[HANDOUT FOR LONG TEST #2] Prepared by Teacher Inez for Grade 5

POETRY

DEFINITION
Poetry is a written composition made to be performed in a human voice (whether aloud or in your mind’s
ear), using both the eye and the ear to understand. WHAT a poem says or means is often a result of HOW
it is said.

CHARACTERISTICS

Conciseness. Poetry is considered the most condensed form of language. It is capable of cramming an
image or even a story in a few words. With some exceptions (such as epic poetry), poems rarely go past a
few pages.

Figurative Language. Poetry often uses idioms and figures of speech. This helps to make clear images
while using as few words as possible.

Rhythm. This is how a line or set of words is broken into stressed (or emphasized) and unstressed
syllables when spoken. All poems have it.

Meter. A repetitive, regular (fairly equal) rhythm is called meter. The most common meter (or measure)
in English is to have five sets of stressed and unstressed syllables per line. Many poems have it.

Rhyme. To have the same ending sound (the last stressed vowel and all speech sounds following it), or
almost the same. Many poems use this.
*** When looking at the rhyme scheme or pattern in a poem, a letter is assigned to each rhyming
sound. In a poem with an ABAB scheme, for example, the 1st and 3rd, and 2nd and 4th lines rhyme.

Imagery. Poems usually paint images or scenes. Using words, of course.

ANATOMY OF A POEM

If I Were a Voice Title

Charles McKay Author

If I were a voice, a persuasive voice, Line

That could travel the wide world through,
I would fly on the beams of the morning light,
And speak to men with a gentle might, Stanza
And tell them to be true.
I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er land and sea,
Wherever a human heart might be,
Telling a tale, or singing a song,
In praise of the right - in blame of the wrong.
* Of course, this is only an excerpt(a part) of the poem.  You should have memorized the entire thing by now!

Something to think about

Have you ever written a poem? If you have, why did you do so? Is it easier to write a poem or an
essay? Did you try reading it aloud?
TYPES
There are many types of poems, but we are only going to take a few:

COUPLET. Each stanza is composed of 2 lines, with no set rhyme/meter.

Example: William Carlos Williams’ The Red Wheelbarrow (1923)

so much depends
upon

a red wheel

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 [HANDOUT FOR LONG TEST #2] Prepared by Teacher Inez for Grade 5

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

Other examples: Joyce Kilmer’s Trees; Gwendolyn Brooks’ We Real Cool

IMAGERY EXERCISE!

Try to draw the subject of the poem The Red

Wheelbarrow in the box to the right.

Vocabulary Check:
What is a wheelbarrow?
What does glazed mean?

HAIKU. A type of poem that originated in Japan. There are three lines per stanza. The first line
must have only 5 syllables, the second 7, and the last 5 again.

Example: Haiku by Matsuo Basho

In my new clothing
I feel so different; I must
Look like someone else.

From all directions

Winds bring petals of cherry
Into the green lake.

Other examples: Ezra Pound’s In a Station of the Metro (1913) is an adaptation.

IMAGERY EXERCISE!

Pick one of Basho’s haiku and try to draw its

subject in the box to the right.

Let’s Add to Our Vocabulary!

1. Haiku is borrowed from Japanese. As an English
loanword, the plural is haikus.
2. A poem with three lines per stanza is said to be
in tercet form.
QUATRAIN. The most commonly-used form in English poetry. Quatrains have 4 lines per
stanza.
The most common meter is the pentameter (5 pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables),
and the most common rhyme schemes are, in no particular order, AAAA, AABB, ABBA, and
ABAB.

Example: Dorothy Parker’s One Perfect Rose (1926)

A single flower he sent me, since we met.

All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet ---
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;

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 [HANDOUT FOR LONG TEST #2] Prepared by Teacher Inez for Grade 5

“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”

Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet

One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

FIGURES OF SPEECH EXERCISE!

There are three lines that use personification in One Perfect Rose. Which lines are these? What
is the object being given human-like characteristics? What characteristic or ability is given to
that object?
Some poems in quatrain form can get rather long. They may even be used to tell a story. When a
poem tells a story, it is called a narrative poem. Narrative poetry, like short stories, contains the
5 elements of fiction.

Example: John Mackey Shaw’s The Broken Legg’d Man

(http://www2.nkfust.edu.tw/~emchen/CLit/Broken-legged_Man.htm)

I saw the other day when I went shopping in the store

A man I hadn't ever, ever seen in there before,
A man whose leg was broken and who leaned upon a crutch-
I asked him very kindly if it hurt him very much.

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

I ran around behind him for I thought that I would see

The broken leg all bandaged up and bent back at the knee;
But I didn't see the leg at all, there wasn't any there,
So I asked him very kindly if he had it hid somewhere.

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

"Then where," I asked him, "is it? Did a tiger bite it off?
Or did you get your foot wet when you had a nasty cough?
Did someone jump down on your leg when it was very new?
Or did you simply cut it off because you wanted to?"

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

"What was it then?" I asked him, and this is what he said:

"I crossed a busy crossing when the traffic light was red;
A big black car came whizzing by and knocked me off my feet."
"Of course you looked both ways," I said, "before you crossed the street."

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

"They rushed me to the hospital right quickly, "he went on,

"And when I woke in nice white sheets I saw my leg was gone;
That's why you see me walking now on nothing but a crutch."
"I'm glad," said I, "you told me, and I thank you very much!"

"Not at all!" said the broken-legg'd man.

*Note that in this poem, a single line – “Not at all!” said the broken-legg’d man – repeats after
each quatrain, as a refrain. When an entire stanza repeats, it is a chorus. You often see refrains
and choruses in songs.

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 [HANDOUT FOR LONG TEST #2] Prepared by Teacher Inez for Grade 5

Other Examples: Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman (1906); Robert Service’s The Cremation of
Sam McGee (http://www.potw.org/archive/potw22.html)

ELEMENTS EXERCISE!

Identify the characters, setting, conflict, and theme of The Broken-Legg’d Man. On a separate
sheet of paper, make a plot graph of the events in the poem. Can you determine the point of view
and author’s purpose of the poem?

LIMERICK. A type of poem that has 5 lines and an aabba rhyme scheme, and rhythmic beat
that goes weak, weak, strong, thrice in lines 1/2/5 and twice in 3/4. It is usually meant to be
funny or entertaining.

Example: Edward Lear’s There was an Old Man with a Beard (1946)

There was an old man with a beard,

Who said, “It’s just as I feared! ---
Two owls and a hen,
Four larks and a wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”

Other examples: Hickory, Dickory Dock

CONCRETE. A type of poem that uses the arrangement of words into a shape to add meaning
or emphasis to the poem’s content.

Example: William Jay Smith’s Seal (date)

See how he dives

From the rocks with a zoom!
See how he darts
Through his watery room
Past crabs and eels
And green seaweed,
Past fluffs of sandy
Minnow feed!
See how he swims
With a swerve and a twist,
A flip of the flipper,
A flick of the wrist!
Quicksilver-quick,
Softer than spray,
Down he plunges
And sweeps away;
Before you can think,
Before you can utter
Words like “dill pickle”
Or “apple butter”,
Back up he swims
Past Sting Ray and Shark,
Out with a zoom,
A whoop and a bark;
Before you can say
Whatever you wish,
He plops at your side
With a mouthful of fish!

In this case, the shape of the poem could suggest a wave or seaweed (as part of the setting), or
the playful and quick movement of the seal.

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 [HANDOUT FOR LONG TEST #2] Prepared by Teacher Inez for Grade 5

EXERCISE!

1. In the lines “Before you can utter / Words like “dill pickle” / Or “apple butter” / Back up
he swims”, is there an example of simile? Why or why not?
2. There are four examples of alliteration in the poem. Look for them.
3. Locate at least one metaphor. What two things are being compared?
4. Does this poem have a rhyme scheme? If so, what is it? (If you can’t give letters, just
describe which lines rhyme. Tip: this poem can be divided into quatrains, and the rhyme
scheme becomes more obvious.)
5. Compare and contrast the seal with the other animals mentioned in the poem. How do are
they the same? How do they differ?