ELEMENTS

OF
POETRY
 RHYTHM

This includes the syllables in the lines. The

best method of understanding this is to
read the poem aloud, and understand the
stressed and unstressed syllables.
"ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL“

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.

Ce­cil F. Al­ex­an­der
 METER
The meter serves as the metrical form of
poetry. A poem is made up of blocks of
lines, which convey a single strand of
thought. Within those blocks, a structure
of syllables which follow the rhythm has to
be included.
"ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL“

The rich man in his castle, 7

The poor man at his gate, 6
He made them, high or lowly, 7
And ordered their estate. 6

Ce­cil F. Al­ex­an­der
 RHYME
A poem may or may not have a rhyme.
When you write poetry that has rhyme, it
means that the last words or sounds of the
lines match with each other in some form.
Rhyme is basically similar sounding words.
Free verse poetry, though, does not follow
this system.
"ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL“

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.

Ce­cil F. Al­ex­an­der
Sound Techniques
Rhyme Scheme
Alliteration
Onomatopoeia
 RHYME SCHEME
Rhyme scheme is defined as the pattern of
rhyme. Either the last words of the first
and second lines rhyme with each other,
or the first and the third, second and the
fourth and so on. It is denoted by
alphabets like AABB (1st line rhyming with
2nd, 3rd with 4th) etc.
"ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL“

All things bright and beautiful, ABAB

All creatures great and small, ABAB
All things wise and wonderful: ABAB
The Lord God made them all. ABAB
Ce­cil F. Al­ex­an­der
 Rhyme Scheme

Heavy is my heart, A
Dark are thine eyes B
Thou and I must part A
Ere the sun rise B
Rhyme Scheme- The pattern in which end rhyme
occurs

• Example:

Continuous as the stars that shine (A)

And twinkle on the milky way, (B)
They stretched in never-ending line (A)
Along the margin of a bay: (B)
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, (C)
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. (C)
Alliteration
Repetition of the initial consonant sound
“She sells seashells at the sea shore”
ALLITERATION

Consonant sounds repeated at the

beginnings of words

 If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled

peppers, how many pickled peppers did
Peter Piper pick?
Onomatopoeia
A word whose sound imitates its
meaning
“The bee buzzed by my ear “

“The clock ticked down the final hour”

“The engine purred while awaiting the

green light”
 STANZA
Stanza in poetry is defined as a smaller unit or
group of lines or a paragraph in a poem. A
particular stanza has a specific meter, rhyme
scheme, etc. Based on the number of lines,
stanzas are named as couplet (2 lines), Tercet (3
lines), Quatrain (4 lines), Cinquain (5 lines),
Sestet (6 lines), Septet (7 lines), Octave (8 lines).
Example of Quatrain:

The purple headed mountains,

The river running by, Stanza 1
The sunset and the morning
That brightens up the sky.

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small, Stanza 2
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.
 THEME

This is what the poem is all about. The

theme of the poem is the central idea that
the poet wants to convey. It can be a story,
or a thought, or a description of
something or someone.
 SYMBOLISM

Often poems will convey ideas and

thoughts using symbols. A symbol can
stand for many things at one time and
leads the reader out of a systematic
method of looking at things.
 “My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold“

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky 
Spring and daisies means youth in Sara
Teasdale’s “Wild Asters”:
In the spring, I asked the daisies
If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
Always knew.

A rainbow symbolizes hope and good things

that are coming
 IMAGERY
This device is used by the poet for readers
to create an image in their imagination.
Imagery appeals to all the five senses. For
example, when the poet describes, the
flower is bright red, an image of a red
flower is immediately created in the
readers mind.
 “LYRIC 17“

First, a poem must be magical,

Then musical as a sea-gull.
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird's flowering.

Jose Garcia Villa