Notes on Poetry

Lesson Overview

Poetry or Prose?
What makes a good poem?
Form and Content
Organic Unity

Poetry or Prose?

Some questions to consider:

1. Does the piece make use of metaphorical or figurative language?
2. Does it have concreteness, particularity, sensuous shape?
3. Is it a piece that should not be read on its literal sense alone?

Metaphorical/Figurative Language

The use of metaphorical/figurative language is the use of the different figures of speech

Figures of speech gives us the pleasure of recognizing similarities in the otherwise different natures of objects

Denotative Language

By concreteness, we mean poetry’s use of visuals in terms of IMAGES.

By particularity, we mean the use of specific objective reality or situation, a particular emotion, or a particular point of theme.

Literal vs Figurative

Is it a piece that should be read on the literal sense alone?

Figurative language -A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words.

Literal language- A form of language in which writers and speakers mean exactly what their words denote.

SNAIL
by Conchitina Cruz

You fall behind
Because of the cloud
On your back.
It is heavy
With rainwater.
When I stop
To wait,
You hide
In the cloud,
Choosing to drown.


FORM CONTENT
Beauty Truth
Pleasure Instruction
Artfulness Lesson

2. ORGANIC UNITY
All the parts work together.
Every element in it contributes to the meaning and the beauty of the work.

Music
Architecture
Painting
Literature
Culinary Arts

Emotional/Intellectual Value

A good poem then possesses concentration and intensity that makes it memorable.
Brings an engagement of the senses, the emotional, the mind.

Poetry may be this or that, but it shouldn’t necessarily be this or that, except delirious and lucid.
Robert Desnos