1.

Example of Ode

America
From Selected Poems by Robert Creeley. Copyright 1991 by The Regents of the
University of California. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Originally
published in Pieces (1969).

by Robert Creeley (1926 2005)

America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.
Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world
you thought of first but do not
own, or keep like a convenience.
People are your own word, you
invented that locus and term.
Here, you said and say, is
where we are. Give back
what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you to be.

2. Example of Elegy
Theodore Roethke (19081963)

Elegy for Jane

1953
My Student, Thrown by a Horse
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing;
And the mold sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.
Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw;
Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiny shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.
If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.

10

15

20

3. Example of Petrachan Sonnet

Grief

Published in 1844
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man,
express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

A
B
B
A
A
B
B
A
C
D
E
D
C
E

Example of Shakespearean sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
and often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

From Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G

Element of Poetry
1. Denotation and Connotation
Denotation : Meaning defined in a dictionary. (Kennedy: 455)
Connotation : Overtones or suggestions of additional meaning that it gains from all
the contexts in which we have met it in the past. (Kennedy: 455)
The process of analyzing denotation and connotation consists of:
1 Finding a key word (words) or phrases in each stanza;
2 Checking the denotative meaning from a dictionary (choose the definition that is
close to the context where the word appears);
3 Finding the connotative meaning;
4 Finding other words in the poems with similar connotations to the key words;
5 Interpret the key words or phrases based on their contexts/lines in the stanza
where they appear. (Kennedy: 458)

2. Imagery
Imagery is related to a word or sequence of words that refers to any sensory
experience.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Visual
Auditory
Tactile
Olfactory
Gustatory
Kinesthetic
Abstract

:
:
:
:
:
:

: sight
sound
touch
smell
taste
movement
idea (Kennedy: 465)

3. Figurative language
Language uses figures of speech or figurative language, for example, metaphor,
simile, alliteration, etc. Figurative language must be distinguished from the literal
language. He hared down the street or He ran like a hare down the street are
figurative (metaphor and simile respectively). He ran very quickly down the street is
literal. (Cuddon, 1979, 171)
A. Simile is the rhetorical term used to designate the most elementary form of
resemblances: most similes are introduced by "like" or "as." These comparisons are
usually between dissimilar situations or objects that have something in common, such
as Robert Burns, "My love is like a red, red rose." (Abrams: 119)
B. A metaphor leaves out "like" or "as" and implies a direct comparison between objects
or situations. "All flesh is grass." (Meyer: 415)

C. Synecdoche is a kind of metaphor in which a part of something is used to signify the

whole, as when a gossip is called a wagging tongue, or when ten ships are called
ten sails. Sometimes synecdoche refers to the whole being used to signify the part,
as in the phrase Boston won the baseball game. Clearly, the entire city of Boston did
not participate in the game; the whole of Boston is being used to signify the
individuals who played and won the game. (Meyer: 416)
D. Metonymy is similar to synecdoche; it's a form of metaphor allowing an object closely
associated (but unattached) with an object or situation to stand for the thing itself. In
this way, we speak of the silver screen to mean motion pictures, the crown to
stand for the king, the White House to stand for the activities of the president.
(Meyer: 417)
E. A symbol is like a simile or metaphor with the first term left out. "My love is like a red,
red rose" is a simile. If, through persistent identification of the rose with the beloved
woman, we may come to associate the rose with her and her particular virtues. At this
point, the rose would become a symbol.
F. Apostrophe, the poet animates the inanimate and asks it to listenspeaks directly to
an immediate god or to the revivified dead. For instance, John Donne commands, "Oh,
Death, be not proud." King Lear proclaims, "Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, /
More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child / Than the sea-monster."
G. Allegory can be defined as a one to one correspondence between a series of abstract
ideas and a series of images or pictures presented in the form of a story or a narrative.
For example, Faerie Queen, a masterpiece of Edmund Spenser, is a moral and
religious allegory. The good characters of book stand for the various virtues, while the
bad characters represent vices. The Red-Cross Knight represents holiness while
Lady Una represents truth, wisdom and goodness. Her parents symbolize the human
race. The Dragon which has imprisoned them stands for evil. The mission of holiness
is to help the truth, fight evil, and thus regain its rightful place in the hearts of human
beings. The Red-Cross Knight in this poem also represents the reformed church of
England fighting against the Dragon which stands for the Papacy or the Catholic
Church.
H. Personification occurs when you treat abstractions or inanimate objects as human,
that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings (e.g., "nature wept" or "the
wind whispered many truths to me"). John Stephens The Wind: The wind stood up
and gave a shout. (Kennedy: 487)
I. Paradox occurs in a statement that at first strikes us as self-contradictory but that on
reflection makes some sense (Kennedy: 489). Paradox is a statement that initially
appears to be self-contradictory but that, on closer inspection, turns out to make
sense: The pen is mightier than the sword. In a fencing match, anyone would prefer
the sword, but if the goal is to win the hearts and minds of people, the art of
persuasion can be more compelling than swordplay. To resolve the paradox, it is
necessary to discover the sense that underlies the statement. If we see that pen and
sword are used as metonymies for writing and violence, then the paradox rings true.
(Meyer: 419)
J. Irony takes many forms. Most basically, irony is a figure of speech in which actual
intent is expressed through words that carry the opposite meaning.
o Paradox: usually a literal contradiction of terms or situations
o

Situational Irony: is inconsistency between what appears to be true and what

actually exists. The disparity of intention and result; when the result of an action
is contrary to the desired or expected effect. It is often referred to as an irony of
events. Example: A person who claims to be a vegan and avoids meat but will

eat a slice of pepperoni pizza because they are hungry. It may not make sense,
but it is an illustration of irony.
Dramatic Irony: audience has more information or greater perspective than the
characters. For example: In Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Romeo
finds Juliet in a drugged state and he thinks she is dead. He kills himself. When
Juliet wakes up she finds Romeo dead and kills herself.
o Verbal Irony: saying one thing but meaning another
Overstatement (hyperbole) adds emphasis without intending to be
literally true: The teenage boy ate everything in the house. Notice how the
speaker of Andrew Marvells To His Coy Mistress exaggerates his devotion
in the following overstatement:
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze,
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest:
That comes to 30,500 years. What is expressed here is heightened emotion,
not deception. (Meyer: 419)
Understatement (meiosis) is the opposite figure of speech, which says
less than is intended. example of understatement appears in the final line of
Randall Jarrells The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner (p. 378), when the
disembodied voice of the machine-gunner describes his death in a bomber:
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Sarcasm is verbal irony that is calculated to hurt someone by false praise.
For example:
Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears.
(Julius Caesar by Shakespeare)
Irony may be a positive or negative force. It is most valuable as a mode of perception
that assists the poet to see around and behind opposed attitudes, and to see the often
conflicting interpretations that come from our examination of life.
o

4. Rhythm and meter

In verse or prose, the movement or sense of movement communicated by the
arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables and by the duration of the syllables
is related to rhythm and meter. In verse the rhythm depends on the metrical pattern.
In verse the rhythm is regular, but in prose it may or may not be regular.
Notes:

Stressed
~
Unstressed
a. Iambic
Iambic meters can be thoughtful and recollect since they move from the uncertainty
of an unstressed syllable to the certainty of a stressed one. (Gill, 1995, 52)
e.g.

in ter

the sun

2 iamb
2 feet

b. Anapestic
Anapestic meters build up emotional tension by hurrying the reader through
unstressed syllables to the stressed one. (Gill: 53)

e.g.

~
~

in ter vene

~
in

~
a

2 anapestic
hat 2 feet

Note: Iambic and anapestic are known to be rising rhythm. (Cuddon, 575)
c. Trochaic
Trochaic meters start with a stress so it sounds assertive. (Gill, 52)
e.g.

~
en ter

want to

2 trochaic
2 feet

d. Dactylic
Dactylic meters tend to be sad, create a feeling of decline, of falling away from
certainty. (Gill, 53)
e.g.

~
~
en ter prise

~
~
co lor of

2 dactylic
2 feet

Note: Trochaic and Dactylic feet are known as falling rhythm. (Cuddon, 259)

e. Monosyllable
Stressed (Gill: 53)
e.g.

truth

monosyllable
1 foot

Note: A monosyllable that occurs between two unstressed syllables is called rocking
rhythm. (Cuddon, 576)
f.

Spondaic
Stressed (Gill: 53)
e.g.

true

blue

2 spondee
2 feet

g. Foot in Meter
1 foot : Monometer

5 feet : Pentameter

2 feet : Dimeter

6 feet : Hexameter

3 feet : Trimeter

7 feet : Heptameter

4 feet : Tetrameter

8 feet : Octameter (Kennedy, 548)

5. Sound and Rhyme

a. Sound
Alliteration is the repetition of a consonant sound. (Gill: 60)

e.g. When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush,
The alliteration /w/ and /l/ helps to create a poems distinctive tone. (Gill: 61)

Consonance describes the effect of like consonant. (Gill: 61)

e.g. Come live with me and be my love to live with someone is to share their life,
and that sharing is close to what we mean by love.
The consonance gives the satisfaction of ear and mind working together (Gill: 62)

Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound. (Gill: 62)

e.g. Such weight and thick pink bulk
Set in death seemed not just dead.
the Is in the thick pink and in sound blunt and insistent. (Gill: 62)

Onomatopoeia is the name given to the effect of sounds of words imitating miming,
the sounds of the object. (Gill: 62)
e.g. From: The Tempest, Act I, Scene II, by William Shakespeare
Hark, hark!
Bow-wow.
The watch-dogs bark!
Bow-wow.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting Chanticleer
Cry, 'cock-a-diddle-dow!
Onomatopoeia helps establish the atmosphere of the poem. (Gill: 62-63)

6. Rhyme
Rhyme ... occurs when two or more words or phrases contain an identical or similar vowelsound, usually accented, and the consonant-sounds. Excellent rhymes surprise give
pleasure by satisfying expectations. (Kennedy: 525) Rhyme creates harmony giving
emphasis to the words of a poem focus the meaning of a poem. (Gill: 67)
a. Masculine and feminine rhymes
Masculine rhyme
Masculine rhyme is a rhyme of one-syllable or final syllable. (Kennedy: 527) Masculine
rhyme often sounds settled and determined. (Gill: 67)
e.g.

bold and old

divorce, remorse

Feminine rhyme

Feminine rhyme is a rhyme of two or more syllables, with stress on a syllable other
than last. (Kennedy: 527) Feminine rhyme is fluid and musical. (Gill: 67)
e.g. leaving and weaving

b. Stanza form
Stanza form creates inward looking . Show[s] doubts and uncertainties. (Gill:
76, 81)
The quatrain
A stanza of four lines, rhymed or unrhymed. The commonest of all stanzaic forms in
European poetry, . (Cuddon, 545)
abab
e.g.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

A
B
A
B

xbyb
e.g.

Lock the door, Schoolmaster,

Keep the children in.
The river in spate at the schoolyard gate
Roars like original sin.

X
B
Y
B

aabb
e.g.

Timothy Winters comes to school

With eyes as wide as a football pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.

A
A
B
B

abba (envelope stanza)

e.g.

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

A
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
B
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
A

7. Tone
Tone the authors attitude communicate amusement, anger, affection, sorrow,
contempt. It implies the feelings of the author. (Kennedy: 74)

8. Theme
The theme of a story is whatever general idea or insight the entire story revels.
theme is the center, the moving force, the principle of unity. (Kennedy: 103, 104)

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost 18741963
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

A. E. Housman (18591936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

10

2 Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)

My Papa's Waltz

1948

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
Theodore Roethke

3 A Sick Child

1951

By Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)

The postman comes when I am still in bed.

"Postman, what do you have for me today?"
I say to him. (But really I'm in bed.)
Then he says - what shall I have him say?
"This letter says that you are president
Of - this word here; it's a republic."
Tell them I can't answer right away.
"It's your duty." No, I'd rather just be sick.
Then he tells me there are letters saying everything
That I can think of that I want for them to say.
I say, "Well, thank you very much. Good-bye."
He is ashamed, and turns and walks away.
If I can think of it, it isn't what I want.
I want . . . I want a ship from some near star
To land in the yard, and beings to come out
And think to me: "So this is where you are!
Come." Except that they won't do,
I thought of them. . . . And yet somewhere there must be
Something that's different from everything.
All that I've never thought of - think of me!

4 "Cargoes"

1902

By John Masefield (1878 - 1967)

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds
Emeralds, amethests,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke-stack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

London

1794

By William Blake (1757 - 1827)

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

Grandmother

By Ray Young Bear

1980

(1950- .)

if i were to see
her shape from a mile away
i'd know so quickly
that it would be her.
the purple scarf
and the plastic
shopping bag.
if i felt
hands on my head
i'd know that those
were the hands
warm and damp
with the smell
of roots.
if i heard
a voice
coming from
a rock
i'd know
and her words
would flow inside me
like the light
of someone
stirring ashes
from a sleeping fire
at night.

The Princess: The Splendour Falls on Castle

Walls 1850
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892)
The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.