Poetry techniques: To be used over a series of lessons Materials: Audio version of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Is the main idea or message of the poem

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways ( Elizabeth Barret Browning, How Do I Love Thee?)
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/Is hung with

blooms along the bough (AE Housman,

Loveliest of Trees)

 Remember! Poets dont always express their themes in a straightforward way. You will need to read a poem completely before you can decide what the theme is.

This means the feelings and attitude of the poem which come across through the words Check the language used Is it happy? Sad? Angry? Sarcastic? Nostalgic?

What do you think the tone of this poem is?

Does it Matter? Losing your legs?

For people will always be kind

(Siegfred Sassoon, writing about the First World War, in Does it Matter?)

 Similes
A simile is an image made when the poet compares something to something else
O, my love is like a red, red rose An emerald is as green as grass

 A Metaphor is also a comparison,

but without the words like or as. They can also used to create images in our mind:
You are perfume, you are honey

A symbol is a type of image that represents or stands for something else

In The Road not Taken, Robert Frost uses the image of two roads in a wood as a symbol of choices in life: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

This is when the poets write of non-human things as if they were human.
The wind stood up and gave a shout

(James Stephens, The Wind) Grafton Street is yawning, waking limb by limb (Michael O Siadhail, Morning on Grafton Street)

Poets make use of sounds of words to create images for us too. As you read a poem you are studying, look out for the following effects, or aural images.

Is when the words used sound like what they describe- Audio: Listen to the poem and read along:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcqPQXqQXzI

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door Only this, and nothing more."

Teacups rattling in the kitchen

(Gareth Owen, Space Shot). Jewellers steel shutters clatter upwards (Michael O Siadhail, Morning on Grafton Street)

This means the same repetition of the same consonant sound, one after the other or closely connected. I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore (WB Yeats, The Lake of Innisfree). The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner).

Rhyme is when the sounds of words are repeated, usually at the end of lines Rhythm is the beat or pace of words in a poem:

The fox was strong, he was full of running, He could run for an hour and then be cunning, But the cry behind him made him chill, They were nearer now and they meant to kill

If the theme of a poem is sad, the rhythm tends to be slower

Slattery, M., Revise Wise: English Junior Certificate-Higher Level, Edco (Dublin:2006)