How Poetry Works

You can think of poetry as word play and a poet as an artist of words.

Chances are you've probably read a poem or two in school, had to memorize a
poem at some point, or maybe even wrote a poem yourself. But what exactly is
poetry?

A good way to think of poetry is to consider it word play. Like a painter uses paint or
a sculptor uses clay, a poet creatively uses words to make a poem. In that sense, a
poet is an artist of words. And, like other art forms, creating poetry can be an
enjoyable or moving experience.

Many think that a poem has to rhyme, follow a certain format, or be deep and
meaningful. But that isn't entirely true. While a poem can be any or all of these, it
doesn't have to be. Instead of thinking in such limiting terms, it's better to think of
poetry as a creative form of expression -- one that has many tools and is constantly
evolving.

So how is a poem different from other types of writing? Most text that you read and
write on a daily basis -- novels, essays, newspaper articles, magazines, and blogs --
are written without any poetic styling. This writing, which is referred to as prose, is
made up of sentences and paragraphs, and usually is just placed on a page with
little attention to where lines break and where words fall.

Poetry, on the other hand, is written for its evocative qualities -- those qualities that
produce an emotional response in the reader or create an experience. Poems can
be written to sound beautiful, to tell a story or to share a message. They can have
alternative meaning, they can share a feeling or experience -- really, they can
express just about anything. But the main difference between poetry and other forms
of writing is the attention the poet pays to structure, form, tone, word choice and all
of those things that create the effect the poet is trying to achieve.

So, if poetry can be about anything, can be written in any way and can be written by
anybody, how do we know how to create it? Well, a good place to start is by looking
at what other poets have done. In the sections that follow, we'll look at what types of
poems there are, what tools a poet uses to create a poem and how the idea of what
poetry is has changed over time.
Types of Poetry

Poetry can be divided into several genres, or categories. Not all poems fit neatly into
a category, but to understand what poetry is all about, it's helpful to group poems
based on some common characteristics.

Narrative poetry is poetry that tells a story. Just like a literary narrative, there's a
plot or some sort of action taking place. One popular type of narrative poetry is epic
poetry. An epic poem is a long narrative poem that usually follows the life and
adventures of a hero. The ancient Greeks loved their epic poetry and produced great
works that we are still fascinated by today, such as Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey."

Another genre is dramatic poetry. If you've ever read a play by William

Shakespeare, you're reading dramatic poetry. Basically, dramatic poetry is written
with the intention of being performed.

Lyric poetry is the type of poetry that comes to mind for most people when they
think of what a poem is. Lyric poetry doesn't necessarily tell a story, have a plot, or
follow a logical progression. It's more about using elements like rhyme and rhythm to
create an overall effect or feeling. A good way to remember this is to think of lyrics in
music, because at times, lyric poetry is set to music.

There are other genres that you could group poetry into, including satirical
poetry and prose poetry, but in general, most poetry can be classified as either
narrative, lyric or dramatic.

Now that you understand the main categories of poetry, let's look at how poems are
constructed. A poet, like an artist, has many tools for crafting a poem -- each having
a different effect on how the poem sounds, feels, looks and is read. In the next
section, we'll explore some of the sound effects that can be used when writing a
poem.

Sound Effects in Poetry

Poets have many tools that they can use to create their poems. The one you might
be most familiar with is the effect of sound. When words are spoken aloud, they have
lots of great sound qualities that poets can incorporate into their poems.

The most recognizable sound effect used in poems is rhyme. When two words
rhyme, they have a similar ending sound. Words that end in the same letters, such
as "take" and "make" rhyme, or words with different endings but the same sound
rhyme, such as "cane" and "pain." Poetry also makes use of near rhymes (or slant
rhymes), which are words that almost rhyme, but not quite -- such as "bear" and
"far."

Other sound effects make use of repeating letters or combinations of

letters. Consonance is repeating the same consonants in words that are near each
other. The statement "mummy's mommy was no common dummy" is an example of
consonance because the letter m is repeated. If the repeated letters appear only at
the beginning of the words, this is known as alliteration. For example,
"the big brown bear bit into a blueberry" is an example of alliteration because
several words close together begin with the letter b.

If the letters or sounds that are repeated are vowels instead of consonants -- as in "I
might like to fight nine pirates at a time" -- it is known as assonance. Assonance
can be pretty subtle sometimes, and more difficult to identify than consonance or
alliteration.

Sometimes a poet might want to make you imagine you're hearing something. This is
part of a concept called auditory imagery, or giving an impression of how something
sounds. One common way to create auditory imagery is through the use
of onomatopoeia. Think about words that describe a sound -- words like buzz, clap
or meow. When you say them aloud, they kind of sound like what they are
describing. For example, the "zz" in the word buzz kind of sounds like the noise a
bee makes.

There are many other types of sound effects that a poet can use, but these are just a
few of the most common ones. Now that you understand how poets choose which
words to use, let's look at how poets put these words together by choosing to (or not
to) follow a structure.

THE SOUND OF WORDS

You may not realize how much the way words sound affect the feelings we
associate with them. In a famous poem called "Jabberwocky," Lewis Carroll
uses all sorts of made up words and nonsensical phrases to describe a beast
called the Jabberwock and other scary creatures. Words like "slithy,"
"frumious" and "Bandersnatch," though made up, sound angry and scary
when we say them. As a result, the poem is mostly nonsense, but it gets the
point across -- steer clear of the Jabberwock!

Structural Effects -- Poetic Meter

Another tool poets have is structure. Even though not all poems follow a structure,
many poems do.
When you write an essay or a story, you probably structure your text in paragraphs.
Poems can be broken into paragraphs, too -- these are called stanzas.

In addition, in most prose, when your text reaches the end of a line, it just continues
on to the next line. In poetry, however, the breaking of text from line to line is usually
planned. Sometimes a poet might choose to break a sentence in the middle of a line
-- this is called enjambment, for example:

Sometimes poets put a whole sentence on one line.

Sometimes they choose to break a sentence

In the middle. Either way is fine.

In the short poem above, the second sentence is broken between the second and
third lines. If you look at the third line in the poem, you'll also see that there is a
period in the middle of the line. This is known as a caesura, or a pause in the middle
of a line.

Another way to add structure to a poem is with a rhyme scheme, or a pattern in how
the lines of a poem rhyme. In the poem above, the first line rhymes with the third
line, so it has a rhyme scheme of a-b-a. If the second line rhymed with the third line
instead, the rhyme scheme would be a-b-b.

Structure can even be found within each line of a poem. Meter is the poem's rhythm
structure, and it is usually established by having a certain pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables in the words on each line. A stressed syllable is a syllable that,
when spoken aloud, may sound louder, have a longer duration or be higher in pitch
than another syllable. An unstressed syllable, on the other hand, might sound
softer, have a shorter length or be lower in pitch. For example, when you read aloud
the phrase, "He'd like to have some pumpkin pie," you might notice that the syllables
"like," "have," "pump-" and "pie" sound a bit louder or stronger than the syllables
"he'd," "to," "some" and "-kin." You might also notice that the stressed and
unstressed syllables alternate in a regular pattern. This creates a rhythm.

In poetry, a foot, the basic unit of rhythm, is made up of a set number of stressed
and unstressed syllables. There are many types of feet that are made up of different
combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables (for some examples, see the
sidebar on this page).

In addition to deciding what words to use and how to use them, a poet can add some
visual elements to enhance or change the meaning of the poem. Keep reading to
find out how poets can make a poem actually look like something.
 PUT YOUR FEET TOGETHER: BUILDING METER

There really is no limit to the number of syllables that can be contained in a

foot. A poet could even create a meter that has ten syllables in each foot if he
or she wanted to.
Most feet, however, are made up of four or fewer syllables. Here are some of the
most common feet youre likely to see in poetry:

An iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable as in par-

TAKE.

A trochee is a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable as

in BAN-jo.

A dactyl is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables as

in CAP-it-al.

An anapest is two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable as in

sev-en-TEEN.

An amphibrach is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

and then an unstressed syllable as in ar-CHA-ic.

A cretic is a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable and then

another stressed syllable as in TRAM-po-LINE.

When you put the feet together, you get meter. Different types of meter have different
names. If, for example, a line in a poem has five iambs, then the meter is
called iambic pentameter ("iambic" meaning it's made up of iambs, "penta"
meaning there are five in each line and "meter" meaning it's a measure of meter). If
there are only four iambs, it is called iambic tetrameter ("tetra" means four).
Similarly, if there are five trochees in a line, it's called trochaic pentameter.

Visual Effects in Poetry

Concrete poetry, or shape poetry, is where the words or lines of a poem

actually make a picture.
HOWSTUFFWORKS

Just as poets can use sound techniques like onomatopoeia to create auditory
imagery, they can also enlist visual techniques to help create visual imagery, or the
sense of how something looks. Most of the time, this is done with descriptive
language that gives you a mental image of something, but another clever way that
poets can create visual imagery is with visual effects, such as altering the poem's
physical shape or placement on the page, or adding illustrations.

Word placement, line placement, line breaks -- these all can affect the visual imagery
or even the meaning of the poem. One interesting example of this is concrete
poetry, or shape poetry, where the words or lines of the poem actually make a
picture or visually reflect what the poem is about. In concrete poetry, the words are
arranged so that when you look at it as a whole, you can see an image formed by
the placement of the poem's parts.

A famous example of concrete poetry comes from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland." In the story, a mouse tells Alice his "long and sad tale," which in the
book itself is written as a shape poem. The words in the poem are placed so that the
poem looks to be in the shape of a mouse's tail.

Other structural elements might be a bit more subtle. Acrostics, for example, are
poems with hidden messages. In a basic acrostic, the first letters of each line might
together spell out a word or a phrase. Acrostics that are more complicated might
make the hidden message difficult to find by putting the essential letters elsewhere.

Other ways poems can make use of visual elements are by using fancy lettering,
like calligraphy, or by including pictures on the page with the poem. Sometimes, the
illustration enhances the meaning of the poem. One modern poet, Shel Silverstein,
included illustrations with almost all of his poems. Sometimes, the poem itself could
be vague or difficult to understand without looking at the picture that goes along with
it. With some poems, however, the illustrations may just be ornamental.

So far, we've talked about sound effects, structural effects and visual effects, but
another important part of creating a poem is deciding on its content, or what the
poem is actually saying. In the next section, we'll look at how writing a poem can, in
many ways, be similar to writing a story.

Literary Effects in Poetry

Since poetry is, essentially, a form of creative writing, it uses some of the same tools
found in other types of literature. Do you remember all of those "literary devices"
from English class -- foreshadowing, irony, allegory, personification and so on? Well,
those can all be used in poetry as well. Each can be used by the poet to change the
content and meaning of the poem.

One of the most popular literary devices used in many poems is symbolism, or
when one thing is used to represent another. For example, Robert Frost's famous
poem "The Road Not Taken" describes two different paths in the woods. While the
poem makes sense if it's read literally, the roads he writes about are actually
symbols for something else -- they represent the different choices you make in life.

Metaphors and similesalso compare one thing to another thing, and can add a
deeper layer of meaning to a poem. A simile compares two things using the words
"like" or "as." For example, the phrase "a poem is like a beautiful painting" is a simile
that compares a poem to a beautiful painting.

A metaphor compares things by saying something is something else. For example,

"a poem is a blooming flower." Sometimes, however, a metaphor doesn't explicitly
tell you what it's comparing. For example, "The Road Not Taken" never actually says
that the roads represent choices you make in life. Because of this, metaphors can be
interpreted in many different ways, and sometimes people can even perceive a
metaphor in a poem when there really isn't one.

Some other common literary devices used in poetry include irony, puns,
analogies, oxymorons, and many others. These are by no means the only literary
devices that can be used in poems. In fact, when it comes to writing poetry, the sky's
the limit on what you can use.

As you can see, there are plenty of tools a poet can use when writing a poem.
Sometimes the devices a poet applies to a poem produce such a fantastic effect that
the poet, or even other people, want to copy the style it's written in. As a result, there
are a bunch of poetic traditions that poets over the centuries have used repeatedly.
Find out more about these on the next page.

SHAKESPEARE AND IAMBIC PENTAMETER

If you've ever read a play by William Shakespeare, you may have noticed that
he likes to use iambic pentameter a lot. But he didn't write his entire plays in
that meter. Instead, he reserved iambic pentameter for important scenes and
important people. Many of the heroes of his plays spoke in iambic pentameter,
and many of the critical turning points featured speeches in meter.

Poetry Terms and Poetic Traditions

With all of the different tools that poets can use to construct a poem, it's not
surprising that poets sometimes like to recreate the structures and themes of other
poems.

There are many existing structures and themes to choose from. These structures
have rules, such as the number of lines in the poem, the type of meter that is used,
 the rhyme scheme needed or the subject of the poem. Some of the most popular
include:

A sonnet is fourteen lines long and has a specific rhyme scheme. Two of the
most popular sonnet types are the Petrarchan sonnet (such as "1492" by Emma
Lazarus) and the Shakespearean sonnet (such as "Altruism" by Molly Peacock),
which each have slightly different rhyme schemes.

A ballad is usually written in stanzas of four lines each and has a meter that
alternates between iambic tetrameter (four feet) and iambic trimeter (three feet). A
famous example of a traditional ballad is Robert Burns' poem "A Red, Red Rose."

A haiku is structured based on the number of syllables in each line. A

traditional haiku is three lines long, has five syllables in the first line, seven
syllables in the second line and five syllables in the third line. A fun example of a
haiku is "If Not for the Cat" by Jack Prelutsky.

A sestina is unusual because instead of a rhyme scheme, it repeats words.

It's broken up into several stanzas, each with six lines. The six words that end
each line in the first stanza are then repeated as end-words in every other stanza
in a prescribed order. Take a look at how John Ashbery makes the repeated words
flow in "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape."

A villanelle is made up of only two end-rhyme sounds that are repeated

throughout the poem. To make things more complicated, the first and third lines of
the poem are repeated in a specific pattern all through the poem. A great example
of a villanelle is Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."

An ode is a poem written to celebrate a person or thing, such as the poem

"The Snail," by Richard Lovelace.

An elegy is written for or about someone who has died, such as "An Elegy
for Five Old Ladies" by Thomas James Merton.

An epigram, is a poem that is meant to be funny or satirical. See if you can

catch the punch line in Stephen Crane's "A Man Said to the Universe."

An aubade is a poem about the arrival of the morning. It's usually a love
poem expressing disappointment that an evening rendezvous has ended, such as
Schuyler van Rensselaer's "Under Two Windows."
 An epistle is typically a poem addressed to someone the poet is close to,
though many are written as open letters to people the poet may or may not know,
such as "Dear Mr. Fanelli" by Charles Bernstein.

Of course, there are many other poetic structures and forms that a poet can follow, if
he or she chooses, but these are just a few.

So where did all of these styles and forms and structures and devices come from?
Well, they've developed over many centuries. Let's look now at the poets who gave
us these tools and how different movements in poetry over the years have both
brought rules to poetry and taken them away.

The Evolution of Poetry

A good place to start when looking back at how poetry has evolved over time is with
epic poetry. Most of the earliest known poetry was a form of epic poetry, some of
which dates back centuries before humans began writing down their stories. One of
the earliest poetic works, the "Epic of Gilgamesh," dates back to around 2000 B.C.,
when it was part of the oral tradition of the Sumerians. Researchers think that this
suggests that poetry and poetic styling was originally developed to help storytellers,
who often acted as historians, memorize their stories more easily. As a written text,
the epic poem about King Gilgamesh dates back to around 1000 B.C.

The ancient Greeks and Romans, between about 1200 B.C. and A.D. 455, were also
known for their great epic poetry. Two of the most famous Greek poets were Homer,
who wrote the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," and Hesiod, who wrote "Works and Days."
The ancient Greeks used poetry in music and theater, and loved to write about their
gods and the heroic deeds of great people.

By medieval times -- about 455 to 1485 -- poets began to play with both the subject
matter and language of their poems. Some medieval poets, like Geoffrey Chaucer,
even experimented with writing in the language of the common people, known
as vernacular. Before that, most scholarly and artistic works were written in Latin.

During the Renaissance period (1485-1660), poets got even more creative. They
developed new structures and forms of meter. Playwrights like William Shakespeare
and Thomas Marlowe incorporated poetry in their plays, in what is known as verse
drama. Structures and styles, as well as adding layers of meaning to poems,
became very popular.
During the Enlightenment period (1660-1790), there was a big interest in returning to
the styles of the classical Greeks. There was a lot of emphasis on formal styles and
discipline in writing during this time.

During the Romantic period (1790-1830), on the other hand, there was a big
departure from the methods of poets during the Enlightenment. The Romantics were
all about finding new ways to express themselves. Romantic writers focused on
individuality and nature, and valued creativity over logic. Poets, like Alexander Pope
and Jonathan Swift, explored new forms and themes during this time. In the United
States, new poetic styles emerged out of the transcendentalist movement.
Transcendentalists wanted to break away from the established institutions of society.
Like the Romantic writers in England, they focused on creativity, nature and
individuality.

During the Victorian period (1832-1901), writers continued to break away from the
established forms and structures that had been developing during the previous
literary periods. Poets like Walt Whitman began writing in free verse, or completely
without meter.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been many changes to the way
poetry is written and read. Read on to find out more.

IMAGERY: GETTING ALL FIVE SENSES INVOLVED

Since poetry is all about creating an experience for the reader, it's not
surprising that poets like to use a lot of imagery -- language or other devices
that help create a sensory experience. In addition to the visual and auditory
imagery that we've discussed in this article, there is also olfactory
imagery (giving a sense of how something smells), gustatory imagery (how
something tastes) and tactile imagery (how something feels).

Poetry in the 20th Century and Today

By the beginning of the 20th century, poetry had come a long way. Some poets loved
using prescribed structures and forms, while others rejected these ideas completely
and tried to do their own thing.

The early 20th century saw a lot of push against formal structure and style. The
modernist movement of the early 1900s was in a way fighting back against the idea
that poetry should be elegant and beautiful. Poems became shorter and more
concise -- a much simpler, less ornate style was preferred. Some famous modernist
poets include W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost and W.H. Auden.
 After about 1945, the postmodern movement brought more abstract and
experimental styles to poetry. Text could be fragmented and sometimes very
obscure. From the postmodern movement came the beat poets, such as Allen
Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, who rebelled against mainstream society in their
themes and styles. From the beat movement emerged a style known as spoken
word, which is a type of poetry that is both performed and makes some kind of a
statement (typically something political).

Today, you can find poets and poetry of all sorts. While poetry may not be as much a
part of the mainstream as it had been in previous generations, it's certainly not a lost
art form if you know where to look. Many bars, cafs and schools still host poetry
readings where experienced or novice poets can share their work with others.

One great way to hear modern poets today is to attend a poetry slam, which is a
competition where poets battle against one another and are judged on their poem
performances. Some poetry slams use an elimination system and a series of
elimination rounds through which poets must progress.

Some people also look at music as a form of poetry. Musicians like Bob Dylan are
well known for the poetic qualities of the lyrics they write. Rap music also is known to
follow many of the structures, meters and rhyme schemes that are associated with
poetry.

For more information about types of poetry, the history of poetry and the influence of
poetry today, peruse the links on the next page.

PERFORMANCE POETRY

Another type of poetry that became popular during the 20th century
is performance poetry. This type of poetry uses a combination of spoken
poetry and movement by the poet. Sometimes the poet is manipulating or
moving an object around. Together, the words and the movement become a
performance.

Sources

Adams, Stephen. "Poetic Designs: An Introduction to Meter, Verse Forms,

and Figures of Speech." Broadview Press. 1997.

Beye, Charles Rowan. "Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil : with
a chapter on the Gilgamesh poem." Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. 2006.

Ciuraru, Carmela. "Beat Poets." Knopf. 2002.

 DiYanni, Robert. "Glossary of Poetic Terms." McGraw-Hill. (April 15,
2010).http://highered.mcgraw-
hill.com/sites/0072405228/student_view0/poetic_glossary.html

Drury, John. "The Poetry Dictionary, Second Edition." FW Publications. 2006.

Goody, Jack. "The Interface Between the Written and the Oral." University of
Cambridge. 1993.

Magnus, Maurice. "Introduction to Poetry." Biblio Bazaar. 2008.

Meyer, Michael. "The Bedford Introduction to Literature." Bedford/St.

Martin's. 2005.

Myers, Jack Elliot and Don C. Wukasch. "Dictionary of Poetic Terms."

University of North Texas Press. 2003.

"Poetry" (2010). Encyclopdia Britannica. 2010. (April 16, 2010)

http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9110446

Poetry Foundation. "Glossary Terms." Poetryfoundation.org. (April 15,

2010).http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-terms.html

Smith, Marc Kelly and Joe Kraynak. "Take the Mic: The Art of Performance
Poetry, Slam, and the Spoken Word." Sourcebooks MediaFusion. 2009.

Strachan, John and Richard Terry. "Poetry: An Introduction." New York

University Press. 2000