Reading and writing poetry

Poetry Vs. Verse
Poetry
- applied to the many forms in which
human beings have given rhythmic
expression to their intense perceptions of
the world , themselves, and relation of the
two.
- often being reserved for verse of high
merit.

Verse
has 2 senses:
1. the metrical line as a basic unit of
poetry
2. any form of metrical composition
- Refers to a metrical composition,
usually one with a regular rhyme and
rhythm but does not indicate its quality.

Poetry Vs. Prose
According to Stephen Minot, there are five
fundamental characteristics that distinguish
Poetry from Prose:
1. Using the poetic line rather than the
sentence as the primary unit
2. Relying more on images than in abstractions

3. Cultivating the sound of words
4. Developing rhythms of language
5. Creating density by implying far
more than is stated

2.1 Elements of the Genre
A. Essential Elements

A.1. Theme
- the central idea, the thesis,
the message a story conveys, or a
generalization or an abstraction
from it

A.2. Tone: The Attitude of the Poet towards the
audience
- refers to the intellectual and emotional attitudes of
the poet towards his or her intended audience
- there are many varieties of tone that an aspiring
poet can assume. He/she can be dead serious or
humorous, formal or casual, intimate or distant, solemn
or flippant, somber or cheerful, ironic or poignant,
deferential or condescending, among others.

Mood: The Attitude of the Poet towards the
Subject Matter
- is defined by some critics as a quality of
literature that is synonymous with tone, by others as
synonymous with atmosphere, and by still others as
synonymous with both.
-refer to the emotional and intellectual attitudes of
the author towards his/her subject matter in a given
literary work.

Atmosphere: The Dominant Emotional
Aura of the Poem
- in arts including literature, the term
atmosphere denotes the dominant mood or
emotional tone of a work, be it a painting, a
play, a ballet, a film, a novel, or a poem.

- in literature, atmosphere refers to the dominant
emotional aura or general feeling created in the
readers or audience by a work at any given point.
-directly appeals to the readers’ five senses by
making the descriptions more palpable and the
implied ideas more accessible and easy to
comprehend.

Persona: The speaking Voice of the Poem
-originally refers to the mask worn by a
Greek actor when he performs a role in a
classical tragedy or comedy, hence the
related theatrical term dramatis personae
or the list of cast members in a play.

B. Elements for specific forms
B.1. Conventional forms

Eastern Poetic
Forms
(Haiku, Tanka, Renga,
Tanaga and Diona)

Tagalog Poetry
- Was first transcribed or written down in the
middle of the 18th century by the Spanish friars
Juan de Noceda and Pedro de Sanlucar in
their Vocabulario de la Lengua tagala (Manila,
1754).

The hefty compendium contains riddle (bugtong),
proverbs (refranes), and indigenous short poetic forms
like the tanaga, and lists down sixteen species of folk
songs: diona, talindao, and auit (domestic songs);
indolanin and dolayanin (street songs), hila, soliranin
and manigpasin (rowing songs), holohorlo and oyayi
(cradle songs); ombayi (sad songs), omiguing (tender
song); tagumpay (triumphal song); dopayanin and
balicongcong (boat song); and hiliriao (drinking song).

A. Tanaga
- is an indigenous or native Tagalog fixed
poetic form. It is composed of
heptasyllabic lines or four lines containing
seven syllables each.
- it is made up of two couplets that have
a rhyme scheme of aabb.

-Traditionally does not have a title, since the
poem should be able to stand on its own.
Example:
Catitibay ca tolos
sacaling datnang agos
aco, I, momonting lomot
Sa iyo, i, popolopot.

B. Diona
- is another indigenous or native Tagalog
fixed poetic form. It is composed of three
octosyllabic lines with monorhyme, or three
lines containing eight syllables each that all
rhyme with one another.
- has been labelled by some Filipino literary
enthusiast as the Pinoy haiku.

- as a domestic song could either be a courting
song or a wedding song.
Example:
Mayag aco sa masiguing
Ang malubay na aquin
Malayo ang madarating.

Japanese Poetry
A. Haiku (light verse)
- is a traditional Japanese fixed poetic form
composed of three unrhymed lines comprising
seventeen syllables. The first and last syllable
contains five syllables each, while the middle
line contains seven syllables.

- Historically, the haiku evolved during the 17th
century from the hokku or opening verse of a
renga (linked verse).
- By convention, the haiku contains three
sections, a keriji or cutting word, usually
located at the end of one of the poem’s three
section and a kigo or a word that indicates the
season of the year or the time of the year.

- The three most famous practitioners of the haiku are
Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa, all of
whom belong to the Edo Period (1603-1868).
-Topic: Nature
Example:
Soon it will die,
Yet no trace of this
In the cicada’s screech
- Matsuo Basho

Mosquito-buzz Far-off mountain peaks
Whenever honeysuckle Reflected in its eyes:
Petals fall. The dragonfly.
- Yosa Buson - Kobayashi Issa

B. Tanka
- (short song, as opposed to the chōka or long
song) is a Japanese fixed poetic form
composed of five unrhymed lines comprising
thirty-one syllables.
- The first and third lines contain five syllables
each, while the second, fourth and fifth lines
contain seven lines apiece, or 5-7-5-7-7.

- Each tanka has two parts: the first three lines or
the upper phrase and the last two lines or the lower
phrase.
- Upper phrase usually contains a vivid image
- Lower phrase offers the poet’s ideas and insights
about that image.
- Topic: more often a highly personal reflection on
love and other powerful emotions.

Ono no Komachi, who belongs to the Heian Period
(794-1185) and hailed as one of the “Six Poetic
Geniuses,” is considered as one of the best
practitioners of the tanka.
Example:
Because I feel asleep
Thinking of him-
Was that why he appeared?
If I’d know it was a dream
I’d never have waked up

C. Renga
- The most popular type of Japanese collaborative
poetry for almost seven hundred years. It follows
the format of alternating three and two lines
containing 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. In terms of length,
the renga can range from twelve stanzas like in the
jūnichō and the shisan, to fifty stanzas like in the
gojūin, to one hundred stanzas like in the hyakuin,
and to one thousand stanzas like in the senku.

Western Poetic
Forms
(Sonnet, Ode, Elegy,
Villanelle)

Types and Forms of Poetry
based on their most dominant
rhetorical strategies: Narrative,
Dramatic and Lyrical Poetry.

Narrative Poetry intends to tell a
story through verses. Tell a very short
chronicle like in a ballad; a moderately
lengthy narrative like in a metrical tale
or metrical romance; or an extremely
stretched out yarn like an epic.

Dramatic Poetry, in its original context is
drama written in verse that is meant to be
spoken or chanted like the Greek
tragedies. In more modern usage, in
literary term refers to certain poems (the
dramatic monologue and the soliloquy)
whose main characteristics is their
exploitation of dramatic situation.

 Lyrical Poetry conveys the extremely
personal emotions, powerful emotions, powerful
feelings or nostalgic sentiments of the persona
(the speaking voice of the poem), typically
expressed from the first person point of view or
perspective in a highly euphonious or
melodious manner. Among the most popular of
Western lyrical poetic forms are the sonnet,
the ode, the elegy, and the villanelle.

Sonnet
- Is a fixed lyrical form of poetry composed of
fourteen lines that follow a certain set pattern or
rhyme scheme.
-2 major types: Italian/Petrarchan sonnet and the
English/Shakespearean sonnet
Topic: the typical subject matter is love

Italian/Petrarchan sonnet
- Is distinguished by its division into the
octave (octet) and sestet (sextet).
- The octave rhyming abbaabba and the
sestet cdecde, cdcdcd or cdedce.

- Octave states a problem, asks a question, or
expresses an emotional tension
- Sestet resolves the problem, answers the
question, or relieves the tension.
- The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet is usually
made up of iambic hexameters or six pairs
of iambs. Iambic hexameters are also known
as Alexandrine lines.

English/Shakespearean sonnet
- This has four divisions: three quatrains (each
with a rhyme scheme of its own, usually rhyming
lines that alternate), and a final or concluding
couplet. The usual rhyme scheme of the English or
Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg.

- First quatrains, the thought or emotional state
-Second quatrains, further developed or enhanced
- Third quatrains, reaches its height
- Final or concluding couplet, expresses the central
theme or concern of the poem.
- The Shakespearean or English sonnet is typically
made up of iambic pentameters or five pairs of
iambs.

Ode
- Is a lyrical form of poetry that is exalted both
in terms of tone and subject matter. It is
characterized by solemnity, dignity and
gallantry, as well as emotional intensity,
powerful imagination and vivid imagery. The
main intention of the ode is to elevate its
subject matter, whether it be a person, an
object or an event.

- The Ode has evolved and loosened up
not only in terms of its form and structure
(the Pindaric ode has 3 distinctive parts:
Strophe, antistrophe and epode).

Elegy
- Is a lyrical form of poetry that laments the
demise of a person usually someone
important, or a contemplation of the
phenomenon of death itself. It is not a metrical
form and does not follow any required set
pattern or rhyme scheme, or even a particular
cadence of rhythm.

Villanelle
- Is a fixed lyrical form of poetry
composed of nineteen lines that follows
a certain set pattern of rhyme scheme.
The first five stanzas is made up of
tercets (or stanzas of three lines each),
while the final stanza is made up of
quatrain (or four lines).

- The rhyme scheme of the villanelle is
aba aba aba aba aba abaa. The first line
of the first stanza is repeated as the last
line of the second and fourth stanzas,
while third line of the first stanza is
repeated as the last line of the third and
fifth stanza.

Rhyme
- Refers to the repetitive occurrence of
identical or similar sounding words usually
found at the end of lines in poems or song.
- Refer to a short poem, like a rhyming
couplet or other brief rhyming poems, such
as nursery rhymes or limericks.

Different Types of Rhymes
Classified acc. to 2 systems: 1. the
position of the rhyming words in the
line 2. the number of rhyming syllables
involved.

1. Based on the position of the
rhyming words in the line, there
are 4 types: a. end rhyme b.
internal rhyme c. leonine rhyme d.
beginning rhyme

a. End rhyme occurs between words at the end of
lines.
First, A Poem Must Be A Magical
Jose Garcia Villa
First, a poem must be a magical,
Then musical as a sea gull.
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird’s flowering.

b. Internal rhyme occurs at some place after the
beginning but before the end of each line, or within
a line bet. a middle word and its end word, or even
bet. middle words in diff. lines.
In Burnham Park
I walk
With nobody to talk to
But myself.

c. Leonine rhyme is a special kind of internal
rhyming bet. the last stressed syllable before the
caesura (the natural pause or break in a line of
verse) and the last stressed syllable of the line.
There’s a whisper down the field where the year has
shot her yield.
- from Rudyard Kipling’s “The Long Trail”

D. Beginning rhyme occurs in the first syllable or
first few syllables of several lines.
Why should I have returned?
My knowledge should not fit into theirs.
I found untouched the desert of the unknown…
- From W.S. Merwin’s “Noah’s
Raven”

Other Types of Rhymes
1. Slant rhyme is also known as imperfect
rhyme, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, off-
rhyme or pararhyme. It usually occurs when
assonance or consonance are deployed
instead of true rhyme.

If love is like a bridge
Or maybe like a grudge,
And time is like a river
That kills us with a shiver,
Then what have all these mornings meant
But aging into love?

2. Eye rhyme is also known as visual rhyme or
printer’s rhyme. It occurs when words appear to
rhyme on the printed page because of the similarity
of their terminal letters, but do not sound the same
at all when read aloud.
Alas, how can I interpret my mood?
They took away the language of my blood.

Rhyme Scheme refers to the way
a poet deliberately arranges the
terminal words or syllable of
certain stanzas or entire poems to
form a set pattern.

Different Types of Rhyme Scheme
1. Alternate rhyme is also known as open rhyme or
cross rhyming. An alternate rhyme consists in the
repeated alternation of two diff. rhymes in a series of
four or more lines that can be schematically
diagrammed as abab.
May
Flying
Today
Dying

2. Enclosed rhyme is also known as
enclosing rhyme. It refers to the rhyme
scheme abba.
Pride
Fire
Mire
Aside

3.Chain Rhyme is also know as interlocking
rhyme or chain verse. This type of set pattern is
most apparent in the Spenserian sonnet that has
the rhyme scheme abab, bcbc, cdcd, dede, ff.
Strand Assay Devise
Immortalize Fame Subdue
Hand Decay Eternize
Prey Likewise Name

4. Monorhyme
- Is a rhyme scheme in which all the lines of the
poem have an identical rhyme.
Spent
Went
meant
Invest
cent

5. Couplet refers to a couple of lines in poetry
that usually rhyme (aa) and have the aa .
See
thee

6. Triplet is a tercet in all three 1ines
follow the same rhyme that can be
schematically diagrammed as aaa
bbb ccc

Rhythm refers to the variation, or
alternation of strong and weak (or
stressed and unstressed) syllables or
elements in the flow of speech. Is a
derivative of the Greek word rhythmos
which means “measured mission.”

Meter is defined as the regular
recurrence or repetition of
rhythmic patterns or the rhythm
established by the consistent
occurrence of similar units of
sound.

4 Basic types of meters or rhythmic patterns:
1. Quantitative or classical meter, in which the
rhythm is produced by recurring patterns of long and
short syllables.
2. Accentual or sprung rhythm, in which the
rhythmic pattern is established by the presence of a
syllable marked by a strong stress or accent
regardless of the number of unstressed or
unaccented syllables surrounding the stressed or
accented syllable.

3. Syllabic, in which the rhythmic pattern is
created by the fixed number of syllables in
a line even if the occurrence of the accent
may vary
4. Accentual- syllabi, in which the
rhythmic pattern is formed both by the fixed
or nearly fixed number of accents and
syllables per line.

Foot – is the basic rhythmic unit within a line of
poetry.
Six commonly used metrical feet
1. Iamb or iambic foot - is a metrical unit
containing an unaccented or unstressed syllable
followed by an accented or stressed syllable (- /). It
is the most common rhythmic pattern in poetry
written in English.

The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild
He has devoured the infant child.
The infant child is not aware
It has been eaten by the bear.
-from A. E Housman’s “Infant Innocent”

b. Trochee or trochaic foot – is a metrical unit
consisting of an accented or stressed syllable
followed by an unaccented or unstressed syllable (/
-).
Tell me not, in mournful numbers.
-from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s
“Psalm of Life”

c. Anapest ar anapestic – is a metrical unit
comprising three syllables, with two unaccented or
unstressed syllables followed by an accented or
stressed syllable (- - /).
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the
tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
- from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “The Cloud”

d. Dactyl or dactylic foot, is a metrical unit made
up of one accented or stressed syllable followed by
two unaccented or unstressed syllables (/ - -).
Half a league, half a league
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

e. Spondee or spondaic foot – is a
metrical unit consisting of two
consecutively accented or stressed
syllables (/ /).
“Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go”
- From Troilus and Cresila

f. Pyhrrus or pyrrhic foot – is a metrical unit
composed of two unaccented or unstressed
syllables in actual accentual-syllabic verse, or
two short syllables in quantitative manner.
To a green thought in a green shade.
- From Andrew Mavell’s “The Garden”

7 Standard Meters of Poetry in English
1. Monometer – one foot per line
2. Dimeter – two feet per line
3. Trimeter – 3 feet per line
4. Tetrameter – 4 feet per line
5. Pentameter – 5 feet per line
6. Hexameter – 6 feet per line (Alexandrine)
7. Heptameter – 7 feet per line (fourteener)

B. 2. Nonconventional Forms
of Poetry
(Free verse, Prose Poetry, Concrete
Poetry and Performance Poetry)

B. 2. Free Verse
- is a direct translation of the French phrase
vers libre, which describes a specific
movement in French poetry in the late 1800’s.
The declared objective of the movement is to
release poetry from the bondage of the strict
conventions of rhythm and rhyme to which it
has always been shackled.

- According to the editors of The Lyric
Potential: Arrangements and
Techniques in Poetry, “In free verse
the unit of rhythmic control is the rise
and fall within the entire poem rather
than the metric line or stanza.”

- T.S Elliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, T.E
Hulme, Ezra Pound and Walt Whitman are
the earliest practitioners of free verse.
- Walt Whitman was the first widely
acclaimed American Poet who used free
verse extensively
- J. Niel C. Garcia is the most prolific and
best Filipino poet below fifty years of age.

Characteristics of Free Verse
Enjambment
- a term derived from the French which
means “to step over or put legs across.”
- refers to the refusal to follow the usual rules
of lineation.

- the thought or ideas being developed by the
poet naturally spills over or runs on from one
line to the next without a major pause or
syntactical break.
- do not typically have a punctuation marks.
- allows the poet to let his or her ideas flow
freely and more rhythmically.

Lineation
- denotes the length of the poetic lines in
relation to the line breaks, and it helps
determine the silhouette or shape of the
poem.
 Long lines – produce a poem that has a
thick shape
 Short lines – produce a poem that has a
thin silhouette

In the majority of traditional poetic forms,
the line breaks occur where the rhymes
are located and in the fulfilment of the
poems’ fixed meter, or the regular
occurrence or repetition of rhythmic
patterns, or the rhythmic patterns, or the
rhythm set forth or established by the
consistent occurrence of similar units of
sound.

C. Other Experimental Texts
c.1. Typography
- the general character or appearance of
printed matter.
- the style, arrangement, or appearance
of printed letters on a page

c. 2. Genre-crossing texts
(Prose Poetry/Poems,
Concrete Poetry and
Performance Poetry)

Prose Poetry/Poems
- is a variation of free verse, and
embodies the contemporary poets’
yearning for a more flexible medium of
expression. It is a hybrid literary form since
it utilizes elements and attributes that are
associated with both prose and poetry.

- Prose poetry shares with prose the
characteristics of being written in
sentences and paragraphs. In short, prose
poetry is a poetry that is not composed in
verse but contains other poetic qualities,
like rhythm, figures of speech, voice and
tone as well as mood and atmosphere.

The still born calf lies near the fence where its
mother licked the damp body, then
left it. All afternoon she has stood beside a large,
white rock in the middle of the
pasture. She nuzzles it with her heavy neck and will
not be lured away.
- From Days: Poems (1997)

Concrete poetry
- is a form of poetry that deploys visual and
typographical effects, like the shape of words,
letters or symbols as they appear on the page as
an image, in addition to or instead of the usual
conventions of versification, like, rhyme, meter, and
stanza divisions.
- also known as shaped verse, visual poetry or
pattern poetry.

Eastern Wings
George Herbert
Lord, who created man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more
Till he became
Most poor:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

Performance Poetry
- is a postmodern art form, a hybrid genre that
combines literary and dramatic elements. The
performance poet utilizes the theatrical stage as if it
were the printed page. Performance poetry as a
literary-cum-dramatic movement is also known as
spoken word and poetry slam.

- The important thing to remember is the
actual face-to-face encounter between the
poet-performer and his or her audience,
the reactions evoked by their direct
encounter with one another, and the
resulting immediate community-building,
which does not occur in traditional print-
based poetry.

Writing tips
1. To compose a successful Japanese-inspired
piece of poetry, avoid verbosity or the excessive
use of words.
2. To compose a successful haiku, make sure that it
contains a concrete environmental detail, an
allusion to the season or time of the day, and a
subtle reflection on the processes or working of
nature.

3. To compose a successful tanka, make sure that
the first three lines (the upper phrase) contains a
powerful image, and the last two lines (the lower
phrase) contains a poignant insight related to that
image or scenario.
4. To compose a successful poem with a fixed
rhyming pattern, like a sonnet or a villanelle, make
sure that you have a list of rhyming words from
which you can choose.

5. To compose a successful ode, choose lofty
words and deploy an elevated tone in
expressing your praise of the person or object
you are honoring.
6. To compose a successful elegy, choose
solemn words and deploy a melancholic tone in
expressing your lamentation of the dearly
departed you have chosen to commemorate.

7. When cutting a poetic line, make sure that the
last word belongs to the heavy parts of speech
(verbs, nouns, and pronouns), since the end of a
line constitutes a caesura, or a natural stop of one
beat (like a comma, a colon, or a semicolon). Note
that the end of a stanza constitutes a longer break,
or a natural stop of two beats (similar to a period, a
question mark, an exclamation mark, or an ellipsis).

8. Occasionally, you may end a line with modifiers
(adjectives and adverb), but never with the
lightweight parts of speech: articles (the, a, an),
prepositions (of, in, to, for, with, on, at, from, by,
about, etc.), conjunctions (and, also, either, or), or
disjunctions (but, neither, nor).
9. But the basic rule above is not steadfast, since
you may end a line with the lightweight parts of
speech for the sake of emphasis or to achieve a
certain effect.

Reading and writing poetry

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