UNDERSTANDING POEM

Understanding Poem

Welcome to study English

In this series we will share about Understanding Poem

There are 4 points which we will discuss in this video

·        Distinction between poem, poetry, and prose

·        Structure of the poem

·        The example of the poem

·        Exercises

The distinction between poem, poetry, and prosewill be explained in this order.

To make it clear let's watch this video below!

WHAT IS POEM?

Poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhytmical, usually methaporical. Jika dalam bahasa indonesia, sajak hampir sama dengan puisi, bahkan banyak yang sulit membedakan antara keduanya. Sejatinya, sajak merupakan suatu bentuk tulisan yang penyajian nya memiliki sifat teratur dan terikat dalam baris antara satu sama lainya.

William Henry Davies

Here’s an example from A Butterfly;
That on a rough, hard rock Happy can lie; 
Friendless and all alone 
On this unsweetened stone.

Now let my bed be hard No care take I; 
I’ll make my joy like this Small Butterfly; 
Whose happy heart has power 
To make a stone a flower.

The rhime sceme of the poem above is AABB (stanza 1) and AACC (stanza 2)

WHAT IS POETRY?

Poetry is literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feeling and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhytm. Dalam bahasa Indonesia, Poetry merupakan suatu bentuk karya tulis yang biasanya merupakan ekspresi jiwa dengan nilai estetika yang berkualitas dan memiliki makna yag mendalam. Poetry dalam bahasa indonesia disebut dengan puisi.

william Shakespear

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed

WHAT IS PROSE?

Prose is written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure. Jika dalam bahasa indonesia, prose disebut dengan prosa dan memiliki arti sebuah bentuk karya tulis dengan ritme yang besar dan biasanya digunakan untuk menuangkan sebuah ide, fakta, pendapat ataupun gagasan.

Charlotte Brontë

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton. In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres—the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.

Perbedaan Antara Poem, Poetry Dan Prose 

• Poem : Merupakan sebuah sajak dalam bahasa inggris yang setiap barisnya saling memiliki keterikatan.
• Poetry : Merupakan sebuah puisi (karya tulis) dalam bahasa inggris yang memiliki sebuah estetika dan makna yang mendalam.
• Prose : Prose atau prosa merupakan karya tulis yang memiliki ritme yang besar dan biasanya digunakan untuk menuagkan ide atau gagasan akan suatu hal.

*Ritme : aksen suara yang teratur (Irama)

STRUCTURE

There are so many! And every culture/language has its own forms! To list them all would be impossible. However, if you are going to start somewhere, I would suggest learning a few basic terms first so that when you encounter complex structures. I would start with the following terms:

Rhythm

·         Stressed syllable

·         Unstressed syllable

rhyme scheme

·         consonant rhyme: when the last two syllables rhyme with the same consonant falling between them.
Example in English: “Humpty Dumpty”

·         assonant rhyme: When the last two vowels of the last two syllables rhyme, but the consonant between them is different. This form of rhyme is pretty rare in English, but is very common in Romance languages. Example in Spanish: “ala / brava”

·         slant rhyme: AKA “half-rhyme” - these are words that can “rhyme” when written, but do not when spoken. For example, “wind / find” when “wind” refers to a gust of air. Otherwise, slant rhyme can be words that are *nearly* alike, but don’t quite rhyme. Emily Dickinson used this with some frequency.

meter: the number of syllables in one poetic verse

·         foot: two syllables make up a foot, and a verse is composed of a number of feet, having a pattern of emphasis (unaccented and accented syllables)

·         Example of a type of meter: iambic pentameter: A metrical line consisting of five feet in unaccented/accented sequence for a total of ten syllables. Much of Shakespeare's plays and poems employ iambic pentameter with consonant rhyme.

stanza: a grouping of any number of individual lines/verses, followed by a break, or that stand on their own as a single poem.

·         couplet: Two verses.

·         tercet: Three verses.

·         quatrain: Four verses.

form: the collection/pattern of stanzas that comprise a poem. Form can be strictly or loosely defined.

·         An example of strict form: the sonnet: A poem with strict form obeys rules of rhyme, meter, and stanzas. The Shakespearean sonnet often consists of fourteen lines: three quatrains and then a couplet. The meter is iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is (abab cdcd efef gg) where each letter represents the rhyming of the last syllable(s).)

·         Looser forms of poetry have stanzas that are more intuitive, and lack the formal structures (rhyme, meter, stanzas) as defined by tradition. Free verse is an example of poetry that lacks formal structures, obeying only the logic of the poem's content.

Let's Practice!

SPRING

In the early part of spring

You will hear, many birds sing

They are just letting, the rest of us know

Winter is over, spring melted the snow

You will notice, a beautiful scene

The trees will slowly, begin to turn green

Chipmunks and bunnies will come out and play,

Bears will no longer, sleep during the day

It’s exciting, when spring finally arrives

Bees will make honey, inside their hives

So much to do, so much to see

Insects and animals are happy and free

1.    What is the poem about?

Answer: Spring Time/ The beauty of sring

2.    How many stanzas does the poem have?

Answer: 3 stanzas

3.    What is ‘spring, sing, know, snow’ (stanza 1) called?

Answer: rhyme scheme

4.    How many lines does the poem have?

Answer: 12 lines

5.    What is the rhyme scheme of the poem above?

Answer: Stanza 1: AABB Stanza 2: CCDD Stanza 3 EEFF