Activity 1

Welcome to the Introduction to Poetry on line taster course!  This is an opportunity for you to  learn in your own time, at your own pace, and in the comfort of your own home. 

In this taster you will :

• Read a selection of poems
• Look at different poetry techniques
• Develop confidence in appreciating poetry.

We hope you enjoy the course!


Don't forget when you get to the bottom of the page, click on the 'Older Posts' link to get to the next section.

Activity 1:   

Many of us read poetry at school, but few continue to read poetry for pleasure once their school days are over. 

Can you remember any poems you read as a child?  What poem or poems stick in your mind and why?   If you can’t think of any, don’t worry.

Activity 1: Answer

Answer:  I remember having to learn Sea Fever by John Masefield  (“ I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky …”). I also remember The Owl and the Pussycat  by Edward Lear, and The Tyger by William Blake.

I think they stayed in my mind for different reasons –  I liked the rhythm of all of these poems; I enjoyed the silliness of The Owl and The Pussycat, and while I couldn’t have put it clearly into words at the time, I felt the nostalgia and longing in Sea Fever.

Poetry Techniques

Very often a poem affects us – we might like it, we might feel a particular emotion  - but sometimes we don’t know why, or we can’t put it into words.

Looking at poetry techniques can help with this. If we can spot a particular technique, we can start to understand why the poet used it and what effect the poet hopes it will have on us.  

The techniques we'll look at in this taster course are: rhyme, repetition, alliteration and imagery.

Technique no. 1: Rhyme

 Rhyme:   Poems don’t have to rhyme, and many modern poems do not. However, there is a strong tradition of rhyme in poetry which goes back centuries.

Excerpt from Twelve Songs  by W. H. Auden  ( 1907 - 73)

He was my North, my South, my East and West

My working week and my Sunday rest

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

Excerpt from The Daffodils by William Wordsworth ( 1770 -1850)

 I wander'd lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils.

Excerpt from Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep      Anonymous:

Do not stand at my grave and weep 

I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

Activity 2: Television by Roald Dahl

Activity 2:  Read  Television by Roald Dahl.  What rhymes are there in the poem and how are they organised?

Television by Roald Dahl

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set!
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
But did you ever wonder  what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE BRAIN INSIDE THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!

'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
I'll answer this by asking you,
'What did the darlings used to do?
'How did they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'

THEY USED TO READ!

Books piled high beside the bed,
Books just waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something nice to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!

Answer: Activity 2

Answer: You will have noticed that the poem rhymes, for example let/set;  been/screen; drunk/junk etc.  You probably noticed that every line rhymes, and that almost all the rhymes come in pairs. This  particular rhyme formation is known as rhyming couplets.

Rhyme helps to create patterns of sound in poetry, and give poems a musical quality. Rhyme appeals to us: it  helps us to remember poems, and we can often guess or predict the rhyme –which we find satisfying. Rhyme helps readers to focus on the words – and is used here, alongside the rhythm,  to underline the humour of the poem.

Rhyming Schemes

Rhyming schemes:  Rhyming couplets is not the only rhyming scheme.  Here are two examples of  different rhyming patterns.

Read the last two verses – stanzas -  of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley: Love’s Philosophy 

See the mountains kiss high heavens

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdain’d its brother:

And the sunlight clasps the earth

And the moonbeams kiss the sea –

What are all those kisses worth

If thou kiss not me?

Here we can see that lines  1 & 3 rhyme  ( heavens /forgiven; earth/worth)  while lines 2 & 4 rhyme ( another/brother; sea /me).  If the first line is line A and the second line is line B,  the rhyming pattern can be  expressed as ABAB.

 Wendy Cope’s Bloody Men has a different rhyming scheme:

Bloody men are like bloody buses-

You wait for about a year

And as soon as one approaches your stop

Two or three others appear.

You look at them flashing their indicators,

Offering you a ride.

You’re trying to read their destinations,

You haven’t much time to decide.

If you make a mistake, there is no turning back

Jump off, and you’ll stand there and gaze

While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by,

And the minutes, the hours, the days.

Here the rhyming scheme is ABCB to reflect the fact that lines 2 & 4 rhyme, while lines 1 & 3 do not. This is a very common rhyming pattern.

The rhymes we have looked at so far are end rhymes – so called because they come at the end of a line. This is the most common form of rhyme in English poetry but we also have internal rhymes. For example,

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep

And doesn’t now where to find them

Leave them alone and they’ll come home

Wagging their tails behind them

Here you can see that the ends of line do not rhyme at all, but that rhyme occurs within a line.

Technique no. 2 - Alliteration

Technique no. 2 - Alliteration.  This is a technique where the consonant sounds of a word are repeated in a line. Consonants are the letters in the alphabet which are NOT vowels ( not A, E, I, O or U).  Here is a fragment from Tennyson ‘s The Eagle:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands

Close to the sun in lonely lands

Ring’d with the azure world he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

You can see that clasp, crag & crooked all start with the same consonant. In fact these words start with the same two consonants - C & R.   There is also alliteration in line 2 -  lonely lands and in the second stanza, line 2 - watches and walls.  

Alliteration affects us in a similar way to rhyme:  we like the repetition, there is something in the repetition which appeals. Also, alliteration helps to highlight certain words and ideas that the poet wants us to notice. For example “ He clasps the crag with crooked hands” :  the alliteration forces us to notice those words, and that helps to conjure up a clear image of the bird’s powerful talons on the rough rock.

Activity 3: The Donkey by G.K Chesteron

Activity 3:   Read the poem The Donkey by  G.K. Chesterton and make a note of examples of alliteration.

When fishes flew and forests walked

And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moment when the moon was blood,

Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry

And ears like errant wings,

The devil’s walking parody

On all four –footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth

Of ancient, crooked will

Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,

I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour,

One far fierce hour and sweet:

There was a shout about my ears

And palms before my feet.

Answer: Activity 3

Answer:  Examples of alliteration include – fishes/ flew/ forest;   moment/ moon;  four –footed; deride/dumb;  secret/ still;  fools/ for/far/ fierce.   Another example of alliteration you may have picked up is “ tattered outlaw”. While outlaw doesn’t begin with T, the sound of the T is repeated 3 times in the two words.

What effect does the alliteration have on us? 

Alliteration is about sound – so the best way to work out what effect it has is to read the poem aloud. The alliteration of the sound F in the first line is a bit awkward. If you read it aloud, you’ll find it’s not  easy to say and you have to slow down. This draws our attention to  the poem and makes us focus on the words.

In the last verse, there is repetition of that F sound again in the first two lines.  Again, I think this is to force the reader to slow down and emphasise the words. When you say the phrase  “ one far fierce hour ..”  you stress every word. The poet uses that to highlight the intense emotion of  pride the donkey felt at carrying Christ into Jerusalem.

Technique no. 3 - Repetition

Technique no. 3 – Repetition.   Many poems use repeated words and phrases. Here is an extract from  Leisure by William Henry Davies

What is this life, if full of care

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see when woods we pass

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see in broad daylight

Streams full of stars like skies at night.

A poor life this if, full of care

We have no time to stand and stare.

What purpose does this repetition have? Firstly, it gives a shape to the poem: we can see that the first and last verses are almost identical, and that each of the middle stanzas begin with the same phrase “ No time to ..”.  

The insistent repetition of “no time”, “stand”, “stare” stresses the point the poet wants to make -that we have no time to stand and stare.  The last verse echoes the first verse: it’s almost repetition, but not quite. Starting and ending poems with the same lines is a common technique: the repetition signals to the reader that they have come full circle, and are back at the beginning (and therefore, paradoxically, at the end).

You can see in this poem that it has examples of all the techniques we have looked at so far: the poem is in the form of rhyming couplets (" No time to see when woods we pass/ where squirrels hide their nuts in grass");  it has alliteration (“ stand and stare”;  “ beneath the boughs” “;  “ streams full of stars").   And it has repetition.

Activity 4: Sea Fever by John Masefield

Activity 4:  Read the poem Sea Fever by John Masefield. 

a) Find examples of rhyme patterns, alliteration & repetition in the poem

b) what effect do these techniques have on you?  Why do you think Masefield uses them? Choose a couple of examples to comment on.

I must go down to the seas again , to the lonely sea and the sky

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song, and the white sail’s shaking

And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call, and a clear call, that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying

And the flung spray and the brown spume, and  the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life

To the gull’s way, and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream, when the long trick’s over.

Activity 4: answer

Answer:   The poem is in the form of rhyming couplets. There are many examples of  alliteration: “ ..lonely sea and the sky”; “ …a star to steer her by”; “ a windy day with white clouds..”; “ the whale’s way “; “ where the wind’s like a whetted knife”.

There are also many examples of repetition “ I must go down to the seas again..” ; “ and all I ask..” ; “ grey mist .. grey dawn breaking”;  “..a wild call and a clear call .; “ the gull’s way and the whale’s way ..”. There is also the repetition of “and “ all the way through.

What is the effect of these techniques? You may have different views on this, but I felt the rhyme and repetition gave the poem a structure and shape. Each stanza consists of 4 lines in rhyming couplets. We can see that every stanza starts with the same phrase, and that every stanza lists different images of the sea. That helps us get an overall picture of the poem on a first reading. 

The repeated lines “ I must go down to the seas again” emphasises the poet’s longing for the sea, a nagging, persistent desire he cannot shake off.  Similarly, the repetition of “call” stresses the relentless nature of his desire, as if he has no choice but to answer that call.  The repetition of “ And all I ask”  is very moving: it’s a heart-felt plea /prayer for his wish to be granted before he dies.  

Imagery

Imagery  Imagery is the use of language to create pictures or impressions in readers’ minds – sights, sounds, smells and so on.  Read the opening lines of  Matthew Arnold’s poem Dover Beach:

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits: - on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone, the cliffs of England stand

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

In very few words the poet conjures up a peaceful night time scene of Dover Beach lit by moonlight, for example, the calm sea, the tranquil bay, the glimmering and vast cliffs.

Imagery helps readers understand what the poet wants to say and how they feel.  Sometime imagery is in the form of well chosen words and phrases, as in the example above, but there are also two other well known techniques which we will look at:   the use of similes and metaphors.

Similes

Similes:  Similes are used to  describe things by comparing them to something else, usually using “ like” or “ as”. For example, “ he cried like a baby “,  “ I was as weak as a kitten” . We know how a baby cries – unrestrained, the whole body convulsed – so this helps us to imagine a person in a fit of uncontrollable weeping. Similarly, we know what a tiny kitten is like which helps us to picture a person who feels vulnerable and physically barely able to stand.  In Craig Raine’s poem Pretty Baa Lamb, the poet describes his experience with a new born lamb:

I give it a finger to suck

And it pulls like a plughole

We know how strongly water is sucked down a plughole, so the poet uses that to help us understand what it felt like to have a tiny lamb suck so fiercely on his finger.

Another example:  Toad by Norman Maccaig

I love you for being a toad

for crawling like a Japanese wrestler

and for not being frightened 

Here the poet is inviting us to link the image of the toad with that of a Sumo wrestler: powerful, squatting on solid haunches, moving forward in a rocking motion, ready to fight.

Metaphors

Metaphors are another form of imagery. Metaphors  go further than similes, because they do not simply describe something like something else – they describe things as if they are something else.  For example, in Alfred Noyes  The Highwayman

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding

Riding – riding

Up to the old inn door

The moon is not literally a ghost ship, nor is the road a real ribbon of moonlight – but those descriptions help us create images in our minds. With very few words the poet conjures up a dramatic night scene with wind blowing through the trees, clouds moving across the sky – and the road through the dark moor picked out by the moonlight.

In October Salmon by Ted Hughes, the poet is moved by the sight of a dying salmon. 

In the October light

He hangs there, patched with leper cloths

His living body becomes death’s puppet

Dolled by death in her crude paints and drapes

The salmon  is not literally patched with leper cloths, but this is a way of describing the changes in the salmon’s body as it is dying: its scales are now discoloured and peeling, so that it looks as if it is covered in diseased rags. Similarly, the salmon’s body is not literally death’s puppet – but in this way the poet draws our attention to the fact that the salmon is no longer  in control of its life, and that death is very close. Finally, Death of course has not “dolled up” the salmon:  here the poet is referring to the extraordinary  changes in colour in a dying salmon’s body – the colour is garish, like crude make up.

This aspect of poetry can make some poems feel difficult at first, but it is worth persevering and trying to work out what a poet wants to say.

Activity 5: Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney

Activity 5: Imagery . Read the poem below and:

a)     note down any imagery you find in the poems – particularly similes or metaphors. What do you think the poet is trying to say with his imagery?  Read the poem at least twice – once to get a general idea of the poem, and a second time to look at the imagery the poet uses.

b)     note any other techniques the poet uses

c)     what is the poem about, and what is the poet trying to say?

Seamus Heaney  Blackberry Picking

Last August, given heavy rain and sun

For a full week the blackberries would ripen.
at first just one, a glossy purple clot

Amongst others, red, green, hard as a knot.

You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet

Like thickened wine; summer’s blood was in it

Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for

Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger

Sent us out with milk-cans, pea –tins, jam-pots

Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.

Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills

We trekked and picked until the cans were full,

Until the tinkling bottom had been covered

With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned

Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered

With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.

But when the bath was filled we found a fur,

A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.

The juice was stinking, too. Once off the bush

The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.

I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair

That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.

Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.

Answer

Answer:   

1.  Similes: “hard as a knot” is a simile which allows us to imagine what the unripe berry feels like – firm and lumpy.  “ Its flesh was sweet /Like thickened wine” is another simile, which conjures up the taste of ripe berries, heady as alcohol.

2. Metaphors: I felt the description of  a ripe blackberry as “ a glossy purple clot” was a good example of a metaphor: the blackberry is not a clot of blood, but the small, round, dark, glistening quality of the fruit invites that comparison.  “ a rat-grey fungus glutting on our cache” is a metaphor: the fungus is described as a greedy, living animal eating.

Other techniques:  This poem also contains examples of rhyme:  clot/knot; rot/not; alliteration – you ate that first one, and its flesh was sweet;  the fruit fermented; we trekked and picked;  we found a fur. Examples of repetition include round hayfields, cornfields.

The poet is trying to convey the intense emotion he felt when picking blackberries the previous year, and the impact it had on his senses of touch, sight and smell. He clearly loved the sensation of handling the fruit and looking at it, and was disgusted  by the smell of the rotten berries. He also expresses disappointment and sadness that the fruit, once picked, cannot last.

One of the joys of reading poetry is finding your own meaning. Poets clearly have something to say, but they cannot control completely the effect the poem will have on readers.  The effect a poem has on us individually will depend on a lot on our own experiences and personality. For example, for me, approaching 60,  I felt this poem had something to say about youth with its exuberance, intensity, innocence and hope, but it may not have had that effect on you at all.

End of Course Summary

End of Course Summary

Well done! You have now completed this taster course – An Introduction to Poetry. We hope you have enjoyed it and found it stimulating and informative.  In this taster you have:

-         Read a selection of poems and extracts from poems, ranging from the 19^th century to the present day

-         thought about  poetic techniques such as rhyme, alliteration and repetition, and their effects upon readers

-          learnt how poets use imagery – particularly similes and metaphors- to create images and sense impressions

-         Analysed two poems, identifying techniques and exploring meaning

The poems you read in this taster are:

Twelve Songs by W H Auden
Daffodils by Williams Wordsworth
Don't sit by my grave and weep - anon

Television by Roald Dahl

Love’s Philosophy  by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

Bloody Men  by Wendy Cope

The Donkey by  G.K. Chesterton

Leisure by William Henry Davies

Sea Fever by John Masefield. 

Dover Beach  by Matthew Arnold

Pretty Baa Lamb  by Craig Raine’s

Toad by Norman Maccaig

The Highwayman  by Alfred Noyes 

October Salmon by Ted Hughes,

Blackberry Picking  by Seamus Heaney 

End of Course Quiz

End of course Quiz

1.       Which of these statements is true?

a)     all good poems should rhyme

b)     most modern poems rhyme

c)     rhyme is a traditional technique used by poets

2.       Alliteration is ..

a)     when consonant sounds are repeated in a line of poetry

b)     when sounds are repeated in a line of poetry

c)     when words are repeated in a line of poetry

3.       An ABAB rhyming pattern is ..

a)     When lines 1 & 3 rhyme and lines 2 & 4 rhyme

b)     An example of a rhyming couplet

c)     When lines 2 & 4 rhyme but the rest does not

4.       Which of these statements is NOT true. A simile is ..

a)     an example of imagery used to compare something to something else

b)     a type of metaphor

c)     a technique used to describe something usually with “like” or “as”

5.       Which of these lines contain a metaphor?

a)   Wings like bits of umbrella (   Bats by D H Lawrence )

b)   Into the burning bowels of the earth ( Snake by D H Lawrence)

c)  My friends forsake me, like a memory lost  ( I am by John Clare)