Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hello, and welcome to the much anticipated Poetry unit. This is a brief introduction
to what poetry is, some types of poetry, and a few elements of poetry. As the unit continues,
we will delve deeper into the types and elements of poetry. But for the moment, we are going
to focus on some basics.
What is poetry? Take a moment to brainstorm what it is that you think of when you think
of poetry.
There are many definitions of poetry and this slide only provides a few. Very basically,
poetry is a form of writing where the style of writing is just as important, sometimes
more so, than the actual content.
There are a variety of types of poetry, some that will be very familiar to many of you,
such as song, and others that you may not have heard of before, such as slam poetry.
A song is a poem that is meant to be sung. On this slide there is a link to an example
to a song.
Slam and spoken word are very interesting types of poetry. These types are meant to
be spoken aloud as a performance, and the performance piece is as critical as the words.
Here are some links to interesting slam and spoken word performances.
There are many elements that come together to create poetry, but some of the ones we
will be focusing on are rhyme, stanzas, couplets, mood, genre, and tone.
Along with structural elements, figurative language is an integral piece to effective
poetry. Figurative language works to bring the poem alive for the reader by aiding in
visualization and understanding.
There are many types of figurative language that we have studied in previous units. However,
to jog your memory, some common ones used in poetry are simile, metaphor, personification,
symbolism, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and repetition.