Poets use graphic elements to help readers understand the poem and to strengthen the sound or visual appeal of the poem.

Punctuation marks, such as commas, show the reader where to slow down or pause.

Line length can help determine whether a poem has a flowing sound or a short, choppy sound.

Word position can show relationships between words and ideas; shows the different structures of poems

Capital letters Capitalizing the first word in a line is one of the traditional tools of poetry writing, and using or not using it is a decision that a poet should make after some consideration.  But whatever the decision, the practice today is clearly personal.

e. e. cummings, an American poet and painter, had his name legally changed to lowercase letters. He first attracted attention for his eccentric punctuation.

i shall imagine life

by e.e. cummings

i shall imagine lifeis not worth dying,if(and when)roses complaintheir beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuadesitself that every weed'sa rose,roses(you feelcertain)will only smile

Prosody is the vocal intonation and meter of spoken language.

When reading with prosody, readers sound as if they are speaking the part they are reading.

Structure of prosody include:

meter rhyme

rhyme scheme sound devices

Poetic meter is the measure of a line of poetry. It is rhythm that can be measured in poems. 

In verse and poetry, meter is a recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in lines of a set length.

For example, suppose a line contains ten syllables (set length) in which the first syllable is unstressed, the second is stressed, the third is unstressed, the fourth is stressed, and so on until the line reaches the tenth syllable.

The line would look like the following one (the opening line of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18") containing a pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables. The unstressed syllables are in blue and the stressed syllables in red:

Shall I com PARE thee TO a SUM mer’s DAY?

Each pair of unstressed and stressed syllables makes up a unit called a foot. The line contains five feet in all, as shown next:

....1.............. 2.................3..............4................ 5 Shall.I..|..com.PARE..|..thee.TO..|..a.SUM..|..mer’s DAY?

•The line is a poem’s most basic unit. The length of each line of a poem is part of its composition.

•The length of the lines in a poem will affect the meaning of the words within those lines, as well as the sound and rhythm as the poem is read.

•Some feet in verse and poetry have different stress patterns.

•The length of lines—and thus the meter—can also vary.

•Meter is determined by the type of foot and the number of feet in a line.

What is the number of feet per line?

Upon a Lilac Sea

by Emily Dickinson

 

Upon a Lilac SeaTo toss incessantly

His Plush AlarmWho fleeing from the Spring

The Spring avenging flingTo Dooms of Balm

Alliteration--the repetition of beginning consonant sounds For example, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."

Assonance--the repetition of vowel sounds found anywhere in a word For example, "mad as a hatter," "blackjack," "knick- knack, paddy-wack," "picnic"

Consonance--the repetition of consonant sounds found at the ends of words For example, "knick-knack, paddy-wack," "bric-a-brac," "flip-flop“

Onomatopoeia—the use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

Rhyme -- the repetition of ending sounds between words

End rhyme - words at the ends of lines rhyme; this is what we usually mean when we say a poem "rhymes."

Internal rhyme – when two words in a poem rhyme, but at least one is not located at the end of a line. EX: "Go with the flow, Joe."

Slant rhyme or Eye rhyme – when two words do not rhyme perfectly; refers to rhymes based on similarity of spelling rather than sound. EX: love/move/prove, gone/done, again/rain

Rich rhyme - A word rhymes with its homonym: EX: blue/blew, see/sea, their/there

Identical rhyme - A word rhymes with itself.

A rhyme scheme is a regular pattern of rhyme, one that is consistent throughout the poem. 

Rhyme schemes are labeled according to their rhyme sounds.  Every rhyme sound is given its own letter of the alphabet to distinguish it from the other rhyme sounds that may appear in the poem.  For example, the first rhyme sound of a poem is designated as a.  Every time that rhyme sound appears in the poem, no matter where it is found, it is called a.  The second rhyme sound is designated b.   The third rhyme sound to appear would be c, the fourth d, and so on, for as many rhyme sounds as appear in the poem.

The following short poem illustrates the labeling of a rhyme scheme:

                  There once was a big brown cat      a                  That liked to eat a lot of mice.         b                  He got all round and fat                   a                  Because they tasted so nice.            b