Elements of Poetry - and Description of Quality Characteristics
Elements of Poetry
POETRY- has an overall central theme or idea within each poem
Images - the mental pictures the poet creates through language
Diction - the selection of specific words
Form - the arrangement of words, lines, verses, rhymes, and other features.
Cadence - A rhythmic change in the inflection of sounds from words being spoken. Sometimes referred to the flow of words.
Couplet - two lines of verse that rhyme at the end and are thought as one unit
Meter - A rhythm that continuously repeats a single basic pattern.
Rhyme - Words that end with similar sounds. Usually at the end of a line of the poem.
Rhyming - Two lines of a poem together with the same rhythm
Rhythm - A pattern created with sounds: hard - soft, long - short, bouncy, quiet - loud, weak - strong .
Stanza - A part of a poem with similar rhythm and rhyme that will usually repeat later in the poem.
Verse - A line of a poem, or a group of lines within a long poem.
Quality Characterisics
- Imaginative
- Creative
- Descriptive and vivid language that often has an economical or condensed use of words chosen for their sound and meaning
- Meaning is enhanced by recalling memories of related experiences in the reader or listener
- Provokes thought
- Causes an emotional response: laughter, happy, sad …
- Uses figurative language (personification, similies, methaphors...)
- Imagery where the reader/listener creates vivid mental images
- Often has rhythm and rhyme
- Often includes words and phrases that have a pattern made with rhythm and rhyme.
- Story in verse
- Can have physical and grammatical arrangement of words usually enhance the reader's overall experience
Questions to ask to evaluate the quality of poetry
- Does it have figurative language and imagery?
- Does it create images? (pictures, sounds, smells, tastes, touching sensations)
- Is what the author says or doesn’t say helpful in creating imagery?
- Does it move from the familiar to the unfamiliar or unfamiliar to familiar in a manner that enlightens and/or amazes?
- Is it understandable? (literally, interpretively, and emotionally) Alone or with help?
- Does it appeal to me? To who else would it appeal?
- Does the poem touch people emotionally?
- Are words combined in a mixture that communicates both a literal and suggested meaning.
- Not so precise as to limit the imagination or so suggestive as to not communicate? (denotation and connotation).
- Does it get to the heart of an idea?
- Is it creative with language? Use language and words in interesting ways? (metaphors, similes, personifications).
- Are words used in a highly powerful manner? Is there a lot of zap with few words?
- Is it a language of simplicity?
- Does it sing to you? [sounds (alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia), verse, rhythm, patterns, beat (words, phrases), rhyme (end of line, inline, and/or link rhyme)
- Does it include ideas that people can use?
Children like to write poetry because they
- feel there are no limitations
- can be creative without taking risks
- don't need to worry about conventions (punctuation, complete sentences).
Children might not like to write poetry because they
- don't like to struggle with word choices
- don't like the struggle with a desire to be original
- don't want to risk creating something someone might not like
- don't have strategies to help be creative
- struggle with words (spelling, vocabulary, small repetooire of words)
- desire to have it rhyme, have rhythm,and/or a melody
Dr. Robert Sweetland's Notes ©
