We shall indicate a stressed syllable by the mark / and an unstressed syllable by È). For example, take a word 'defence'. We have to pronounce the word with a weak accent on de and a strong accent on fence and thus the word can be marked dĕfénce.

Poetry is organized by the division of each line into “feet,” metric units which each consist of a particular arrangement of strong and weak stresses. The most common metric unit is the iambic, in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one (as in the words reverse and compose).

2.5.       Foot

 

Most poetry gets much of its effect from what is called meter-a regular and predictable rhythm in the lines. The basic unit of meter is the poetic foot. A foot consists, most usually, of one accented (or stressed) syllable and one or more unaccented syllables.

The most common feet in poetry are:

Ascending or “rising” feet     Descending or “falling” feet

È /  iamb/iambic                      / È Trochee/Trochaic

ÈÈ / Anapest/Anapestic          / ÈÈ Dactyl/Dactylic

and for variation the poet may mix in:

/ / Spondee                               È/È Amphibrach

ÈÈ Pyrrhic                              / Monosyllabic foot

For example, the following line is made up of trochees (is trochaic):

  /     È    /  È   /   È         /   È      /     È    /    È        /       È      /   È

Once up|on a| midnight| dreary|, while I| pondered| weak and| weary.

 The line above from Poe’s “The Raven”, therefore, is trochaic octameter [eight trochees in each line].

Meter is measured by the number of feet in a line. Feet are named by Greek prefix number words attached to “meter.” A line with five feet is called pentameter; thus, a line of five iambs is known as “iambic pentameter” (the most common metrical form in English poetry, and the one favored by Shakespeare).

The most common line lengths are:

·         monometer: one foot ·         dimeter: two feet ·         trimeter: three feet ·         tetrameter: four feet ·         pentameter: five feet ·         hexameter: six feet ·         heptameter: seven feet ·         octameter: eight feet

Naturally, there is a degree of variation from line to line, as a rigid adherence to the meter results in unnatural or monotonous language. A skillful poet manipulates breaks in the prevailing rhythm of a poem for particular effects.

Rhythm, as we have said, is the term used to refer to sound or movements occurring at regular intervals of time. English rhythm is based on the pattern of stressed syllables occurring at roughly equal intervals. Sometimes there is a distinct pause at the end of a line. Such a line is known as an end-stopped line. When the sense is carried on to the next line, it is called a run-on-line.

Rhythm and rhyme refer to two different concepts, wherein rhythm can include rhyme but does not need to. Including similar sounding words or sounds to make each line of your piece match is an excellent way to make your poem memorable for your audience. However, there are also a number of well-crafted poems out there that do not have rhyme. These type of poems are often more difficult to craft, as they do not rely on rhyme to make it colorful.

2.6.       Rhyme

Rhyme is the repetition of identical sounds at the end of lines. Though rhythm is basic to poetry rhyme is not. Poets use rhyme for three major purposes :

1)      The recurrence of the same sequence of sounds has a pleasing effect; it fulfils the readers' expectancy;

2)      It also marks the end of a line; and

3)      It binds the lines together and thus achieves unity.

 

Rhymes are words that end with the same sound (Hat, cat and bat rhyme). It is the most common sound device in poetry. Rhyming sounds don’t have to be spelled the same way. (Cloud and allowed rhyme.)

Perfect rhyme

Identical consonant sounds follow identical stressed vowel sounds. Perfect rhymes involve identity of sounds not of spellings, e.g.: meet-fleet, fix-sticks, mill-sill; right-night.

Masculine rhyme

The final syllables are stressed and identical in sound, beginning with the last stressed vowel, e.g.: stark-mark, support-report.

Feminine rhyme

Stressed rhyming syllables followed by unstressed rhyming ones (e.g.) flatter-batter.

End rhyme

Rhyming words are at the end of a line.

Internal rhyme

Rhyming words within the line (e.g.) 'to dance to flutes, to dance to lutes'.

2.7.       Rhyming Patterns

 

A rhyming poem’s stanzas (paragraphs) follow a certain scheme. A rhyme scheme is a combination of letters which represent the rhyming pattern of a poem. These letters are called variables. In order to determine the rhyme scheme of a poem, listen to the sound of the last word of the line. Label this line with an A. Read the next line. Does the last word of that line end with the same sound as the previous line? If it does, label it A. If it doesn’t, label it with a B. Progress through the poem line by line labeling the matching end sounds with matching letters.

Poets can choose from a variety of different rhyming patterns (rhyme scheme), as follows:

-          AABB – lines 1 & 2 rhyme and lines 3 & 4 rhyme

E.g.:                      First Snow

     By Marie Louise Allen

 

Snow makes whiteness where it falls.

The bushes look like popcorn balls.

And places where I always play,

Look like somewhere else today.

-          ABAB – lines 1 & 3 rhyme and lines 2 & 4 rhyme

E.g.:              Oodles of Noodles

   By Lucia and James L. Hymes, Jr.

I love noodles.  Give me oodles.

Make a mound up to the sun.

Noodles are my favorite foodles.

I eat noodles by the ton.

-          ABBA – lines 1 & 4 rhyme and lines 2 & 3 rhyme

E.g.:          From “Bliss”

By Eleanor Farjeon

Let me fetch sticks,

Let me fetch stones,

Throw me your bones,

Teach me your tricks.

-          ABCB – lines 2 & 4 rhyme and lines 1 & 3 do not rhyme

E.g.:          The Alligator

         by Mary Macdonald

The alligator chased his tail

Which hit him in the snout;

He nibbled, gobbled, swallowed it,

And turned right inside-out.

2.8.       The Sounds of Words

 

Words or portions of words can be clustered or juxtaposed to achieve specific kinds of effects when we hear them. The sounds that result can strike us as clever and pleasing, even soothing. Others we dislike and strive to avoid. These various deliberate arrangements of words have been identified.

Apart from rhyme, there are other sound patterns that are remarkable in poetry and that are often used to link words which would not otherwise be connected. These connections create meaning patterns. Three of these sound patterns shall be considered in more detail here: alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia.

1.        An alliteration is the repetition of the same sound, usually a consonant, at the beginning of words or stressed syllables in close proximity. The name' alliteration' is used for consonants repeated at the beginning of a word or syllable, for instance:

 'Mother made more demands'.

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

In Old English and medieval alliterative verse the alliteration must be on a stressed syllable. The name 'consonant rhyme' is used for consonants repeated at the end of a word, most commonly at the end of a line:

She sent me cream

tasting of home.

2.        An assonance is the repetition of the same vowel sound in the stressed syllables of words in close proximity, while the consonants differ:

Rend with tremendous Sound your ears asunder,

With Gun, Drum, Trumpet, Blunderbuss & Thunder

(From: Pope, Imitations of Horace, Ep. II.i)

Each vowel has its own quality and a repetition of a particular vowel will permeate that part of the poem with this quality, as in the line:

the calm tarn of the far dark father

which is permeated with the open back long /ɑ:/ sound

3.        A third type of sound device is onomatopoeia, in which words resemble the sounds they are portraying. The words crash, boom, smash, or clip-clop are examples of onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeiac words are also common in comic strips.

2.9.       Scansion

Scansion is the conscious measure of the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. Stressed syllables are labeled with “/”; unstressed syllables are labeled with È. Metrical feet may be two or three syllables in length, and are divided by slashes: |

 

Scanning poetry is not really a difficult job if you say the words out loud softly to yourself, exaggerating the accents slightly. As you do so, pay attention to which syllables are stressed.  Every syllable that you stress should be marked with a /. The unstressed syllables should be marked with a u.  Another way of referring to unstressed and stressed syllables is short and long syllables.

1.    First scan the line marking all stressed syllables. Determine what dominant rhythmic pattern is used –iambic ( de DA= È / ), trochaic (DA de= / È ), anapestic (de de DA= È È / ) , dactylic (DA de de= / È   È), spondaic (DA DA= / / ).  Most poems will not be completely regular.

2.    After determining what kind of rhythm is dominant in the lines, determine how many feet are used in most lines of the poem. A foot is a metrical unit of poetry. A new foot begins when the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables repeats itself.

 Ex: È /  È /   È /  = three feet of iambic meter, or iambic trimeter.