Poetry Please

Poetry Please

In the world of mules
There are no rules.
Ogden Nash

Couplet

• Two lines of poetry that goes together
• Usually rhymes
• Complete thought

Kitchen crickets make a din,
sending taunts to chilly kin,
"You're outside but we got in."
-Joan Bransfield Graham

Tercet

• A couplet with a third line
• With the same end rhyme
• Sometimes called a triplet

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
-William Blake

Quatrain

• Most common in English poetry
• Made of 4 lines
• Follows an abab or abba rhyme
• Doesn't have to rhyme

In the rains of spring
An umbrella and raincoat
Pass by conversing.
"Spring Rain" by Buson

In the rains of spring
An umbrella and raincoat
Pass by conversing.
"Spring Rain" by Buson

Haiku

• Japan 800 years ago
• 3 unrhymed lines
• 17 syllables 5-7-5
• Describes a scene in nature

That famous Mona Lisa
Whose smile has been a teaser
Will never tell this world we're in
What's behind that fabled grin.

Clerihew

• Made up of 2 couplets
• 4 lines of poetry
• 2nd line must rhyme with first
• First line always name of celebrity

Just wiggling my toes
in my brand new shoes
Guess I've got a case of the back-to-school blues

Shiny new notebook
with nothing inside it
Feeling kind of scared-
Trying to hide it.

What's waiting for me
behind a classroom door?
A brand new teacher
I've never seen before!

Maybe she's a good one.
Maybe she's bad news.
I'm just a-wiggling,
just a-jiggling-
got those back-to-school blues.

Blues Poem

• A blues song without the music
• From Africa before Civil War
• Slaves sang "field hollers"
• Three-line stanzas turn to six-line stanzas

Cat Poem

Untitled Slide