Narratives
Definition
Narratives are poems that tell stories. Narrative poems include plots, characters, settings, themes...
Thanksgiving is in the tears
that burst like ripe grapes.
Proclaiming, see you next year,
we wave, begin to panic.
With these tears, the further we go
the tighter we are entwined.
We hold onto each others image,
hold each other way-deep
as the bus pulls us apart,
stretching our gratitude for miles.
Ballads
Definition
Ballads are songs or songlike poems that tell stories. These stories often talk about death, betrayal or love. Ballads usually have a regular, steady rhythm, and use simple language. Ballads also have refrains which are repeated words, phrases, or a group of lines.
Example
Light do I see within my Lady’s eyes
And loving spirits in its plenisphere
Which bear in strange delight on my heart’s care
Till Joy’s awakened from that sepulchre.
That which befalls me in my Lady’s presence
Bars explanation intellectual.
I seem to see a lady wonderful
Spring forth between her lips, one whom no sense
Can fully tell the mind of, and one whence
Another, in beauty, springeth marvelous,
From whom a star goes forth and speaketh thus:
"Now my salvation is gone forth from thee."
There where this Lady’s loveliness appeareth,
Is heard a voice which goes before her ways
And seems to sing her name with such sweet praise
That my mouth fears to speak what name she beareth,
And my heart trembles for the grace she weareth,
While far in my soul’s deep the sighs astir
Speak thus: "Look well! For if thou look on her,
Then shalt thou see her virtue risen in heaven."
Epics
Definition
Epics are long narrative poems writen in a formal, elegant language that tell about a series of missions undertaken by great heroes.
from The Odyssey by Homer
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove--
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return.
Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start from where you will--sing for our time too.
By now,
all the survivors, all who avoided headlong death
were safe at home, escaped the wars and waves.
But one man alone . . .
his heart set on his wife and his return--Calypso,
the bewitching nymph, the lustrous goddess, held him back,
deep in her arching caverns, craving him for a husband.
Lyrics
Definition
Lyric poems usually do not tell a story. Instead, they express personal thoughts and feelings of the poet ot the speaker. Lyric poems are usually short, and evoke a strong emotion.
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
Sonnets
Definition
A specific type of lyric poems that is always fourteen lines long and wrtten in iambic pentameter. There are two main forms of sonnets: Elizabethan and Italian.
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
Odes
Definition
Odes are long, complex, lyric poems that are wrtten to celebrate a person or a thing in elegant language. Odes are originated in ancient Greek.
Example
Thanks to the word
that says thanks!
Thanks to thanks,
word
that melts
iron and snow!
The world is a threatening place
until
thanks
makes the rounds
from one pair of lips to another,
soft as a bright
feather
and sweet as a petal of sugar,
filling the mouth with its sound
or else a mumbled
whisper.
Life becomes human again:
it’s no longer an open window.
Elegies
Definition
A sorrowful, mournful and plaintive poem, usually lamenting the death of someone.
Example
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Free verse
Definition
Poems that do not follow a regular rhyme scheme or meter, but do include elements of poetry, such as imagery, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and figures of speech ( similies, metaphors, personification).
Example
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
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