Collaborative Poetry Encyclopedia

Due Date: Thursdays, throughout the semester 

Grade: 10% of your class grade

For the next few weeks, we’ll explore poetic terms that will expand your understanding of poetry. These will fall under a variety of rubrics: tropes (i.e. figures of speech), sounds, accentual-syllabic meters (like iambic pentameter), other meters (like syllabics), elements of line, fixed forms (like sonnets), and rhetorical forms (how poems argue). Think of these as tools in a poet’s toolbox or muscles in his or her body. For each entry in our encyclopedia, you should provide the following info:  

Definition: What is this element? How would a poet use it? What differentiates it from the other terms in the same category? Give us a sense—using numbers and diagrams if necessary—of what this poetic element is. Your peers should be able to write a pantoum, say, from your definition of pantoum.     

History: Where does this term come from? Are there historical eras when it flourished? Are there times when it languished? Is it still used today?.    

Tricks, Tips:  How does one go about incorporating this poetic element in his poetry? Are there particular tricks that seem to work? What must one avoid? What sort of brain would love this poetic element? Give us your opinion here. Be didactic. 

     Poets: Have any well-known poets used this tool successfully? Any movements or groups?         

Example: Please provide one example of the term in question, preferably a poem itself. This example should include an author, title, and date of composition—at least to the best of your ability.                        

Nota Bene: you don’t have to spend equal time on the history as on the definition, if one doesn’t merit as much attention, but you do need to address both the history and define the term. (An elegy, for instance, is relatively easy to define; it is much harder to quantify historically. A villanelle is the opposite.) Whatever the case, be creative! Feel free to fall down the rabbit hole and report back. Feel free to use images, diagrams, sound files, or videos. Make the most, in short, of this website!    

Process: 

We will divvy up terms in class on Tuesdays. You should upload your completed Poetry Encyclopedia Entry before class on Thursday. The length of each entry is up to you, but I'd advise putting together the equivalent of one, double-spaced page. Please remember to include your sample poem when you upload your entry. 

Resources: 

Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics is a great place to start your poetry encyclopedia entry. The optional texts listed in the syllabus—The Princeton Encyclopedia on Poetry and Poetics or All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing—will be additionally useful. Many of these books are available in Lilly Library. 

·      The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Eds. Roland Greene and Stephen Cushman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2012.  

·      All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification. Timothy Steele. Athens, OH: Ohio UP, 1999.

·      A Poet’s Guide to Poetry. Mary Kinzie. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999.

·      Meter in English: A Critical Engagement. Ed. David Baker. Fayetteville, AR. U of Arkansas P, 1996. 

·      John Hollander’s Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1981.