Poetry: WHAT MAKES A POEM?

There are lions and roaring tigers,
And enormous camels and things,
There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons,
And a great big bear with wings.
There’s a sort of a tiny potamus,
And a tiny nosserus too—
But I gave buns to the elephant
When I went down to the Zoo!

These lines are the first verse of “At the Zoo,” a poem by A. A. Milne. Milne also wrote the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. What makes this poetry?

WHAT MAKES A POEM?
Any imaginative writing arranged in a pattern of lines may be a poem. The lines often rhyme, but not always. Most poems also have rhythm. And they use words in ways that get you to notice and feel things in a special way.

We usually divide poetry into two main types: narrative poems and lyric poems. Narrative poems tell a story. One of the oldest kinds of narrative poem is the epic. An epic is a long verse tale that usually tells about a hero and the adventures of the hero.

Lyric poems suggest an emotion or feeling. They are usually shorter than narrative poems. The Japanese haiku is a kind of lyric poem. It is only 17 syllables long.

FEATURES OF POETRY
Let’s look at “At the Zoo.” What features of poetry does it have?

“At the Zoo” has rhyme. Rhyme is the repeating of sounds at the end of words. You’ll notice that the words at the end of lines two and four—things and wings—rhyme. Lines six and eight, ending in too and zoo, also rhyme. The odd-numbered lines in the poem do not rhyme. This is one of many patterns of rhyme that poets may use.

Perhaps you have noticed the rhythm of the lines. They have a beat, almost like music. The rhythm, or beat, of the lines in this poem is one-two-three (“There are li-), one-two-three (-ons and roar-). Do you notice that you put an emphasis on every third syllable?

Some words in a line begin with the same sound: “biffalo-buffalo-bisons.” This kind of repetition of sound adds to the music of a poem. So do words that sound like what they mean, such as roaring.

Apart from these details, “At the Zoo” creates a feeling. It suggests a happy young child. There are mispronounced words like “potamus” and “nosserus.” There are fanciful images like a “bear with wings.” These features create the mood of the poem.

MOOD AND IMAGERY
Here is part of a poem with a different mood. It’s the beginning of “The Raven” by American writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.



What kind of mood does Poe create with images like “midnight dreary” and “forgotten lore”? Isn’t it mysterious and lonely? Can you find some repeated sounds?

We don’t even need to understand the words of a poem to enjoy it. Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, sometimes wrote nonsense verse, like “Jabberwocky.” Here’s how “Jabberwocky” begins:

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimbel in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


It has rhyme and rhythm. And like all good poetry, it asks our imaginations to do some work. Carroll made up the words in this poem, but they sound almost like real words. What do you think a “brillig” day is like? Can you imagine a “slithy tove”? Can you picture the tove as it gyres and gimbels?

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