Poetry – Concept and Its Elements

What is poetry? 

Poetry can be defined as “literature in a metrical form or a composition forming rhythmic lines.  

A poem is something that follows a particular flow of rhythm and meter. 

Compared to prose, where there is no such restriction, and the content of the piece flows according to the story, a poem may or may not have a story, but it definitely has a structured method of writing. 

Elements of Poetry: 

This is the music made by the assertions of the sonnet, which cooks the syllables in the lines. The best technique for understanding this is to peruse the sonnet out loud, and get the focused and unstressed syllables. 

Meter: 

This is the essential primary make-up of the sonnet. Do the syllables coordinate with one another? Each line in the sonnet should stick to this design. A sonnet is comprised of squares of lines, which convey a solitary strand of thought. Inside those squares, a construction of syllables that follow the musicality must be incorporated. This is the meter or the metrical type of verse. 

Stanza: 

Refrain in verse is characterized as a more modest unit or gathering of lines or a section in a sonnet. A specific refrain has a particular meter, rhyme plot, and so forth. In light of the quantity of lines, refrains are named as a couplet (2 lines), tercet (3 lines), quatrain (4 lines), cinquain (5 lines), sestet (6 lines), septet (7 lines) and octave (8 lines). 

Rhyme: 

A sonnet might possibly have a rhyme. At the point when you compose verse that has rhyme, it implies that the final words or hints of the lines coordinate with one another in some structure. Rhymes are fundamentally comparative sounding words like “feline” and “cap”, “close” and “shows”, “house” and “mouse”, and so forth. Free refrain verse, however, doesn’t follow this framework.  

Rhyme Scheme:  

As a continuation of rhyme, the rhyme scheme is also one of the basic elements of poetry. In simple words, it is defined as the pattern of rhyme. Either the last words of the first and second lines rhyme with each other, or the first and the third, second and the fourth and so on. It is denoted by alphabets like aabb(1^st line rhyming with 2^nd, 3^rd with 4^th): abab (1^st with third, 2^nd with 4^th): abba (1^st with 4^th, 2^nd with 3^rd), etc. 

Now let us see how to label the Rhyme scheme: 

When labeling a rhyme scheme in a poem, write uppercase letters at the end of each line that denotes rhymes. 

Label the first line as “A,”  

If you find a line that rhymes with the first line,  

you label it with the same letter as the earlier line, i.e., “A” 

Label the second line as “B,” 

If you find a line that rhymes with the “B” line,  

you label it with the same letter as the earlier line, i.e., “B” 

Then the subsequent lines continue through the alphabets in order. 

Label the rhyme scheme of the below poem 

December Leaves  

The fallen leaves are cornflakes 

That fill the lawn’s wide dish, 

and night and noon  

the wind’s a spoon 

that stirs them with a swish. 

The sky’s a silver sifter 

A-sifting white and slow 

That gently shakes 

On crisp brown flakes 

The sugar known as snow. 

Let us label this rhyme 

Labeling the above rhyme scheme 

December Leaves  

The fallen leaves are cornflakes A 

That fill the lawn’s wide dish, B 

and night and noon C 

the wind’s a spoon C 

that stirs them with a swish. B 

The sky’s a silver sifter A 

A-sifting white and slow B 

That gently shakes C 

On crisp brown flakes C 

The sugar known as snow. B