Pre-Reading Questions to Consider and Discuss

1.      What is poetry to you? 
2.      What are its characteristics?
3.      Is there a kind of poetry you like?
4.      Are the words of songs poetry?

What is poetry?  Here are a few important characteristics about poetry.

• Poetry is emotional.  That means that a poem appeals to your feelings. It makes you want to laugh, cry, reflect, get angry or get happy.

• A poem may show an opinion or an idea, but usually the idea is not directly stated.

• Poetry often has rhyme as in fear...dear, adore...bore.

• Poetry always has a rhythm; that’s why people talk about the "beat" of a poem. 

• Poetry has a “form,” a shape, or a division into parts. 

• Poetry has an effect on the reader.

• Poetry creates images (pictures in our mind).

• Poetry uses figures of speech; it plays with the images that work in your mind .  For example, the sentence, “Jane is as pretty as a rose,” is called a simile.  And “Jane is a rose” is a metaphor. Similes and metaphors are poetic techniques. Poets use those techniques to create pictures in your mind.
   

Another common poetic technique is called personification.  The word “person” should be a clue to what this is.  In personification, an animal or object has human qualities.  Many poems give things  the characteristics of people. Example: The trees waved at us from the road." Can you think of more examples? How would you personify the bunny below?

Shape or form is also important in a poem.  It helps the reader understand or react to the poem.  A traditional poem may give four lines and a break, four lines and a break, etc.  Each four lines may talk about something slightly different. That four-line pattern is the poem's shape or form. 

Modern poems can actually use “shape” as the most noticeable part of the poem itself.  Look at the following poem.  It is about a tree, but it also looks like a tree.

In what direction do you read a poem like this? 
Do you start at the bottom:  Watching humans....? 
Or do you start at the top left:  Timeless giant...? 
Or do you start at the top right: To the air...?

Try starting at different places and enjoy the feeling you get.

Poetry works by creating images in our minds. The images are pictures that we react to emotionally. This effect is a key part of poetry. The order of the pictures can change, but the effect of each picture stays the same. 

SUPPORT ACTIVITIES IN
READING | WRITING | MATH | PROJECT | FUN