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Basic Elements Of Poetry

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Poetry

Poetry is “a way of feeling life,” according to Daisy Zamora, a Nicaraguan poet. Her statement helps answer how does poetry help us “feel” life”. Poetry captures intense experiences of creative perceptions of the world in a musical language. If prose is just like talking, poetry is like singing.

If you want to understand poetry, you must understand its basic elements. In this lesson, you will encounter the basic elements of poetry that are very necessary in analyzing the poems you read and hear – and to “feeling life” in them.

Objective

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1. Read a poem using active reading strategies; and
2. Analyze a poem using the basic elements.

Poetry

Poetry is defined in many ways. Some definitions …show more content…

Hope

“Criticism of life” …Matthew Arnold

“The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” … William Wordsworth

“Poetry is the lava of the imagination “ … Lord Byron

“Blood, imagination and intellect running together” …W.B. Yeats

Basic Elements of Poetry

Poetry is defined in many ways but there is one thing in common in poetry and that, it is a form of communication. For you to understand the poem, you have to identify the idea or theme that the writer wants to deliver, his purpose in writing the poem and identify techniques he used in his poem.

Speaker

Every poem has a speaker, or a voice that talks to the reader. In prose, the narrator is the speaker but not necessarily the author. In poetry, the speaker is not necessarily the poet. It can also be a fictional person, an animal or a thing.

Model: I once had a dear ring

speaker is a child

With a precious stone rare,
It was given to me By my mother so dear; From “My Lost Ring” by Emilia S. Reysio Cruz

The “What” of a Poem: This includes the subject matter and theme or the central idea of the

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