Poetry Review

Poetry is a literary form characterized by a strong sense of rhythm and meter and an emphasis on the interaction between sound and sense. Poetry is highly ‘compressed’ writing, often using figurative language which allows the reader to ‘unpack’ the poem's meaning for itself. This leads to people interpreting poems differently in different times and places, which is part of the fascination of the medium. Poetry does not have to follow the strict grammatical rules of prose (ordinary written language) – although the writer may choose to do so – and often uses richer language to appeal to the reader's senses and intellect. The use of comparative language and elevated or uncommon word choice or diction contributes to poetry's ability to make a familiar world seem strange and new again.

Rhythm and meter are the building blocks of poetry.

Rhythm is the pattern of sound created by the varying length and emphasis given to different syllables. The rise and fall (the beat) of spoken language is called its cadence.

Meter is the rhythmic pattern created in a line of verse. There are four basic kinds of meter:

*Accentual (strong-stress) meter: The number of stressed syllables in a line is fixed, but the number of total syllables is not.

Syllabic meter: The number of total syllables in a line is fixed, but the number of stressed syllables is not. This kind of meter is relatively rare in English poetry.

*Accentual-syllabic meter: Both the number of stressed syllables and the number of total syllables is fixed. Accentual-syllabic meter has been the most common kind of meter in English poetry.

Quantitative meter: The duration of sound of each syllable, rather than its stress, determines the meter. Quantitative meter is common in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Arabic but not in English.

Free verse: Verse that does not conform to any fixed meter or rhyme scheme. Free verse is not, however, loose or unrestricted: its rules of composition are as strict and difficult as traditional verse, for they rely on less evident rhythmic patterns to give the poem shape.

Poetry generally is divided into lines of verse. A grouping of lines, equivalent to a paragraph in prose, is called a stanza. On the printed page, line breaks normally are used to separate stanzas from one another.

One common way of creating a sense of musicality between lines of verse is to make them rhyme.

End rhyme: A rhyme that comes at the end of a line of verse. Most rhyming poetry uses end rhymes.

Internal rhyme: A rhyme between two or more words within a single line of verse

Perfect rhyme: An exact match of sounds in a rhyme.

Slant rhyme: An imperfect rhyme, also called oblique rhyme or off rhyme, in which the sounds are similar but not exactly the same, as between “port” and “heart.” Modern poets often use slant rhyme as a subtler alternative to perfect rhyme.

Rhyme Schemes

Rhymes do not always occur between two successive lines of verse. Here are some of the most common rhyme schemes.

Couplet: Two successive rhymed lines that are equal in length.

Quatrain: A four-line stanza. The most common form of English verse, the quatrain has many variants. One of the most important is the heroic quatrain, written in iambic pentameter with an ABAB rhyme scheme.

Tercet: A grouping of three lines, often bearing a single rhyme.

Punctuation: Like syllable stresses and rhyme, punctuation marks influence the musicality of a line of poetry.

When there is a break at the end of a line denoted by a comma, period, semicolon, or other punctuation mark, that line is end-stopped.

In enjambment, a sentence or clause runs onto the next line without a break. Enjambment creates a sense of suspense or excitement and gives added emphasis to the word at the end of the line.

Repetition: Words, sounds, phrases, lines, or elements of syntax may repeat within a poem. Sometimes, repetition can enhance an element of meaning, but at other times it can dilute or dissipate meaning.

Refrain: A phrase or group of lines that is repeated at significant moments within a poem, usually at the end of a stanza.

Alliteration is the repetition especially of consonant sounds in words occurring in close proximity.

Assonance involves the repetition of similar vowel sounds in syllables ending with different consonant sounds, as in "roof," "tooth," and "shoot."

Consonance is the repetition of final consonant sounds with differing preceding vowel sounds: "peel," "pale," and "pole,"

Onomatopoeia is where the sounds of words suggest their meaning, such as in the words "buzz," "crackle," and "sizzle."

Euphony is where the words sound pleasant and harmonious, as in the second line of Shakespeare's sonnet, "[Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?]": "Thou art more lovely and more temperate."

Cacophony is the opposite, where the sound is harsher and more discordant and less agreeable.

Later poetry, particularly that of modernism, became more fluid and less constrained by traditional rules of structure and grammar. This means that a work need not follow a strict metrical pattern or rhyme in order to be a poem. In such ‘free’ verse, poetry becomes something reliant more upon imagery and emotive language, and odd and unexpected line breaks (enjambment), than upon alliteration, numbers of syllables, or rhymes. These poems are often said to be written in ‘open form’, while more traditional poems are said to be written in ‘fixed’ or ‘closed’ form. Rhythmic prose which is poetical in terms of its imagery and figures of speech is sometimes called ‘prose poetry’; this too is a term associated with modernism.