Elements of Poetry

Poetry is a branch of the humanities that imaginatively and figuratively expresses man's
thoughts and feelings, usually in verse form. Its theme is generally personal love, death,
frustration, hatred, faith in God and man human sufferings, culture, and traditions, etc. Its
elements are

1. Language refers to the poet who uses every resource of language: denotative
language (actual meaning), connotative language implied meaning, poetic
language (language that considers diction, vocabulary and level simple or
conventional, and figurative language (most often simile and metaphor).
The most primitive peoples have used it, and the most civilized have cultivated it.
Among the types of literature, poetry writing is the most challenging for the
following reasons: first, the choice of proper words or grammar second, the
denotative and symbolic meaning of the chosen grammar, and third, the limitation
imposed by the structure und rhythm of sounds The word "home" for instance, by
denotation means a place where one lives. Connotation is the related or allied
meanings of a word. The same word "home" suggests warmth, comfort, security,
love, and other meanings that are associated with its denotative meaning.
The denotation of the word "spring" is the season between summer and winter" Its
connotation, on the other hand, might be "w" and "s festive mood."
2. Tone refers to the atmosphere, feeling, attitude, stance, or the way the poet looks
at his subject or the world. Such feeling or atmosphere may either be serious
ironic, bitter, joyful, resigned, etc.
3. Imagery is the representation of sense experience or the total sensory suggestion
of poetry-visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and bodily images. The poet is an
image-maker who reinforces his thoughts with concrete words. An image" is the
mental duplication of a sense impression. The most common imagery is visual, as
we are made to sec what the author is talking about.
4. Sounds are characterized either as pleasant (full, open vowel sounds) or
unpleasant short, abrupt, vowel sounds which are irritating),
5. 5 Rhythm and meter is related to the beats of our hearts" and the flow of air from
our lungs." Rhythm is the regular and irregular patterns of stressed and unstressed
syllables, metrical, or rhetorical stress. A meter is the accents that arranged as to
occur at approximately equal intervals of time. A metered language is a verse. An
end thyme have the same final sound of words at the end of lines
At present, there are poets who are not so particular on thyme and meter,
and they call such a style as "free verse.
6. Thought or meaning refers to the experience the poem expresses (What it feels
like to.?). Two meanings are distinguished: the total meaning and the prose
meaning. The total meaning of a poem is the idea in a poem, a portion of the total
experience it communicates. The prose meaning is the value and worth of the
poem, the total experience it communicates
7. Shape of the poem refers to the pattern of arrangement of the words on the page
(Abuan, 2000). Most poems consist of lines grouped into stanzas. Each stanza has
its distinct features of thought similar to a paragraph.
8. Speaker. According to Abuan (2000), all poems have a speaker, the voice that
talks to the readers. In some poems, the speaker identifies himself s "T" and "me"
while in others the speaker remains in the background. The speaker may or may
not be the poet or author/writer.