Elements of Poetry And Description of Quality Characteristics

Elements of Poetry

POETRY- has an overall central theme or idea within each poem.

Images

The mental pictures the poet creates through language

Diction

The selection of specific words

Form

The arrangement of words, lines, verses, rhymes, and other features.

Cadence

A rhythmic change in the inflection of sounds from words being spoken. Sometimes referred to the flow of words.

Couplet

Two lines of verse that rhyme at the end and are thought as one unit

Meter 

A rhythm that continuously repeats a single basic pattern.

Rhyme

Words that end with similar sounds. Usually at the end of a line of the poem.

Rhyming

Two lines of a poem together with the same rhythm

Rhythm

A pattern created with sounds: hard - soft, long - short, bouncy, quiet - loud, weak - strong .

Stanza

A part of a poem with similar rhythm and rhyme that will usually repeat later in the poem.

Verse

A line of a poem, or a group of lines within a long poem.

Quality Characterisics  

• Imaginative
• Creative
• Descriptive and vivid language that often has an economical or condensed use of words chosen for their sound and meaning
• Meaning is enhanced by recalling memories of related experiences in the reader or listener
• Provokes thought
• Causes an emotional response: laughter, happy, sad …
• Uses figurative language (personification, similies, methaphors...)
• Imagery where the reader/listener creates vivid mental images
• Often has rhythm and rhyme
• Often includes words and phrases that have a pattern made with rhythm and rhyme.
• Story in verse
• Can have physical and grammatical arrangement of words usually enhance the reader's overall experience

Questions to ask to evaluate the quality of poetry

• Does it have figurative language and imagery?
• Does it create images? (pictures, sounds, smells, tastes, touching sensations)
• Is what the author says or doesn’t say helpful in creating imagery?
• Does it move from the familiar to the unfamiliar or unfamiliar to familiar in a manner that enlightens and/or amazes?
• Is it understandable? (literally, interpretively, and emotionally) Alone or with help?
• Does it appeal to me? To who else would it appeal?
• Does the poem touch people emotionally?
• Are words combined in a mixture that communicates both a literal and suggested meaning.
• Not so precise as to limit the imagination or so suggestive as to not communicate? (denotation and connotation).
• Does it get to the heart of an idea?
• Is it creative with language? Use language and words in interesting ways? (metaphors, similes, personifications).
• Are words used in a highly powerful manner? Is there a lot of zap with few words?
• Is it a language of simplicity?
• Does it sing to you? [sounds (alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia), verse, rhythm, patterns, beat (words, phrases), rhyme (end of line, inline, and/or link rhyme)
• Does it include ideas that people can use?

Children like to write poetry because they

• feel there are no limitations
• can be creative without taking risks
• Don’t need to worry about conventions (punctuation, complete sentences).

Children might not like to write poetry because they

• don't like to struggle with word choices
• don't like the struggle with a desire to be original
• don't want to risk creating something someone might not like
• don't have strategies to help be creative
• struggle with words (spelling, vocabulary, small repertoire of words)
• desire to have it rhyme, have rhythm,and/or a melody