Poetry Patter and Patterns

By Thomas J. PalumboAuthor, Maurice Sendak In The

Classroom

The Thinking Box

Before formal instruction begins in creative writing or poetry the concept of the thinking box should be introduced.

The thinking box should hold three of the directions your writing or poetry might take.

I Am, I Am Not PoetryThis is the perfect starting form for any poetry class be it second grade or senior high gifted. It is also a mini-interest survey for each student in your class after they illustrate the six lines you request.

I am chesse pizza, I am not a spice..ee taco. I am theater and plays, I am not television. I am the fast beat of the city, I am not a quiet wood. I am rock and roll, I am not classical or rap. I am frolicking dogs, I am not a friendly cat. I am any crystal beach, I am not picky, am I?

Chronology PoetryChronology poetry takes an event and describes it in short bursts thereby giving the presentation of the event/s a poetic rhythm.

Baby Patricia

Born at 2:16 in the morning Brought home from the hospital on Tuesday, Wrapped in a bunny covered blanket, Crying left and right, Family gathered all around, Grandma kissed her, Dad says I have a brand new friend, I have friends.

I Could Be PoetryI Could Be Poetry poetry allows the writer to look at famous accomplishments and predict the things I Could Be; meaning what they could be.

I could be like John Lennon, Can I imagine? I could be like Martin Luther King, Can I talk freedom? I could be like Barry Bonds, Can I hit homeruns? I could be like Robert Frost, Can I find the road less traveled? I could be like Van Gogh, Can I tell stories in color?

The CoupletA couplet is a poem that contains a rhyme pair. It is two lines of poetry in form A, A or A, B expressed in regular or irregular meter.Try exploring the internal rhyme below.

I like to grow, Unique flowers all in a row.

The Spain I know, Starts with a guitar refrain.

Internal Rhyme/Assonance

The Spain I know…Starts with a guitar refrain is a form of internal rhyme. Assonance is another form of internal rhyme. Assonance is where the same vowel sound is repeated in two or more words in a line of poetry.

The Spain I know, Starts with a guitar refrain.

Joe grows roses in the Spring For all to touch and see.

The tree teetered in the wind.

They were wed Wednesday at noon.

The Opposite Couplet

A opposite couplet is a poem that uses a pair of words that are opposite in meaning to generate the start of a two line rhyme

Sweet and sour, I eat them by the hour.

Up and down, The coaster’s the best in town.

The Advertising CoupletThe ‘school to career’ theme can be easily developed by taking an easy poetry concept like the couplet into the advertising world.

NIKE is the one, To make all sports fun.

X-Box gives you the power, To compete each and every hour.

Think Sony widescreen LCD, What everyone needs in a new TV!

The Alphabetical CoupletAn alphabetical couplet is a poem that uses three consecutive letters of the alphabet and a sports, historical, scientific, or musical theme.

A is for Adams, B is for Bush, C is for Coolidge who needed a push.

A is for apple, B is for beet, C is for custard a great dessert treat.

The Helpful/Healthful CoupletA helpful or healthful couplet is a poem that uses couplet skills to create a helpful or healthful theme or message.

It is always right, To be polite.

It is really neat, To have clean feet.

Color PoetryA large number of poetry books are centered around the theme of color while teaching young children creative writing, vocabulary forms, listening techniques, and rhyming skills. Color Poetry using couplets might also include:

The color of my bed/Is bright, bright red.

Please hand me my shoe/It’s the one that’s blue.

The hat I wore to town/Contains two shades of brown.

“Our new dish set/Is sprinkled with flowers”, Violet.

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Criss-Cross Poetry

Criss-Cross Poetry is a challenging step into the world of rhyming words and homonyms. It involves criss-crossing a homonyn pair and then placing an illustration depicting both or one word next to the word pair.

Sun B Gnu o Beat e n e w t

The String CoupletA string couplet is a poem that employs a series of similar words like adjectives or plural nouns in the first line to lead into a key thought in the second line while still using rhyme.

Silly, funny, crying, kicking, all wet, Another night babysitting sister Annette.

Self-portrait, sunflowers, colors aglow, These are the images of a tormented Van Gogh.

The Terse Verse

Terse Verse is a very short form of poetry. It starts with an impressive sounding title which is then followed by a short rhyme. Sometime it is a question answered by a short rhyme.

An overwhelmingly frigid attack on the unaware and vulnerable human body……is a bold cold

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The Tercet

Three lines of poetry in form A, A, A or A, B, A expressed in regular or irregular meter.

When kids get sick,

They often pick,

A medicine they can lick.

The Tercet Biography

The tercet biography allows you to pick times of your life or famous person’s life followed by three descriptive words. The lines may or may not rhyme.

Born on June first, Kicking, crying, sighing.

Early on had the reading thirst, Stories, poems, adventures.

Sports gave an early burst, Baseball, basketball, football.

Triangular Poetry

Triangular Poems start with one word and progress so that each line has one more word. You can use a rhyme form/or not!

School

Learning place

Gain enough knowledge

Literacy you will erase.

Help yourself and a friend

Many people find education without end..

Triangular Poetry Word Art

Triangular Words start with one letter and progress so that each line has one more letter added to the line before in any spot.

Planet

Plane

Plan

Pan

Pa

A

The Quatrain

Four lines of poetry in a variety of forms with A, B, A, B the format most often used. Mastery of the quatrain is a great jumping off point for more involved poetry forms.

Harriet Tubman (From Honey, I Love)

Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff.

Wasn’t scared of nothing neither.

Didn’t come into this world to be no slave.

And wasn’t going to stay one either.

---Eloise Greenfield.

One More Thought Poetry

This poetic form involves the use of an additional descriptive word at the end of a quatrain and after the rhyme scheme is finished.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue

With this ring I give.

The promise to always love you_

forever.

The Prepositional QuatrainThis poetic form is four lines long with the first three or last three lines as prepositional phrases. The first or fourth line is the key point the phrases are building to and highlighting.

In the sand,

Under the ocean,

With hungry eyes,

The eel silently waits for dinner.

Biographical Poetry

The Beach

I am the beach. You recognize me by:

Crashing waves Hot sand Families playing Collecting seashells Avoiding jellyfish

Building sand castles Standing in the water, Reading my favorite book, This is my type of heaven.

Alliteration

This form of poetic writing uses repeated consonants to leave a more memorable or lasting impression on the reader. We see this form a good deal in advertising (Frosted Flakes, Dunkin’ Donuts). Using this form in your poems will add spice to them.

The buzzing bees touched my ears,

With honey filled thoughts of food.

Acrostic

This form of poetic writing uses a vertical column with a theme (such as a person’s name) to create the surrounding structure of the poem. .

A picture, which I hope will

Be one that you will like to

See. If your mamma should

Desire one like it, I could

Easily get her one.

____Lewis Carroll

Free Verse

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was called “the father of the free verse movement:”. Free verse uses cadence and rhythm rather than rhyme to make the simplest concepts profound and memorable.

I believe that a leaf of grass in no less,

Than the journey-work of the stars.

____Walt Whitman

The ClerihewClerihew poems (A, A, B, B) by E. Bentley Clerihew are four line poems that use a person’s name to generate a creative and descriptive writing form. Most clerihews start with just that person’s name. If the key name isn’t easily rhymed it can be placed anywhere in the first line.

Martin Luther King

His message of peace and freedom did ring

Throughout the land and in all places

To every hue and for all the races.

The Clerihew…Continued

Clerihew poems: William Shakespeare

A playwright and a poet…William Shakespeare

In his sonnets a ‘dark lady’ did appear.

Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet might,

Keep scholars and readers pondering all night.

Try clerihews with singers, actors, cartoon characters, Mother Goose participants as well as inventors, historical figures, famous women, and creatures from mythology and

literature.

Haiku/Hokku/Tanka

This esteemed Japanese form of poetic expression was originally written to express nature, a season or an event. Its format centers on it syllable count. The haiku contains three lines in (5, 7, 5) syllable form. Tanka adds lines of (7, 7).

The reigning clouds cry.

But the thirsty flowers sing,

As Spring slowly blooms.

The Diamante

The diamante consists of seven lines of poetry beginning and ending with opposites (day, night) while employing the following format.

One word as subject (1)

Two adjectives describing subject 1

Three participles (ing, ed) about subject 1 .

Four words about first and last words

Three participles (ing, ed) about subject 2

Two adjectives describing subject 2

One word as subject (2)

The Cinquain

The cinquain employs five lines lines of poetry and a syllable requirement of 2, 4, 6, 8, 2 to grab the reader’s and writer’s interest.

Baseball

Hitting, running,

Fans yelling for some runs

Lieberthal, Bonds, Rose, Schmidt swinging,

Summer

Concrete PoetryConcrete poetry is often called picture poetry because words, thoughts, and sentences are put together to form an artistic work or diagram.

If you are talking about your house, the words you use will be shaped in the form of a house. Lewis Carroll of “Alice In Wonderland” fame invented concrete poetry by writing a poem about a mouse in the form of a mouse’s body and its tail. Trace a young child’s hand and just write their name around the tracing again and again for a unique first concrete poetry experience or for a gift for the grandparents.

The Learic/Limerick

The limerick was invented by Edwin Lear and originally given his name. It is a five line poem. In the form of aabba. Some are quite bawdy but the original form was not.

The was a young lady from Grime,

Who thought that one was a prime.

It took a good teacher

To finally reach her.

And now one is unique all the time.

_____ TJPalumbo

Limericks

Edward Lear is the “father of the limerick”. Known as the “learic” in his time, it is a five line poem with the original rhyme scheme of (A, A, B, B, A). The last word in line one and five of a “learic” was often the same word.

There was a young man from Lyme,

Who composed poems many a time.

He composed them in his head,

While getting ready for bed.

And his prayers often did rhyme.

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Sonnet/o*…”Little Sound”

The sonnet is a fourteen line poem. It is written in a form called iambic pentameter. An iamb is a rhyme piece that has a short beat and a long beat. It is often described as making up and down waves with words. There are five iambs in each line of a sonnet. *The word sonneto is an Italian word that means “little sound”

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day...

Italian or Petrarchian Sonnet

This type of sonnet is a fourteen line poem that contains an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines). The octave is usually one theme, problem, situation, or thought. It is solved, translated, brought to a conclusion, or ends dramatically in the sestet.

The rhyme scheme is usually abba abba followed by cd cd cd or cde cde.

English or Shakespearean Sonnet

This type of sonnet was developed by Surrey. It is made up of three quatrains and an ending couplet. Each quatrain has its own rhyme scheme and the quatrains do not rhyme with each other.

The rhyme scheme is usually ab ab cd cd ef ef gg.

The English sonnet is easier to compose because it contains fewer rhymes that the Italian sonnet.

Spenserian Sonnet

This type of sonnet was developed by Spenser. It is made up of three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme differs from the Shakespearean sonnet.

The rhyme scheme is usually abab bcbc cdcd ee.

Spenser also used other sonnet forms that did not include fourteen lines.

Shakespeare Sonnet Facts

He wrote 154 sonnets.

The first 126 were written to a young man.

The remaining sonnets were written to a mysterious “Dark Lady”.

The sonnets seem to be in chronological order…while dedicated to a W. H.

They were first published in 1599.

Everyone in 1599 was writing sonnets, but Shakespeare was far and away the master.

Proverbs/Maxims

Proverbs/Maxims are one of the oldest poetic forms. They appear in the sanskrit, the bible, and the early literature of northern Europe. Just like self help columns they seem to give lessons in life in a rhythmic but meaningful form that attracts the reader or listener.

Early to bed, early to rise Makes a man, healthy, wealthy and wise.

Rain before seven, Clear skies by eleven.

Epitaphs

Epitaphs are sayings written on tombstones, delivered at funerals or appearing in death notices in the newspaper. Some epitaphs are poignant while others are humorous. Both forms, of course, are designed to give an insight to the deceased often in a small, short venue.

Here lies Bill who caught a chill, While sledding on Blueberry Hill.

Mary’s attendance record is now broken.

Can you hear me now?

DoubletsDoublets are poems that have two words in each line. Normally the lines do not rhyme. The two words describe the subject that appears in the title and relate to the theme of the last word.

Baseball Game

Running, sliding

Hits, errors

Bats, gloves

Fans, stands

Cheering, jeering

Summer fun.

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Telephone Poetry

Telephone poems are seven line poems that use your telephone number to generate the syllables in each line of your poem. Another way to create this poem is to use one of the three letters that appear next to each number on the dial to begin each line of your descriptive poem.

License plate and street address poems follow a similar format. It is a great challenge to create a biographical poem using any one of these three poetic styles.

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Da Da Poetry

Da Da Poetry is random poetry and has a large number of formats. The formats we like best use the triangular and diamante format.

Triangular form…Place your ideas in lines that have 1, 2, 3, 4, then five words in each line

Diamante form…Write on equal size rectangles or cut-out twenty five words from a magazine that relate to a theme, say vacations. Pick a beginning and ending title and place cut-out words in lines that contain 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, then one word.

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Poetry and The Five Senses

Sense Poetry uses a simple format that combines the five senses with creative thinking and poetry rhyme schemes.

Baseball

Baseball smells of hot dogs in the stands,

Baseball feels like slide burns on your hands.

Baseball tastes like the fresh outdoors,

Baseball looks like the endless rounding of the fours.

Baseball sounds like the joy of summer.

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Love and The Five Senses

Love and Affection Poetry uses a simple format that combines the five senses with creative thinking and poetry rhyme schemes.

Annabelle Lee

Your love is the look in your eyes,

When I taste the sweetness of your lovely lips.

Your love is the sound of a heart’s uncontrollable beat,

When I touch you so gently on the face

You have loved me to hear no other

Internal Acrostics

Internal acrostics can hide a certain school theme like math…

You are really delightful. (yard)

Send us money, Susan. (sums)

…or be used a a challenging vocabulary drill.

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Every Other Poetry

“Every Other” poetry employs a simple format. Select a poem of 12-16 lines but only write down lines 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 while leaving a space in between each line. Your task is to complete the missing lines with ideas of your own which will retain the author’s original theme or completely change the author’s theme.

Lower grades can change nursery rhymes while upper grades can change more sophisticated poems and writing styles. Have students do this with the first sixteen lines that start a book that children enjoy.

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Mimic Poetry

“Mimic Poetry” is featured in Kenneth Koch’s book Rose, Rose How Did You Get The Red. He suggests having students change Blake’s poem “Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright” to another animal and reflecting that animal’s characteristics in Blake’s poem’s style.

1. Koala bear, koala bear, hanging in a tree.

Oh, what climbing symmetry.

2. Rabbit, rabbit fur so white.

Oh, what scampering day and night.

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Poetry Booklist Suggestions

The study of poets and their art would be incomplete without a list of books to enhance and reinforce the study of poetry and creative writing. See if you can add some worthwhile books to the books listed below.

The New Poetry by Busta Rhymes

The Poetry Handbook by C. John Rightem

Shakespeare by N. O. Bacon

Winter Poems by Robert Frost

Turtles and Other Green Poems by John Shelley

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Progressive PoetryExamine the ‘I Love You’ message in red written progressively down each line before trying an ‘I Love You’ love poem of your own.

If I could be a knight of old,

Alas, what I would do

From kingdoms end, through battles bold

Bravely march to you.

Knaves could never slow my pace,

Astray I’d never flee

Truly you can clearly see,

For around you I must be.

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