Augsburg Academy Parent's Pages | Literature - Genres
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Poetry and Verse

 

What is Poetry?  Who knows?

Not the rose, but the scent of the rose;

Not the sky, but the light in the sky;

Not the fly, but the gleam of the fly;

Not the sea; but the sound of the sea;

Not myself, but what makes me

See, hear, and feels something that prose

Cannot and what it is, who knows?

                       ~Eleanor Farjeon

 

Poetry is a combination of rich meaning with sounds of language arranged in an interesting form.  Words are chosen carefully for word play, sensory images (see, smell, hear, taste, touch), to express feelings, sound combinations, rhythm, and rhyme.

 

Narrative Poetry tells a story.

 

Lyric Poetry is a "songlike" statement about a mood or a feeling.

  • All the Pretty Little Horses ~a traditional lullaby

 

Free Verse is usually unrhymed verse with an irregular pattern or visible metrical pattern.

 

Haiku is a Japanese type of poetry that usually invokes an emotion or feeling about nature.  It is written in three lines with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third.

  • Check out Wind in My Hand: The Story of Issa, Japanese Haiky Poet by Hanako Fukuda

 

Cinquain is a poem with five unrhymed lines.  Line 1: one word, the title usually a noun.  Line 2: two words that describe the title.  Line 3: three words that show action.  Line 4: four words that show feeling or emotion. 

Line 5: one word, a synonym for the title.

 

 

 

POETRY & VERSE: PAGE 2

Intro to Genres
Animal Tales
Biography
Historic Fiction
Poetry and Verse
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