Getting Poetic
The City Library is facilitating a Poetry Contest for teen writers. Here's information about the contest from The City Library:
"Young poets and aspiring wordsmiths are invited to enter The City Library’s Teen Poetry Contest! This year’s theme is “Wonder in All Its Forms.” Local teens entering grades 9–12 in the Fall are eligible to submit their original work. Winners will receive a cash prize and a chance to read their work at a live, virtual event happening on August 14. Winning poems will also be shared on BiblioBoard and the Library’s Teen Blog."
"Young poets and aspiring wordsmiths are invited to enter The City Library’s Teen Poetry Contest! This year’s theme is “Wonder in All Its Forms.” Local teens entering grades 9–12 in the Fall are eligible to submit their original work. Winners will receive a cash prize and a chance to read their work at a live, virtual event happening on August 14. Winning poems will also be shared on BiblioBoard and the Library’s Teen Blog."
The City Library is also hosting a series of "Teen Zine Team" workshops throughout the summer. They meet every Thursday at 4pm. Click on the button tab below to learn more about these workshops and other library events and workshops for teen writers.
“Poetic form is not abstract, but human.”
--The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, Boland & Strand
--The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, Boland & Strand
A very basic definition of poetry is that it is a form of literature that often relies on rhythmic and other qualities of language such as vivid description, meter, metaphor, symbolism, synecdoche, etc. to evoke meaning and distill a story in imagery. Writing poetry can illuminate parts of the human experience that might be difficult to describe in more overt ways. The following poetry forms, examples, writing prompts, and resources are anchored on the fact that poetry can be a powerful, insightful form of self, cultural, political, and historical expression.
Here are some other descriptions poetry developed by CWC staff:
"I think through poetry we discover and share what it means to be [human]."
- Wes Walls
How would you define and describe poetry? Your experiences with poetry? The poetry you write and/or want to write?
* * *
Here are some other descriptions poetry developed by CWC staff:
"I think through poetry we discover and share what it means to be [human]."
- Wes Walls
How would you define and describe poetry? Your experiences with poetry? The poetry you write and/or want to write?
* * *
Below are some important concepts and elements of poetry.
Keep in mind that while all poets consider the beat of their poems in some way,
not all poets incorporate all of the following elements in their poetry.
Also, poems do not have to rhyme.
Keep in mind that while all poets consider the beat of their poems in some way,
not all poets incorporate all of the following elements in their poetry.
Also, poems do not have to rhyme.
Meter (from The Making of a Poem, p.159-160): derived from the Greek word for “measure.” Here are the 3 most common forms of meter in English:
Rhyme: repetition of syllables often found at the end of poetic lines. Words that rhyme have corresponding sound between words or the endings of words. Rhymed words rely on shared sounds from a word’s last stressed syllable. Rhymes are classified by the degree of similarity between sounds within words, and by their placement within the lines or stanzas.
Prosody: this term refers to the patterns of stress, intonation, rhythm, and sound (like pitch or rhyme) that are used in spoken language and poetry. For example, how ballads often rhyme in either an A-B-A-B or A-B-C-B pattern, or how we raise the pitch of our voice at the end of a question (in English). These linguistic features have the ability to influence the meaning of what's being said. For instance, think about what happens when you change the emphasized word in a sentence: You can do that! You can do that! You can do that! You can do that! These pattern principles are most often applied to individual units of speech, like syllables, words or phrases. Linguists call the elements of prosody suprasegmentals. |
Rhythm: Rhythm is a poetic device that helps establishes the pacing of the poem. The purpose of rhythm is to create natural patterns and flow of words that enhance the tone, voice, style, and subject of a poem. Poets writing in free verse often rely heavily on rhythm to emphasize natural pacing, juxtaposition, euphony and cacophony.
Stanza: any unit of recurring meter and rhyme used in an established pattern of repetition and separation.
An effective stanza combines the accumulation of sensory detail and repeated sound through the repetition of line patterns and rhyming. Repetition (from poets.org)- The recurrence of sounds (and syllables, words, phrases, lines, and stanzas) is vital to meaning-making in poetry. Many of the audible literary devices of poetry (alliteration, assonance, consonance) depend upon recurrence. It is used to create emphasis on themes and ideas, which is often essential for the digestion of poetry. Repetition provides a lifeline to readers who would otherwise be lost in a sea of figurative language.
“Repetition in word and phrase and in idea is the very essence of poetry.” -Theodore Roethke
Enjambment: The continuance of one poetic line into another without the presence of conclusive punctuation.
End-stopped: “A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period. A line is considered end-stopped, too, if it contains a complete phrase." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/end-stopped |