I wish our clever young poets would remember my

homely definitions of prose and poetry: that is

prose= words in their best order; poetry= the best
words in the best order.

-Samuel Taylor
Coleridge
It is not meters, but a meter-making argument,
that makes a poem– a thought so passionate and
alive that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it
has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature
with a new thing

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so
cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I
feel physically as if the top of my head were taken
off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I
know it. Is there any other way?

-Emily Dickinson
A poem begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse,
it assumes a direction with the first line laid down,
it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a
clarification of life—not necessarily a great
clarification, such as sects and cults are founded
on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

Robert Frost
 Read a poem more that once.

 Keep a dictionary by you and use it

 Read so as to hear the sounds of the words in your mind

 Always pay attention to what the poem is saying

 Practice reading poems aloud

Denotation that is the dictionary meaning/s

Connotations are what is suggest beyond what it

expresses: its overtones of meaning. It acquires these
connotations from its past history and associations,
from the way and the circumstances in which it has
been used. Is very important in poetry, for it is one of
the means by which the poet can concentrate or enrich
meaning-say more in fewer words.
defined as the representation through language of
sense experience. Convey emotion, suggest ideas
and mentally evoke experience.

Image suggest a mental picture, something seen in

the mind’s eye—Visual imagery
Auditory imagery- represent a sound
Olfactory imagery- a smell
Gustatory imagery- a taste
Tactile imagery- touch, such as hardness, softness,
wetness, or heat and cold
Organic imagery- an internal sensation, such as
hunger, thirst, fatigue, nausea

Kinesthetic imagery- movement or tension in the

muscle or joints
language using figures of speech—is language that cannot be
taken literally ( or should not be taken literally only).

SIMILE
METAPHOR
PERSONIFICATION
SYNECDOCHE
METONYMY
SYMBOLISM– (object, person, situation, or action) means more
than what it is). Read both literally and metaphorically
ALLEGORY- a narrative or descriptive having a second
meaning beneath the surface one. An extended metaphor and
sometimes as a series of related comparisons rather than one
comparison drawn-out. Although the surface story or
description may have its own interest, the author’s major
interest is in ulterior meaning.
the experience it expresses---nothing less
the writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward the
subject, the reader, or herself or himself.
the emotional coloring, or the emotional meaning
of the work and is an extremely important part of
the full meaning.
In spoken language it is indicated by the inflections
of the speaker’s voice.
The product of all the elements in a poem
the person/ imaginary person expresses ideas and
feelings from the poet’s own.

Sometimes a poet but many times not.

Sometimes a specific time and place

Answers, “ What is happening?” “Where?” “Why”

Sonnet, one of the most persistent verse forms, originated in the
Middle Ages as a prominent form in Italian and French poetry

It dominated English poetry in the late sixteenth and early

seventeenth centuries and revived today

contains fourteen lines long and usually written in iambic

pentameter

always printed in single stanza

has considerable leeway of rhyme scheme

is divided usually between eight lines called the
octave, using two rhymes arranged abbaabba,
and six lines called sestet, using any
arrangement of either two or three rhymes:
cdcdcd and cdecde are common patterns

the division between octave and sestet in the

Italian sonnet (indicated by the rhyme scheme
and sometimes marked off in printing by a
space) usually corresppponds to a division of
thought.
the octve may, for instnace, present a situation
and the sestet a comment, or the octave an idea
and sistet an example, or the octave a question
and the sestet an answer.
invented by the English poet Surrey and made
famous by Shakespeare

consists of three quatrains and a concluding

copuplet, rhyming abab, cdcd, efef, gg

The units marked off by the rhymes and the

development of the thought often correspond

the three quatrains, for instance, may present

three example and the couplet a conclusion, or
the quatrains three metaphorical statements of
one idea and the couplet an application
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Here from the start, from our first of days, look:
I have carved our lives in secret on this stick
of mountain mahogany the length of your arms
outstretched, the wood clear red, so hard and
rare.
It is time to touch and handle what we know we
share.
Near the butt, this intricate notch where the
grains
converge and join: it is our wedding.
I can read it through with a thumb and tell you
now
who danced, who made up the songs, who
meant us joy.
These little arrowheads along the grain,
they are the births of our children. See,
they make a kind of design with these heavy
crosses,
the deaths of our parents, the loss of
friends.
Over it all, as it goes, of course, I
have chiseled Events, History--random
hashmarks cut against the swirling grain.
See, here is the Year the World Went Wrong,
we thought, and here the days the Great
Men fell.
The lengthening runes of our lives run
through it all.
See, our tally stick is whittled nearly end to
end;
delicate as scrimshaw, it would not bear you
up.
Regrets have polished it, hand over hand.
Yet, let us take it up, and as our fingers
like children leading on a trail cry back
our unforgotten wonders, sign after sign,
we will talk softly as of ordinary matters,
and in one another's blameless eyes go
blind.
The first two poem talk about the sincerity and
depth of love between two people. Each is
written as if it were spoken by one person to his
or her beloved, and each is definite and
powerful about the intensity and quality of love;
but the poems work in quite different ways---
first one asserting the strength and depth of
love, the second implying intense feeling by
reminiscing about earlier events in the
relationship between the two people.
“How do I love thee?” is direct but fairly abstract. It list
several ways in which the poet feels love and connects
them to some noble ideas of higher obligations-to justice,
(line7), for example, and to spiritual aspiration (lines2-4).
It suggest a wide range of things that love can mean and
notices a variety of emotions. It is ardent statement of
feeling and asserts a permanence that will extend even
beyond death. It contains admirable thoughts and
memorable phrases that many lovers would like to hear
said to themselves. What it does not do is say very much
about what the relationship between the two lovers is like
on an everyday basis, what experiences they have had
together, what distinguishes their relationship from that
of other devoted or ideal lovers. Its appeal is to our
general sense of what love is like and how intense
feelings can be; it does not offer details.
“The tally stick” is ,much more concrete. The
whole poem concentrates on a single object that
like “ How do I love thee?”, “counts” or “tallies”
the way in which this couple love another. This
stick stands for their love and becomes a kind
of physical reminder of it; its natural features
(line 6, 10, and 12) and the marks carved on it
(lines 15-16, 20-21) indicate events in the
story of the relationship.
The stick symbolizes their love---serves the
lovers as marker and reminder of some specific
details of their love. It is a special kind of
reminder because its language is secret (line 2),
something they can share privately.
The poet interprets the particular features of the
stick as standing for particular events—their
wedding and the births of their children, for
example—and carves marks into it as reminders of
other events (line 15ff.). The stick itself becomes a
very personal object, and in the last stanza of the
poem it is as if we watch the lovers touching the
stick together and reminiscing over it, gradually
dissolving into their emotions and each other as
they recall the “unforgotten wonders” (line 25) of
their lives together.
Both “How do I love the?” and “The tally stick” are
written as if they were addressed to the partner in
the love relationship, and both talk directly about
the intensity of the love.
I want to write you
a love poem as headlong
as our creek
after thaw
when we stand
on its dangerous
banks and watch it carry
with it every twig
every dry leaf and branch
in its path
every scruple
when we see it
so swollen
with runoff
that even as we watch
we must grab
each other
and step back
we must grab each
other or
get our shoes
soaked we must
grab each other
The directness and simplicity of this poem suggest
how the art and craft poems work. The poem
expresses the desire to write a love poem even as
the love itself begins to proceed; the desire and the
resultant poem exist side by side, and in reading the
poem one seems to watch and hears the poet’s
creative process at work in developing appropriate
metaphors and means of expression. The poem
must be “headlong” (line 2), to match the power of a
love that needs to be compared to the irresistible
forces of nature. The poem should, like the love it
expresses and the swollen creek it describes, sweep
everything along, and it should represent (and
reproduce) the sense of watching that the lovers
have when they observe natural process at work. The
poem, like the action it represents, has to suggest to
readers the kind of desire that grabbing each other
means to the lovers.
The lovers in the poem seem, at least to themselves,
to own the world they observe, but in fact they
controlled by it. The creek on whose banks they
stand is “our creek” (line 3), but what they observe
as they watch its rising currents requires them
(“must, lines 16, 19, 22) to “grab each other” over
and over again. It is as if their love is part of nature
itself, which subjects them to forces larger than
themselves. Everything---twigs, leaves, branches,
scruple----is carried along by the powerful currents
after the “thaw” (line 4), and the poem replicates the
repeated action of the lovers as if powered along by
what they see. But the poem (and their love) admits
dangers too; it is the fact of dangers that propels the
lovers to each other.
the poem replicates the repeated action of the
lovers as if to power along observant readers
just as the lovers are powered along by what
they see . But the poem(and their love)admits
dangers ,too ; it is the fact of danger that
propels the lovers to each other. The poem
suggests that love provides a kind of haven but,
the haven hardly involves passivity or peace;
instead, that provides a kind of grabbing that’s
means activity and boldness and deep passion.
 Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the
public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.


 He was my North, my South, my East and
West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I
was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out

every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the
wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any
good.
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
 Archaic Diction
 The Anonymous Voice
 Appalling Abstract
 Unintentional Humor
 Jarring Diction
 For the Sake of Rhyme
 The Clash of Poetic Elements
 Writing Past the Poem
 Treasure Burying
 Saying too Much
 The False Start
 Punch-line Endings
 Ineffective Line Break
 Out of order
 Derivative Drivel
Diction- writer’s choice of words

The problem with the language that is so

remote from common usage is that it sounds
insincere. Paradoxically, the writer probably
chose it because it sounded “poetic”. Though
the writer apparently has technical skills, that
skill is being undermined by bad habits of
diction
 The Thief

The warm, the fevered pillows pushed aside,

I lay amidst the ever-present Night
While his sweet handmaid, his euphoric bride
Beamed through glazed panels with a pallid light.
Mid hoary trees her shadows could be seen
In contrast to that phosphorescent sheen.
I sighed, unshackled from my torpid shrouds,
And sleep’s last fetters from the covers fell
Away. As I peered out, a sable cloud
Swirled round the orb-as if its soul to quell.
Who else but Luna would steal o’er my sill
While I, bedazzled, could no more lay still?
 A characteristic of much greeting verse
 A writing that sounds like it could be by
almost anyone and is therefore unconvincing
 The absence of particular, the yearning of
vastness
 Offers a generalized sentiment without one
concrete image.
 It can be sent by anyone to anyone, whoever
receives it will not feel special
 Giving

I give to you a part of me

I give to you my heart
I’ll try to ask for nothing more
Than friends that never part
I’ll give to you all my life
I give because I care
I give because a friend like you
Is found so very rare
 Is some ways like greeting card verse, but
usually more urgent. However, the urgency is
never convincing because the language
makes no impact, no connection with felt
experience
 Intellectually clear, the formulations below do
not begin to take on the concern for language
that is poetry’s province
 If nurtured,
The fantasy thrives.
If neglected,
The untested dream dies,
The imagination atrophies,
The soul perishes.

It’s the same with us.

Barren years
Interlaced with frenzied passion,
Have sterilized our union,
Distorted our dreams,
Crushed our raison d’etre…
 The used of diction that is found-and
belongs-in horror films and comic books

 Diction that can misfire, especially cliché-

ridden words and phrases in an attempt to
give concrete force to an emotion
 Inside out

I feel violence within,

churning.
A knife sits sharp and ready,
burning.
Deep red, warm gushing and
gurgling.
The brook of life silently
running,
Over sharp rocks, soft moss
glowing
To the cold ocean of death,
ending.
 The of not paying enough attention to
connotation and to words in context
 Mixes diction in unattractive ways
 Land Lord Dharma
I kneel
head erect
shoulders straight
hands on thighs
the warrior’s posture

he enters in long white silk robes

in long white silk robes
he looks so elegant—
from the warrior’s shrine
he hands me implements (blessings)
for my new quarters
 first a flashing sword
with a slightly curved tip
to cut neurosis (masks)
and allow gentleness

then comes the black pen

with a rolled white scroll
tied with a ribbon…
 Conjured up the ‘braided ballad’
 Exhilarating solving the puzzle of an intricate
rhyme scheme
 Results, lack of poetic density, inappropriate
diction, and unnatural (unidiomatic) word
order
 A broad category covering scores of
discordant permutations of image, mood,
sense, rhythm, sound, and other poetic
ingredients
They glide like spirits by the water
Open to the tepid twilight
Bearing alabaster candles:
Rush-like figures clad in white
Thin and spectral, like the Shee-folk
With their dripping, glowing wands
 Telling mode of rendering
 Breaking the logic of figurative expression
 Employs predictable rhymes and overuses
repetition and sings out of vivid and evocative
stanza
 Not pruning out of unnecessary details or
trimming of words to the most essentials.

 Suggestion is to “travel a light,” that means to

write with brevity
 Introductions that no longer work when the
act of writing has taken the writer in
unexpected directions
 An attempt to rescue weak or trivial poems by
clever resolution. This can reach to too much
or too little
 A flat execution because of the “telling”
rather than “showing”
 Cutting of important words without the
reason of emphasis can result in obscuring
key images and relationships between images
and ideas.
 Lines and stanza that are not in proper order
can cause a poem to lack cohesiveness and
focus
 Consciously or unconsciously imitating the
worst habits of a poet whom one idolize
 The result poems are simply clumsy
posturing: piles of mannerisms
 The worse the model, the worse the imitation
is like to be