Module 2: Poetry from the archipelago
Poetry is probably the most sophisticated of all literary genres. Your Filipino ancestors, through oral tradition, shared epics, proverbs, riddles, and folksongs, in poetic form with specific formal scheme in which they strictly, followed. Yet poetry is still the chosen genre of many local writers, for its offers a uniqueness that other genres may not achieve: the opportunity to see world anew, with every single written word.
Poetry in the Philippines is not different from its other counter parts around the world. In the early 1990s, Filipino poetry celebrated romanticism, and several poems about love flourished.
Poetry in the Philippines is not different from its other counter parts around the world. In the early 1990s, Filipino poetry celebrated romanticism, and several poems about love flourished.
Examples of Poetry
- Haikus are one category of poems. The haiku originated from Japan, It’s the shortest type of poem and, often, the most difficult to understand. It consists of three lines that generally do not rhyme. The lines should have five, seven, and five syllables in them.
Example:
The autumn wind blows,
Calling the leaves on the ground
To join him in dance.
- Free verse poems are another type of poetry. A free verse is the loosest type of poem. It can consist of as many lines as the writer wants. It can either rhyme or not, and it does not require any fixed metrical pattern. Free verse is commonly used among writers because it allows for maximum flexibility.
Example:
This excerpt from Little Father by Li-Young Lee
I buried my father in my heart.
Now he grows in me, my strange son,
My little root who won’t drink milk,
Little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,
Little clock spring newly wet
In the fire, little grape, parent to the future
Wine, a son the fruit of his own son,
Little father I ransom with my life.
- Sonnets are another classification of poetry. A sonnet is best described as a lyric poem that consists of fourteen lines. Sonnet’s have at least one or two conventional rhyme schemes. Shakespeare in particular was famous for writing sonnets.
Example:
Sonnet 116
By Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not
Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- Name poems are popular among children and are often used in schools. The name of the person becomes the poem. Each letter in the name is the first letter in the line of the poem.
While a name verse poem can be as simple as using an adjective to describe a person that begins with each letter of that person's name, these poems can also be far more beautiful works of art. For example, here is a name poem for a person named Alexis:
“Alexis seems quite shy and somewhat frail,
Leaning, like a tree averse to light,
Evasively away from her delight.
X-rays, though, reveal a sylvan sprite,
Intense as a bright bird behind her veil,
Singing to the moon throughout the night.”
- Is an unrhymed poem consisting of three lines and seventeen syllables. A haiku : often describes something in nature
Example:
The autumn wind blows,
Calling the leaves on the ground
To join him in dance.
- Free verse poems are another type of poetry. A free verse is the loosest type of poem. It can consist of as many lines as the writer wants. It can either rhyme or not, and it does not require any fixed metrical pattern. Free verse is commonly used among writers because it allows for maximum flexibility.
Example:
This excerpt from Little Father by Li-Young Lee
I buried my father in my heart.
Now he grows in me, my strange son,
My little root who won’t drink milk,
Little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,
Little clock spring newly wet
In the fire, little grape, parent to the future
Wine, a son the fruit of his own son,
Little father I ransom with my life.
- Sonnets are another classification of poetry. A sonnet is best described as a lyric poem that consists of fourteen lines. Sonnet’s have at least one or two conventional rhyme schemes. Shakespeare in particular was famous for writing sonnets.
Example:
Sonnet 116
By Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not
Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- Name poems are popular among children and are often used in schools. The name of the person becomes the poem. Each letter in the name is the first letter in the line of the poem.
While a name verse poem can be as simple as using an adjective to describe a person that begins with each letter of that person's name, these poems can also be far more beautiful works of art. For example, here is a name poem for a person named Alexis:
“Alexis seems quite shy and somewhat frail,
Leaning, like a tree averse to light,
Evasively away from her delight.
X-rays, though, reveal a sylvan sprite,
Intense as a bright bird behind her veil,
Singing to the moon throughout the night.”
Elements of Poetry
- Senses and images
Are used by the writer to describe their impressions of their topic or object of writing. The writer uses carefully chosen and phrased words to create an imaginary that the reader can see through his or her senses. This kinds of senses impressions in poetry are categorized in mainly the following: visual imagery(what the writer wants you to see);olfactory imagery(what the writer wants you to smell);gustatory imagery(what the writer wants you to taste)tactile imaginary(what the writer wants you to feel.);and auditory imagery(what the writer wants you to see).
-Diction
Is another important element in Filipino poetry. In fact, Filipino writers are very careful of the way they write and the words they use to form their forms. Diction is the denotative and connotative meaning of the words in a sentence, phrase, paragraph, or poem.
- Rhyme Scheme
Is the way the author arranges words, meters, lines, and stanzas to create a coherent sound when the poem is read out loud. It may be formal informal, depending on the way the poem was written by the poet.
-Alliteration
Is a repetition of the same consonant sounds in a sequence of words, usually at the
Beginning of a word or stressed syllable: “descending dew drops;” “luscious lemons.”
Alliteration is based on the sounds of letters, rather than the spelling of words; for example,
“Keen” and “car” alliterate, but “car” and “cite” do not.
-Assonance
Is the repetition of similar internal vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry, as
In “I rose and told him of my woe.”
- Figurative language
Is a form of language use in which the writers and speakers mean
Something other than the literal meaning of their words. Two figures of speech that are
Particularly important for poetry are simile and metaphor.
A simile involves a comparison between unlike things using like or as. For instance, “My love is like a red, red rose.” A metaphor Is a comparison between essentially unlike things without a word such as like or as.
For example, “My love is a red, red rose.” Synecdoche is a type of metaphor in which part of
something is used to signify the whole, as when a gossip is called a “wagging tongue.”
Metonymy is a type of metaphor in which something closely associated with a subject is
substituted for it, such as saying the “silver screen” to mean motion pictures.
-Rhyme
Is the repetition of identical or similar concluding syllables in different words, most
often at the ends of lines. Rhyme is predominantly a function of sound rather than spelling; thus,
words that end with the same vowel sounds rhyme, for instance, day, prey, bouquet, weigh, and
words with the same consonant ending rhyme, for instance vain, rein, lane. The rhyme scheme
of a poem, describes the pattern of end rhymes. Rhyme schemes are mapped out by noting
patterns of rhyme with small letters: the first rhyme sound is designated a, the second becomes
b, the third c, and so on.
-Rhythm
Is the term used to refer to the recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry.
Poets rely heavily on rhythm to express meaning and convey feeling. Caesura is a strong pause
within a line of poetry that contributes to the rhythm of the line. When a line has a pause at its
end, it is called an end-stopped line. Such pauses reflect normal speech patterns and are often
marked by punctuation. A line that ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its
meaning is called a run-on line or enjambment.
-Stanza
Is a grouping of lines, set off by a space, which usually has a set pattern of meter and
rhyme.
-Tone
conveys the speaker’s implied attitude toward the poem’s subject. Tone is an abstraction
we make from the details of a poem’s language: the use of meter and rhyme (or lack of them);
the inclusion of certain kinds of details and exclusion of other kinds; particular choices of words
and sentence pattern, or imagery and figurative language (diction). Another important element
of tone is the order of words in sentences, phrases, or clauses (syntax).
Are used by the writer to describe their impressions of their topic or object of writing. The writer uses carefully chosen and phrased words to create an imaginary that the reader can see through his or her senses. This kinds of senses impressions in poetry are categorized in mainly the following: visual imagery(what the writer wants you to see);olfactory imagery(what the writer wants you to smell);gustatory imagery(what the writer wants you to taste)tactile imaginary(what the writer wants you to feel.);and auditory imagery(what the writer wants you to see).
-Diction
Is another important element in Filipino poetry. In fact, Filipino writers are very careful of the way they write and the words they use to form their forms. Diction is the denotative and connotative meaning of the words in a sentence, phrase, paragraph, or poem.
- Rhyme Scheme
Is the way the author arranges words, meters, lines, and stanzas to create a coherent sound when the poem is read out loud. It may be formal informal, depending on the way the poem was written by the poet.
-Alliteration
Is a repetition of the same consonant sounds in a sequence of words, usually at the
Beginning of a word or stressed syllable: “descending dew drops;” “luscious lemons.”
Alliteration is based on the sounds of letters, rather than the spelling of words; for example,
“Keen” and “car” alliterate, but “car” and “cite” do not.
-Assonance
Is the repetition of similar internal vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry, as
In “I rose and told him of my woe.”
- Figurative language
Is a form of language use in which the writers and speakers mean
Something other than the literal meaning of their words. Two figures of speech that are
Particularly important for poetry are simile and metaphor.
A simile involves a comparison between unlike things using like or as. For instance, “My love is like a red, red rose.” A metaphor Is a comparison between essentially unlike things without a word such as like or as.
For example, “My love is a red, red rose.” Synecdoche is a type of metaphor in which part of
something is used to signify the whole, as when a gossip is called a “wagging tongue.”
Metonymy is a type of metaphor in which something closely associated with a subject is
substituted for it, such as saying the “silver screen” to mean motion pictures.
-Rhyme
Is the repetition of identical or similar concluding syllables in different words, most
often at the ends of lines. Rhyme is predominantly a function of sound rather than spelling; thus,
words that end with the same vowel sounds rhyme, for instance, day, prey, bouquet, weigh, and
words with the same consonant ending rhyme, for instance vain, rein, lane. The rhyme scheme
of a poem, describes the pattern of end rhymes. Rhyme schemes are mapped out by noting
patterns of rhyme with small letters: the first rhyme sound is designated a, the second becomes
b, the third c, and so on.
-Rhythm
Is the term used to refer to the recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry.
Poets rely heavily on rhythm to express meaning and convey feeling. Caesura is a strong pause
within a line of poetry that contributes to the rhythm of the line. When a line has a pause at its
end, it is called an end-stopped line. Such pauses reflect normal speech patterns and are often
marked by punctuation. A line that ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its
meaning is called a run-on line or enjambment.
-Stanza
Is a grouping of lines, set off by a space, which usually has a set pattern of meter and
rhyme.
-Tone
conveys the speaker’s implied attitude toward the poem’s subject. Tone is an abstraction
we make from the details of a poem’s language: the use of meter and rhyme (or lack of them);
the inclusion of certain kinds of details and exclusion of other kinds; particular choices of words
and sentence pattern, or imagery and figurative language (diction). Another important element
of tone is the order of words in sentences, phrases, or clauses (syntax).