Poetry

Distance Education Course in Writing Poetry

• Learn to Write All types of Poetry -Serious, Witty, Funny
• Develop your ability to write and understand different types of poetry
• Explore how you can use your poetry -at home, work and play

Whatever you write has sound. People hear your words in their heads, and so the sounds you create can draw people's attention to your message. Poets use a range of musical and figurative devices to achieve their effects. Some of these effects relate to the rhythm and metre of the words. The study of rhythm, stress, and pitch in speech is called prosody. In poetry, the meter (or metre) is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse.

The process by which we create a poem may be more important than the actual poem we create. Studies have shown that creativity can emerge after periods of depression and loneliness. Creative expression can benefit us in many ways. For example, Elizabeth Layton created line drawings to develop her talent and used her creativity to overcome her depression. As you will learn, many great poets may have experienced depression and loss.

Lesson Structure

There are 9 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction
   • Nature and Scope of Poetry
   • Brief description of the many different types of poetry
   • Poetic Devices (Rhyme, Assonance, Alliteration, Personification, Onomatopoeia, Imagery, Symbolism, Similie, Metaphor)
   • Styles that tell a Story (Monody, Ballad, Epitaph)
   • Classic Styles (Sonnet, Ode, Haiku)
   • Monorhyme
   • Trick Poems (Limerick, Tonge Twister, Shape Poem, Palindrome)
   • Styles classified according to Arrangement of Lines (Quatrain Style, Pantoum, Free Verse, Villanelle, Clerihew, Damante, Acrostic Style)
   • Keeping a Notebook
   • Editing
   • Terminology.
2. The Work of Other Poets
   • Shakespeare
   • Kendall
   • Batejeman
   • Angelou
   • Shelley
   • Dickinson
   • Edgar Allen Poe
3. Encouraging your creativity.
   • Exploring Creativity
   • Understanding your own Creativity
4. Developing different styles of poetry A (Some Classic Styles)
   • Ode
   • Sonnet
   • Italian Sonnet
   • Haiku
   • Writing Haiku
5. Developing different styles of poetry B (Following the Rules)
   • Quatrain
   • Pantoum
   • Acrostic
   • 21st Century Visual Poetry
6. Developing different styles of poetry C (Poetry for Story Telling)
   • Developing a Story in Poetry
   • Planning a Story
   • Developing Your Voice
   • Ambience
   • Ending a Story
   • Epitaph Style
   • Monody
7. Developing different styles of poetry D (Styles for Fun and Trickery)
   • Funny Poems
   • Tongue Twisters,
   • Limericks
8. Getting your work published (how and where)
   • Creative Writing Resources
   • Other Industry Resources
   • How and Where to Get Published
   • Self Publishing
   • Vanity Publishing
9. The next phase (how to continue to improve)

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Poems Focussed on Telling a Story:

Epitaph Style
This is a short poem commemorating the life of a deceased person, usually on a tombstone.

Classic Styles:

An Ode
This is a poem that praises or speaks highly of something, for example a place or a person.

Sonnet
A lyric poem of fourteen lines, which may follow any of a variety of different rhyming schemes. There are a variety of different types of sonnets (eg. Italian sonnet, Shakesperean Sonnet).

Haiku
Haiku (also called "nature" or "seasonal" haiku) is Japanese verse consisting of three non-rhyming lines of five, seven, and five syllables, or 17 syllables in all. Haiku is usually written in the present tense and focuses on nature or seasons.

Monorhyme
This is where all the lines have the same rhyme.

Fun & Trick Poems:

Tongue Twister
These involve lines that are difficult to pronounce when you speak the line fast.

Limerick Style
This is characterised by humour, rhyme and often nonsense.

Shape Poetry
Lines are written in a way that represents the shape of what you are writing about
Eg. If the subject of the poem is a person, the poem is written so that the lines create the shape of a person.

Palindrome
This is a poem where lines read the same whether read from start to finish or (backwards) from finish to start.

Poems classified according to how lines are constructed and arranged:

Quatrain Style
Comprises a block of four lines of verse that adhere to a specific rhyming pattern.

Pantoum
A pantoum is a poem that joins together a series of quatrains.

Acrostic Style
This is poetry that is constructed in such a way that when the first letter of each line is taken, and those letters compiled together; they will spell one or more words. The words spelt are often the same as the title

Free Verse
Free Verse is irregular. Content is free of traditional rules - free from fixed meter or rhyme.

Villanelle
A Villanelle is a nineteen-line poem consisti




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ng of a very specific rhyming scheme.

 

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