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Poetry Web Sites and Information

Alliteration	Couplets	Triplets	Limerick	Haiku and Renga
	Tanka	Cinquain	Diamonte
	Poetry Sites		Meter, etc.
Poetry Corner Definitions		Rhyming Dictionary		Sample Revision Process Tanka

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Alliteration: Repeating the beginning sounds in two or more words, such as

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

http://www.gigglepoetry.com/poetryclass/tonguetwister.htm

A great twist to alliteration with lots of fun tonguetwister how to's!

 

http://volweb.utk.edu/Schools/bedford/harrisms/allitera.htm

Print out a worksheet.

 

http://www.accessone.com/~up/playbook/game/Alliteration.html (This link is no longer available.)

Learn things like this here: "A gentle breeze wafted between the trees when suddenly a beam of sunlight broke through the mist, anointing everything in its path with a shimmering sparkle.

[or] On the other hand, try this...

A beautiful breeze blew beckoningly between the boughs when a blonde beam blasted its way beneath the brume, blanketing the brush with beads of bouncing brightness."

 

http://www.highbray.demon.co.uk/allit.htm

A ten-line alliterated poem pattern to follow:

"One wiggly whale wiggling wearily through the water

Two tall turnips talking tenderly to each other

Three thick threads throwing fruit bottles

Four fresh fruits have a fierce fight over friends

Five freaky spiders fighting flies

Six slimy anteaters take on small ants

Seven slimy slugs slither slowly on the sand

Eight enormous elephants eat an enormous lion

Nine naughty nuisances nick some knickers

Ten tough trip on the tramples tree.

Daniel" Go to this site for more!

 

http://teenwriting.about.com/cs/alliteration/ (This link is no longer available, but does have writing information for teens. This is a commercial site; stay on school information.)

Read examples like this:

"Starving Student

Washington

The startling statistic staggered the stepping stone in the storm while the starving students studied..

A pretentious prowler proudly prowled the probing program.

Those creepy crawly crackling cackling crocodiles careened their crooked crowns.

Paul's persistent personality pushed the ;purple pillow plan across the plain.

Those miniscule microbes migrated mom's and my M&M's.

Like loads of laundry Laura leapt onto the laughing little leftover leopards lifting left feet..

Does double-dipping determine double dipper deviled doggies.

Four frolicsome felines feeding furiously on fattening Friskies food for fifty -five fish-flippers.

Ruth's rumpled robe ripped rapidly from the rapid roaring raptor.

Jerry's jersey just joined the jumping jacks."

Poem of two-line stanzas whereby both lines in the stanza rhyme.

Shortest couplet is the poem "Fleas" (author unknown)

 

Fleas

 

Adam

Had 'em.

http://www.geocities.com/hermies_members/comps/poetry/couplet.html

Hermit Crab Poetry--couplets

 

http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/couplet.html

"A verse form, rhyming aa bb cc dd. Rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter are sometimes called heroic couplets.

A couplet meant to stand alone as an entire poem is sometimes called a distich (meaning "two lines"), as this one:

There was a young man from Hong Kong,

Who thought limericks were too long." Check out more at this site.

 

http://www.uni.edu/english/craft/couplet.html

"Heroic Couplet- two lines of iambic pentameter, also the last two lines of the English sonnet. From Richard Steere's "On a Sea-Storm Nigh the Coast" below. Go to this site for more.

Wave after wave in hills each other crowds,

As if the deeps resolved to storm the clouds." Check out more at this site.

TRIPLETS : also called tercets; if in iambic pentameter, they are called terza rima.

http://www.berkeleyprep.org/lower/fourth/writing/poetry_patterns.htm Look for the Triplet link for this poem, but if you see something else on poetry you like--check the link and let the rest of us know.

 

A Triplet is a poem of three lines. Most often the three lines rhyme. Some triplets have only two rhymed lines with different patterns.

Example: 3 rhyming lines

"Football is the game for me

The stadium is a great place to be

Touchdowns are what I like to see." Check out more at this site.

 

http://www.here-now.org/topics/poetry/challenge/2001/challengeb_010122.asp

Check out this site for more poems like these:

The Eagle

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

 

From "A Child's Anthology of Poetry" Edited by Elizabeth Hauge Sword

 

The Sloth

by Theodore Roethke

 

In moving-slow he has no Peer

You ask him something in his ear;

He thinks about it for a Year;

 

And, then, before he says a Word

There, upside down (unlike a Bird)

He will assume that you have Heard-

 

A most Exas-per-at-ing Lug.

But should you call his manner Smug,

He'll sigh and give his branch a Hug;

 

Then off again to Sleep he goes, Still swaying gently by his Toes,

And you just know he knows he knows.

 

From "A Child's Anthology of Poetry" Edited by Elizabeth Hauge Sword

 

http://www.quaker.org/fqa/types/t07-krause.html

A fun triplet poem with a twist created by more than one author--it's called a Renga

Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. It is a three-lined poem of 17 syllables total, 5 on the first line, 7 on the second line, and 5 on the first line.

 

http://www.tecnet.or.jp/~haiku/

Children's Haiku--pictures with haiku by Japanese and American children--

"In a deep forest

The water is falling gently

The sun was rising.

 

Hawaiian Tropics

Beautiful water falling

Down the rugged rocks."

 

http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/

This site defines haiku more completely and provides examples.

"Shiki, Masaoka. (1867-1902).

For love and for hate

I swat a fly and offer it

to an ant."

 

"Urban Haiku

Michael R. Collings mcolling@pepperdine.edu):

Silence--a strangled

Telephone has forgotten

That it should ring

 

Freeway overpass--

Blossoms in grafitti on

fog-wrapped June mornings"

 

 http://www.hsa-haiku.org/

Haiku Society of America

"Joan M. Taylor, Lyndhurst, Ohio

Homeless . . .

    after his cardboard box

        blows away . . . "

 

See other contest winners at http://www.hsa-haiku.org/news-contests.htm

 

http://www.ahapoetry.com/keirule.htm

A new twist on Haiku that argues that the Japanese 5-7-5 syllable rule does not translate well into the English language. A 3-5-3 or 2-3-2 pattern may work better for English syllables"

"the following haiku,

across the arroyo

deep scars

of a joy ride

Keiko

can be rewritten to approximate the 3-5-3 form as

across the

arroyo, deep scars

of a joy ride

without affecting the meaning."

http://www.americantanka.com/about.html

This American Tanka site defines Tanka.

Samples from American Tanka at: http://www.americantanka.com/samples.html

"in line

so close to Mother's Day

longing

to pick grains of something

from that boy's matted hair

-Joann Klontz

 

I'm just saying

how good it is to see her

when suddenly

she sticks out her tongue--

catches a snowflake

-Larry Kimmel "

 

 

Click here for Sample Tanka and Revision Process

http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/amy/algebra/5-6/activities/poetry/cinquain.html

Definition and math poem !

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Cafe/4278/cinquain.html

Definition, poetry, music

Writer's Resource Center

Informations and samples of Cinquain from http://www.poewar.com/articles/cinquain.htm Here are two:

Cinquain	pattern
"Touson Rain The smell Everyone moves To the window to look Work stops and people start talking Rain came	Line 1: Title noun Line 2: Description Line 3: Action Line 4: Feeling or Effect Line 5: Synonym of the initial noun.
Opening Game Game time Season looked good National champions We told ourselves as we sat down Not now"	Line 1: Title noun Line 2: Description Line 3: Action Line 4: Feeling or Effect Line 5: Synonym of the initial noun.

Other sites with definitions and examples:

http://jfg.girlscouts.org/How/make/cinquain.htm

http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/5165/pages/cinquains.html

http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/poetry5.html

 Diamonte IS A seven line poem in the shape of a diamond. It follows a similar pattern as the cinquain, but maintains a symmetrical shape of a diamond and usually flows from one noun to the opposing noun, an antonym.

 

Other sites with definitions and examples:

http://peoria.k12.il.us/princeville326/diamonte1.htm

http://www.abcteach.com/Writing/diamonte.htm a printable workpage

Cinquain and Diamonte--

http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/5165/pages/cinquains.html

http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/poetry6.html

A bit about verse, stanza, rhyme, rhythm and meter:

A bit about line and meter: "If you ain't got line, you ain't got that swing!"--Damon McLaughlin, former graduate student at University of Northern Iowa---- http://www.uni.edu/english/craft/line&meter.html

from links at: http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/couplet.html

"Verse

Verse has two meanings in literary discussions, neither of which is the most familiar use outside English departments.

Although "verse" is used in the real world to name a group of lines in a song (as in "Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Verse, Chorus"), in poetry it means "single line." A group of verses is called a stanza or a verse paragraph. You'll impress English teachers by using the terms precisely.

The other meaning for verse is more general: it's sometimes used of metrical writing of all sorts: in other words, for poetry in general, as distinct from prose.

Rhythm

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of verse or (less often) prose. Regular rhythm is called meter.

Meter

When rhythm is regular, it is often called meter. Each verse is made up of a number of metrical feet. Use a pair of terms to describe a line of verse: first, an adjective for the basic kind of foot. Typical feet include iambs (the most common in English poetry), trochees, and spondees. Less common are dactyls, anapests, and amphibrachs.

The second term gives the number of feet in each line. The most common in English are pentameter (five beats per verse) and tetrameter (four beats per verse); other possibilities are monometer, dimeter, trimeter, and hexameter.

No meter is perfectly regular. Apart from the theoretical problem that no two syllables will receive precisely the same stress, most poets (even the most apparently regular) try to vary their verse by introducing occasional metrical substitutions.

Foot

A foot is the basis of meter: that is, the regular unit of rhythm which, when repeated, makes up a verse. Although the basis of meter in the classical languages was "quantitative" -- i.e., "long" and "short" syllables were based on the actual amount of time it took to speak the syllables -- and some English poets made experiments in this direction, virtually all English feet are based on a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Still, the terms are usually imported from Greek and Latin versification, and you may hear "long" and "short" where "stressed" and "unstressed" are meant.

Each common foot comprises two or three syllables: either one or two stressed syllables, and zero, one, or two unstressed syllables. The common feet in English:

* Duple Meters:

* Unstressed, stressed: iamb

Pentameter

A line of verse with five feet is known as pentameter (Greek penta, "five"). The most common verse form in English is iambic pentameter, that is, five feet in each verse, each containing an iamb (the second of two syllables stressed)."

 

 

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Limericks

http://www.poetryteachers.com/poetclass/lessons/limerick.html

How to Write a Limerick by Bruce Lansky

Limerick---- a five-lined funny poem** with the last words of the first, second, and fifth lines rhyming (marked with (A) below) and the last words of the third and fourth lines rhyming (marked (B) below) from Bruce Lansky's poetry page. Notice that the first, second, and fifth lines each have eight (8) syllables, and the third and fourth lines each have (five or) six syllables and a different rhyme:

There was an old man who said, "Do

Tell me how I should add two and two?

I think more and more

That it makes about four--

But I fear that is almost too few."

Here's how Bruce Lansky shows students how to write a limerick. Visit his site for more about limericks and other poems! The word line is the poem, the da DUM line just shows you the unstressed (da) stressed (DUM) syllables:

"There was an old man from Peru, (A)

da DUM da da DUM da da DUM

who dreamed he was eating his shoe. (A)

da DUM da da DUM da da DUM

He awoke in the night (B)

da DUM da da DUM

with a terrible fright, (B)

da da DUM da da DUM

and found out that it was quite true. (A)

da DUM da da DUM da da DUM"

Limerick contest for kids grades 1-12 -- http://www.gigglepoetry.com/limerickcontest.cfm

Good examples:

http://library.thinkquest.org/3721/poems/forms/lime.html (site created by students--temporarily offline til 2003)

http://www.aps.org/apsnews/limericks.html----physics limericks

http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/poetry/limerick.html

http://www.yahooligans.com/school_bell/language_arts/poetry/Limericks/ (several links)

http://erato.acnatsci.org/conchnet/fun.html learn about seashells and read limericks

http://www.setileague.org/awards/limerick.htm The SETI League limericks on aliens.

http://www.setileague.org/awards/winners.htm The SETI Asimov Memorial Limerick Contest winners

Not all limericks are funny. The limerick form of poetry sounds beautiful in serious verse; see the work of Joel C. Ash: http://www.poeticlimericks.com/

A serious side to limericks by Joel D. Ash-- see sample at http://www.poeticlimericks.com/#Sample

Write at leat one funny limerick and one serious limerick. Choose at least one for your anthology.

Other Poetry Sites and Resources

 An autobiographical poem pattern: http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/5165/pages/autobiopoems.html

"A Place for Poets to Gather"--http://www.shadowpoetry.com/

Types of poetry http://www.shadowpoetry.com/types.html

Types of poetry http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/poechild.htm#A

Student created poetry place --http://library.thinkquest.org/3721/laapp.html (offline until 2003)

Public Broadcasting Service kids poetry page --http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/poetry/limerick.html

Poetry patterns to follow --http://www.berkeleyprep.org/lower/fourth/writing/poetry_patterns.htm

Samples of some of your required poet forms and others. http://okemos.k12.mi.us/users/pdunn/projects/samples.htm

A webquest to create a PowerPoint anthology: http://www.bernie.k12.mo.us/teachers/griffin/webquest.html

For middle school students--http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/poetry.htm

Yahooligans Reading Search page (scroll down for search) http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/Yahooligans/ReadingWeek

Other good sources:

 http://www.berkeleyprep.org/lower/fourth/writing/old_favorites.htm

 http://www.umeedu.maine.edu/coehd/wind/poemtypes.html

 http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/poechild.htm#A