Creating Meaning
Creating Sound
Alliteration, Assonance, and Consonance
Using Form
- Sonnet
- Sestina
Elements of Poetry
Imagery
Imagery refers to the details poets include that appeal to one of your senses; that is, the details cause you to feel something, hear something, smell something, taste something, or see something. This can only be done through concrete, specific details that trigger a response from your everyday life. We see the sun rise and set, we hear children yelling and horns honking, we smell bread baking; we feel the bitter sting of cold wind, and we taste the bitterness of vinegar. Poems that include these details trigger emotional responses from our memories and therefore create reactions in the reader.
Sometimes the imagery in a poem can refer to a pattern of related details. For example, there may be patterns of light and dark imagery, and they may convey a meaning beyond what is being literally described. They are then called metaphorical or symbolic images. Light and dark images might indicate knowledge or ignorance or death.
Class Discussion:
Read the following poem and prepare answers to the discussion questions.
"The Wild Swans at Coole"
William Butler Yeats
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stone
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied stil, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
What specific details or images stand out for you? What responses do you have to those images?
What types of words (what parts of speech) are particularly useful in creating imagery in this poem?
