Poetry Class with Jedidiah

What is poetry?

Poetry is an art that formulates an imaginative awareness of experience in oral or written language; chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound and rhythm

Components of a poem:

• Line - the smallest basic component of a poem. It could be a sentence, half a sentence or more than one sentence usually ending with a rhyming word (in the case of rhyming poems).
• Verse - a group of lines logically combined to bring out a particular fraction of the main idea in a poem. Equivalent to a paragraph in normal writing. In the case of rhyming poems, each verse completes a particular rhyme style. Four lines make a verse in a standard poem.
• Metering - the process of maintaining the number of syllables in your lines so as to produce lines with similar lengths in each verse. Your lines should have the same or nearly the same number of syllables for a consistent rhythm.
• Syllables - a unit of pronunciation having a single vowel sound surrounded by consonants in a word e.g. there are three syllables in the word 'permalink' i.e. per-ma-link. In poetry, syllables forms bits of pronunciation and help in metering and consequently, in the development of rhythm.
• Rhythm - the pattern of stresses within a line of verse. It produces the musical quality of a poem. Good metering produces a good and consistent rhythm.
• Rhyme - the effect produced when similar vowel sounds chyme together. Or a recurrence of similar ending sounds at the ends of poetic lines in a verse. Your rhymes should have the same number of syllables to make perfect rhymes. For example, location and vocation form a perfect rhyme cause they contain the same number of syllables. Avoid draggy rhymes. Draggy rhymes are produced when your combine rhyming words with different numbers of syllables. For example, vocation and communication. That's like three syllables against five syllables.

Rhyme styles:

There are a lot of rhyme styles which get more complicated as you develop your writing skills but for now, take these four basic ones:

• AAAA - a type of rhyme style where all the lines in a verse or a whole poem rhyme. It is usually discouraged because it gets boring to have the same rhyme throughout a piece. For example,

A poem, I pray
I've written today
Outside a café
While a tree did sway
At the end of the day
I'll take me away
This day in May
And hit the hay

• AABB - a type of rhyme style where two concurrent lines have the end with rhyming words which change in the next two lines. For example,

Build your estate and shield your plate

As you disintegrate into your most fragile state

Decompose your outgrown skin

And compose your inner being

• ABAB - a type of rhyme style where alternate lines end in the same rhyme style i.e. the first line rhymes with the third while the second rhymes with the forth. For example,

Mary had a pretty bird

Feathers bright and yellow

Slender legs, upon my word

He was a pretty fellow

• AAAB (aka triple A B) - this one is the most complicated among the four and my personal favorite. It's a type of rhyme style where the first three lines in a verse rhyme while the forth one does not rhyme but rhymes with the forth  lines of the other verses in a poem. For example,



 I take a glimpse of an interminable grapevine
One that was entrenched by the unshakable Divine
Am fascinated by its incomparable design
And am captivated as blurred visions of my foundation invade...
A twig is sprouting from a knot on a tree
Like eaglets brooding out of an egg, it breaks free
The vine is conceiving out of a mere decree
The visions become translucent as this birth and my salvation relate...

Figures of Speech:

These are very important in making your poetry sound different from normal writing. Always avoid using plain language. Try to be as indirect as possible yet still making sense in the following ways

• Imagery - to evoke a mental image (sometimes emotional) by use of figurative language. Your words should create a mental picture in the reader's head.
• Irony - expression of words used to convey an opposite meaning from the usual sense. Words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words. It may also be a situation that may end up in quite a different way than what is generally anticipated. In simple words, it is a difference between the appearance and the reality e.g. She was so right she ended up being wrong.
• Metaphor - a term used to treat two things that are not the same as equals such as "The universe is God's playground".
• Oxymoron - the joining of two words that seem to be contradictory (opposites), but offer a unique effect such as living deaths, freezing fires, deafening silence, or bittersweet
• Personification - a form of metaphor where an inanimate object, animal, or idea is given human-like characteristics such as "Night swallowed the sun's last ray of light".
• Simile - a comparison between two unlike things using like or as, etc. Such as "Your eyes are like sparkling diamonds."

Parts of a poem:

• Title - your title shouldn't be obvious. It should be as brief and meaningful as possible and it should be catchy.
• Message - every poem must bring out a message. Your message must have an introduction, a rising action, a climax, falling action and conclusion. Your message should be brought out in a metaphoric manner. Never plain.

Delivery:

Take not of the following when reciting your poems:

• Mood (emotion); your face must be masked with the appropriate facial expressions that go with your message.
• Voice projection; let your voice go with your mood and be loud and clear enough to be heard
• Rhythm; don't sound straight throughout your piece as if you were just talking. Reciting involves stressing out appropriate sounds while stressing others less.
• Intonation; the musical quality of your recital. Form a unique tone of words.

>>Prepared by: Jedidiah<<