Rhythm in Poetry

Homework: Read both sides of handout about "Rhythm and Meter" and "First Lines"

Warmup: Copy "Counting-Out Rhyme" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Underline and label different parts of figurative language.

Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Twig of willow.

Stripe of green in moosewood maple,
Colour seen in leaf of apple,
Bark of popple.

Wood of popple pale as moonbeam,
Wood of oak for yoke and barn-beam,
Wood of hornbeam.

Silver bark of beech, and hollow
Stem of elder, tall and yellow
Twig of willow.

If you read this poem to a 4/4 beat, all the stresses fall on the first and third syllables. Try it out!

Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Twig of willow.

Pretty great, right? You could easily sing this poem to a melody.

For our next exercise, we listed some well-known songs on the board, like "Happy Birthday," "London Bridge," and "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Students kept the rhythm of the songs but rewrote the lyrics, to hilarious effect.

Then we looked at some limericks, which have a very specific rhythm and rhyme scheme. Students wrote their own limericks and shared them out loud.

Tomorrow: Time to revise again! Concrete poems will be due at the end of the period.