Elements of a poem
I am sure all of you have seen or read a poem at one or other time? If you think you have not, think of a song you like. Many songs are written in the form of a poem before they put music to it.
But what is the difference between a poem and a story/prose?
We looked at the different elements that make up a story and today we will look at a few elements of a poem
- structure
- rhyme
- imagery
Structure
A poem consists of a title, the words, lines and verses. Please note that there is a difference between a line and a sentence. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, so a verse (which is like a paragraph in a story) can consist of 4 lines, but only one sentence.
The person that writes the poem (the poet) is not always the person 'talking' in the poem which we call the speaker.
A poem can also have some punctuation marks, but the use of this will depend on the poet and the rhythm he wants to create.
For enrichment you can watch the slideshow on http://slideplayer.com/slide/11572441/
Rhyme
The poet uses sounds to give the poem a unity and also to make to meaning of the poem easier to understand. If you have words that have that have the same sound, we say they rhyme. This is usually found at the end of each line but there are different types of rhyme.
For enrichment: Have a look at the different types of rhyme. Find the meaning of each and explain it in your own words and also give an example of each type of rhyme
A rhyme scheme will depend on what the different words are at the end of each line and you will label them to see what type of rhyme is used.
For enrichment find any poem of your choice and determine the rhyme scheme present.
Imagery
The poet uses different techniques and words to create and images that you can 'see' when reading the poem. The ones that are mostly used are
- similes and metaphors - we have done this before, but if you cannot remember what the difference between it is, watch the video
- personification - this is when a human attribute is given to a non- living thing like for instance 'The sun kisses my cheeks' - the Sun cannot 'kiss' but this human attribute is linked to it.
- onomatopoeia - If you use a specific word to describe the sound that is made by that object like for instance 'The snake hisses' or 'The car crashed into the other cars'
For enrichment on this topic you can read more on https://medium.com/@rainbowhowl/the-five-most-important-elements-of-poetry-9d776e5b5928
