CREATIVE WRITING

LESSON 1:
Definition and Kinds of Poetry
Target Me!

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

 Recognize the kinds of poetry
 Explain the importance of poetry

Many people are intimidated by the mention of the word “poetry.” It is often
perceived as something that is cryptic and beyond understanding. But this module
is here to help you to understand and grasp poetry.
POETRY is a type of
literature, or artistic
writing, that attempts to stir a reader's imagination or emotions. The poet does this by carefully choosing and
arranging language for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. It often employs rhyme and meter (a set of rules
governing the number and arrangement of syllables in each line). In poetry, words are strung together to form
sounds, images, and ideas that might be too complex or abstract to describe directly.

KINDS OF POETRY
1. Narrative Poetry
- It is a kind of poetry that tells a story, often making the voices of a narrator and characters as
well; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. Narrative poems do not need rhyme.

Sub-categories of Narrative Poetry

a. Epics - usually operate on a large scale, both in length and topic, such as the founding of a
nation (Virgil’s Aeneid) or the beginning of world history (Milton's Paradise Lost), they
tend to use an elevated style of language and supernatural beings take part in the action.
b. Mock-epic – it makes use of epic conventions, like the elevated style and the assumption
that the topic is of great importance, to deal with completely insignificant occurrences.
c. Ballad – it is a song, originally transmitted orally, which tells a story. It is an important
form of folk poetry which was adapted for literary uses from the sixteenth century onwards.
The ballad stanza is usually a four-line stanza, alternating tetrameter and trimeter.

2. Lyric Poetry
- It is a comparatively short, non-narrative poem in which a single speaker presents a state of
mind or an emotional state. Lyric poetry retains some of the elements of song which is said to
be its origin: For Greek writers the lyric was a song accompanied by the lyre.

Sub-categories of Lyric Poetry

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a. Elegy – In modern usage, elegy is a formal lament for the death of a particular person.
More broadly defined, the term elegy is also used for solemn meditations, often on
questions of death.
b. Ode – An ode is a long lyric poem with a serious subject written in an elevated style.
c. Sonnet - The sonnet was originally a love poem which dealt with the lover’s sufferings
and hopes. It originated in Italy and became popular in England in the Renaissance,
when Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey translated and imitated the sonnets written
by Petrarch (Petrarchan sonnet). From the seventeenth century onwards the sonnet was
also used for other topics than love, for instance for religious experience
(by Donne and Milton), reflections on art (by Keats or Shelley) or even the war experience
(by Brooke or Owen). The sonnet uses a single stanza of (usually) fourteen lines and an
intricate rhyme pattern. Many poets wrote a series of sonnets linked by the same theme, so-
called sonnet cycles (for instance Petrarch, Spenser, Shakespeare, Drayton, Barret-
Browning, Meredith) which depict the various stages of a love relationship.
d. Dramatic Monologue - In a dramatic monologue a speaker, who is explicitly someone
other than the author, makes a speech to a silent auditor in a specific situation and at a
critical moment. Without intending to do so, the speaker reveals aspects of his temperament
and character.
e. Occasional Poetry – it is written for a specific occasion: a wedding (then it is called
an epithalamion.

3. Dramatic Poetry
- Dramatic poetry encompasses a highly emotional story that's written in verse and meant to be
recited. It usually tells a story or refers to a specific situation. This would include closet drama,
dramatic monologues, and rhyme verse.

You might wonder about the difference between narrative and dramatic poetry.
First, narrative poetry often has a narrator, or a single person relaying the take. A
second difference lies in the opening of each form of poetry. Narrative poetry tends
to set the scene and describe what's happening, whereas dramatic poetry tends to
lead with a main character entering the scene and speaking.

Comprehension Questions
Direction: Answer the questions briefly but substantially.
Rubric Content – 3 Grammar - 2

1. What is the importance of poetry in literature?

2. Does poetry matter in your life? Why or Why not?

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MODULE 3

LESSON 2:
Poetic Devices
Target Me!

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

 Familiarize with the poetic devices
 Write a poem by applying the different poetic devices

Poetry is the kind of thing poets write. — Robert Frost

Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know. — Louis Armstrong

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
Fortunately, the English language contains a wide range of words from which to choose for almost every
thought, and there are also numerous plans or methods of arrangement of these words, called poetic devices,
which can assist the writer in developing cogent expressions pleasing to his readers.
Even though most poetry today is read silently, it must still carry with it the feeling of being spoken aloud, and
the reader should practice “hearing” it in order to catch all of the artfulness with which the poet has created his
work.

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.

1. Alliteration: Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of words placed near each other, usually on the
same or adjacent lines. A somewhat looser definition is that it is the use of the same consonant in any part of
adjacent words.

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Example: fast and furious
Example: Peter and Andrew patted the pony at Ascot

In the second definition, both P and T in the example are reckoned as alliteration. It is noted that this is a very
obvious device and needs to be handled with great restraint, except in specialty forms such as limerick,
cinquain, and humorous verse.

2. Assonance: Repeated vowel sounds in words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines.
These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed, rather than in vowel sounds that are unaccented.

Example: He’s a bruisin’ loser

In the second example above, the short A sound in Andrew, patted, and Ascot would be assonant

3. Consonance: Repeated consonant sounds at the ending of words placed near each other, usually on the same
or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed, rather than in vowel –2– sounds that
are unaccented. This produces a pleasing kind of near-rhyme.

Example: boats into the past

Example: cool soul

4. Cacophony: A discordant series of harsh, unpleasant sounds helps to convey disorder. This is often furthered
by the combined effect of the meaning and the difficulty of pronunciation.

Example: My stick fingers click with a snicker

And, chuckling, they knuckle the keys;
Light-footed, my steel feelers flicker
And pluck from these keys melodies.
—“Player Piano,” John Updike

5. Euphony: A series of musically pleasant sounds, conveying a sense of harmony and beauty to the language.

Example: Than Oars divide the Ocean,

Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.
— “A Bird Came Down the Walk,” Emily Dickenson (last stanza)

6. Onomatopoeia: Words that sound like their meanings. In Hear the steady tick of the old hall clock, the word
tick sounds like the action of the clock, If assonance or alliteration can be onomatopoeic, as the sound ‘ck’ is
repeated in tick and clock, so much the better. At least sounds should suit the tone – heavy sounds for
weightiness, light for the delicate. Tick is a light word, but transpose the light T to its heavier counterpart, D;
and transpose the light CK to its heavier counterpart G, and tick becomes the much more solid and down to
earth dig.

Example: boom, buzz, crackle, gurgle, hiss, pop, sizzle, snap, swoosh, whir, zip

7. Repetition: The purposeful re-use of words and phrases for an effect. Sometimes, especially with longer
phrases that contain a different key word each time, this is called parallelism. It has been a central part of poetry
in many cultures. Many of the Psalms use this device as one of their unifying elements.
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Example: I was glad; so very, very glad.
Example: Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward…
…
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d…

Write it Down!
Directions:
Using any of the poetic devices, compose a four lined poem with the minimum of 4
stanzas.

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LESSON 3:
Factors Contributing to the Shape of a Poem

Target Me!

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

 Write a poem using the types of rhyme and rhyme scheme

A. RHYME

 One or two more words or phrases that end in the same sounds
 a chordal resonance, making the ending decisive and firm
 brings musicality which can be exploited for lyric passages
 are useful as hinges, giving the thought of the poem clear and emphatic

TYPES OF RHYME
1. End Rhyme
Rhyming or the near duplication of final words of lines in a poem.
Example: Under my window a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground ( heat – neat,
feet – greet )
2. Internal Rhyme
Rhyming of two words within the same line of poetry.
Example: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary “Sister, my sister, O fleet, sweet,
swallow
3. Eye Rhyme
Rhyme in which the ending of words are spelled alike; in most instances were pronounced alike, but sometimes
they can be pronounced differently.
Example: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate; Rough winds do
shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date
4. Identical Rhyme
Simply using the same word twice
Example: We pause before a House that seemed A swelling of the Ground The Roof was scarcely visible The
Cornice– on the Ground
5. Slant Rhyme
Sometimes called imperfect, partial, near, oblique, off - rhyme in which two words share just a vowel sound
( “heart – star”) or in which they just a consonant sound ( “milk – walk”) - Slant rhyme is a technique perhaps
more in tune with the uncertainties of the modern age than strong rhyme.
Example: Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun

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6. Linked Rhyme
A rhyme between the last syllable or syllables of a line with the first syllable or syllables of the following line.
Example: The song is sung Flung upon the air
7. Forced Rhyme
A. (Positive) Occurs when the poet gives effect of seeming to surrender helplessly to the exigencies of a
difficult rhyme
Example: Farewell, Farewell, you old rhinocerous I’ll stare at something less prepocerous
B. (Negative) Occurs when the reader believes that in the context of using a rhyming word; it focuses on the
rhyme instead of the meaning.
Example: The cat crossed the grass I was late for class
8. Diminishing Rhyme
A rhyme using words or parts of words that are pronounced identically but have different meanings.
Example: report – port emotion – motion ocean – shun

B. METER

 is a stressed and unstressed syllabic pattern in a verse or within the lines of a poem
 stressed syllables tend to be longer and unstressed shorter

METER AND FOOT

A meter contains a sequence of several feet, where each foot has a number of syllables such as
stressed/unstressed.
LENGTH
The length of a meter poem is illustrated is by looking at the number of feet in each line of the poem

LINE LENGTH (LATINATE)

1. Monometer A poem with only one foot per line
2. Dimeter A poem that has only two feet in each line
3. Trimeter A line that has three feet
4. Tetrameter A line that has four feet
5. Pentameter A five feet in a line
6. Hexameter A six feet in a line
7. Heptameter A seven feet in a line
8. Octameter An eight feet in a line
TYPES OF METER
1. Iambic Meter
 (unstressed/stressed)
 A foot which starts with an unaccented and ends with accented (stressed) syllable. It is the most
common meter in English Language and naturally falls into everyday conversation.
Example: “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare
If music be the food of love, play on;
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Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
2. Trochaic Meter
(stressed/unstressed)
 a foot (opposite of an iambic meter) that begins with an accented then followed by unaccented
syllable
Example: “The Explosion” by Philip Larkin
Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
In the sun the slagheap slept.
Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke
Shouldering off the freshened silence.
3. Anapestic Meter
 (unstressed/unstressed/ stressed)
 a foot which has two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable.
Example: “The Hunting of the Snark” by Lewis Carroll
Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair…
There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
Or would sit making lace in the bow:
4. Dactylic Meter
(stressed/unstressed/unstressed)
 a foot including an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables
Example: “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

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C. RHYME SCHEME
 Is the pattern of rhyme that comes at the end of each verse or line in poetry

TYPES OF RHYME SCHEME

1. Alternate Rhyme – It is also known as ABAB rhyme scheme, it rhymes as “ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH.”
Example: “Neither Out Far Nor In Deep” by: Robert Frost
The people along the sand (A)
All turn and look one way. (B)
They turn their back on the land. (A)
They look at the sea all day. (B)

2. Ballade – It contains three stanzas with rhyme scheme of “ABABBCBC” followed by “BCBC.”
Example: “Love Affair” by: Leny Roovers
Among the luscious leaves in dark recess, (A)
as trees are humming with the song of bees, (B)
a nest is built and lined with purple cress; (A)
the eggs are laid and fit in close as peas. (B)
New life unfolds in spring in crowns of trees (B)
as Nature's breathing in and out resumes, (C)
shapes images and forms in all degrees- (B)
shows off the splendour of the favoured grooms. (C)
My garden seemed a Paradise at ease (B)
until dark shadows blocked the sun and loomed; (C)
the feathers on the ground, though bright, don't please; (B)
show off the splendour of the favoured grooms. (C)

3. Monorhyme – It is a poem in which every line uses the same rhyme scheme.
Example: “The Shower” by: Dick Davis
Lifting her arms to soap her hair (A)
Her pretty breasts respond--- and there (A)
The movement of that buoyant pair (A)
Is like a spell to make me swear (A)
Twenty odd years have turned to air; (A)

4. Couplet – It contains two line stanzas with “AA” rhyme scheme that often appears as “AA BB CC and
DD…”
Example: “Revelation in Rain” by: Andrea Dietrich
She briskly walks in January’s rain, (A)
which drums the endless rhythm of her pain, (A)
pulling closer round her shoulder in the downpour (B)
the leather jacket he so often wore. (B)
Another day like this she can remember (C)
when he had worn the jacket, and against her (C)
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he’d pressed as they stood kissing in the rainfall. (D)
The world could wash away; he was her all! (D)

5. Triplet – It often repeats like a couplet, uses rhyme scheme of “AAA.”

Example: “Upon Julia’s Clothes” by: Robert Herrick
Whenas in silks my Julia goes, (A)
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows (A)
That liquefaction of her clothes. (A)

6. Enclosed Rhyme – It uses rhyme scheme of “ABBA.”

Example: “The Goddess” by: Andrea Dietrich
With brilliance, clad in white, in an enchanted world, (A)
a vision most inviting stands before my very eyes. (B)
She treads a grassy hill beyond which mountains rise (B)
to heaven's heights where fluffs of clouds, as if in pink, are swirled. (A)

Write it down!
Direction: Write a poem having a theme of either love or friendship and having alternate
rhyme as its rhyme scheme. Your poem must have the minimum of four stanzas which
contains four lines in each of them.

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