[From the Introduction to The
ABC’s of Poetry: A Dictionary for Children and for Fun]
Poetry and young people make great friends!
Even the youngest child responds to voice, tone, and musicality, delighting in
the catchy sounds of rhyme, rhythm, and refrain. As language skills develop,
most children also find it's fun to play with words, and poetry lets people of
all ages do just that.
To help young readers easily explore the many
sides of poetry, this book has easy-to-find-entries, arranged alphabetically.
Each A-Z topic includes a pronunciation guide and a brief definition with
poetic examples from the works of present-day poets or the public domain. To
encourage readers to find more info on unfamiliar terms, small caps in the text
point to a related topic or a poetic technique covered somewhere else in the
book.
At first one topic may seem harder than
another, but most can be understood, enjoyed, and practiced by elementary or
middle grade school students in a classroom or home alone on their own.
Besides helping young readers to explore
poetry, this book aims to aid lively discussions with your students, children,
or neighbor kids. As the text guides this timeless adventure into language, the
classics might get clearer, new poems get written, and young artistry get ready
to bud! Anything can happen, so don't be surprised if someone you know falls in
love with poetry. I did as a young child, and, oh, how I wish I’d had this book
waiting for me – as poets of all ages now do, thanks to you!
[Examples of entries]
accent [Pronounced ACK-sent.] In any language,
people place an accent on syllables
as they speak. For example, the word, "accent," has an accent or
stress on the first syllable but not the second. The pronunciation guide beside
each word in a dictionary shows you where the accent goes. That information
helps you to speak correctly. It helps you to write poetry too. How? An accent
gives a word its beat. Combined
with other words on a line, this brings rhythm
to your poem. In fact, a big difference between poetry and other types of
writing is that a poem usually has more accents, which makes more rhythm on
each line.
…
beat [Rhymes with eat – sweet!] A healthy heart goes
tha-THUMP/ tha-THUMP. That beat is good to hear! Poets who want that rhythm use iambs in their poems.
Like a tha-THUMP, an iamb has two syllables.
The first syllable has no accent. The second one does. Put several
iambs together, and the beat sounds like a heart. You can clap your hands and
tap your foot to the beat. But it also sounds like a nursery rhyme! So most
poets will change the beat a little bit.
…
cadence
[Pronounced KAY-dense.] As you talk, your voice goes up and down. Some
words sound soft. Some sing. Some have a strong beat.
In poems the beat makes a kind of music. You can hear it in the Bible. You can
hear it in free verse. You can
hear it as people talk.
Poems with rhyme
have cadence too. But rhymes can get loud! Cadence is easier to hear if words
do not rhyme.
…
clerihew
[Pronounced KLURR-eh-HUE.] This humorous
verse has two couplets of
two lines each. The couplets rhyme
in a pattern or a rhyme scheme of aabb. That means lines one and two make rhyme A. Lines three and
four make rhyme B.
The first rhyme includes the name of a person.
Often well-known, that name makes an end-rhyme
for one of the first two lines.
To write a clerihew, put yourself into it!
Think of words that rhyme with your first or last name. Then say something
funny about yourself. For example, a name that sounds like "sailor"
might make you think of someone who loves to be at sea. Not me!
Mary Sayler
will merrily say her
stomach waves with motion,
sailing on the ocean.
…
iambic pentameter [Pronounced
i-AM-bick pen-TAM-uh-ter.] In accentual syllabic verse, any five feet
on a line make pentameter. If three or more of those
feet are iambs, you have iambic
pentameter. If all five feet are iambs, you have ten syllables on a
line.
The beat
then sounds like this:
ta-TUM/ ta-TUM/ ta- TUM/ ta-TUM/ ta-TUM.
Say ta-TUM aloud five times. Of course, it's
silly, but here's the thing: Once you hear
that cadence coming into a poem,
you'll know iambic pentameter by the sound of its footsteps.
…
syllabic verse
[Pronounced suh-LAB-ick.] For this type of poem, count the number of
syllables you place on each line.
Some poets use a form with a
particular number of syllables. For example, haiku
has a count of 5, 7, 5 syllables on three lines. A cinquain has 2, 4, 6, 8, 2 syllables on five lines. Follow
those patterns. Or design your own. Your syllabic verse can have any number of
syllables you choose. That number can change from line to line or stay the
same.
…
tongue twister A
tongue twister is alliteration gone wild! You can write one with vowels. But consonants work better. They get loud! For this example, I
used the consonant, "r."
Rory writes riddles really
well.
Ruby raps rhyme and rhythm.
Ruby writes rap and rhythmic
rhymes.
Rory fiddles with riddles.
Read fast. Do the R's trip your tongue? That's
half the fun of a tongue twister. The other half comes from playing with
sounds. Be silly! Tongue twisters make sense of nonsense! For example, "Suzy sells sea shells by
the sea shore." That's funny when you think about it. Why sell sea shells
where people find them, free?
…
vowel [Rhymes with towel.] The letters a, e, i, o, u, and, sometimes, y,
make vowels. Every other letter in the alphabet is a consonant. In English, you need at least one vowel per word.
If you repeat the same vowel sounds on a line
of poetry, you get assonance.
This brings a sound
echo that's quieter than consonance.
To hear this for yourself, read aloud the tongue
twister entry. Then meet me back here and say: "Ah!" Eh? I?
Oh! You! Why? Heed the soft voice of vowels. That's Y.
…
For more fun with poems, I hope you'll order The ABC's of Poetry: A Dictionary for Children and for Fun - and give it a starry review! Thanks and blessings.
Mary Harwell Sayler
