Start getting an idea what poetry is by reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry (and following more interesting links from there)
and take notes as to what you believe is more relevant to your understanding of poetry (meter, rhyme, poetic features, different forms, etc).
Glossary of poetic terms:
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072405228/student_view0/poetic_glossary.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-terms?category=forms-and-types
Read:
An article about poetry's role in protest politics:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/dec/15/poetry-protest-politics
And one about war poetry:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/apr/02/war-poetry-brian-turner-iraq?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
Place to listen to poetry online: https://www.poetryoutloud.org/competing/listen-to-poems/
A fun poem about the pronunciation of English (practice reading this!)
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through.
Well don't! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth as in mother
Nor both as in bother, nor broth as in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear, for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose--
Just look them up--and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
Come, come! I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful Language? Why man alive!
I learned to talk it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five.
(borrowed from a source that has since vanished)
Performance poetry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_poetry
An example of spoken poetry: Sarah Kay "If I Should Have a Daughter":
https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter
Some more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u3t7glrN0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWbERIVc7BM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE-c4Bj_RT0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Y9zgOSUnk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_zXjfBPfTk&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVvagvG8Ys8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04rfgNvvXz8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD2_uKaugPI
Google for "spoken word poetry" if you want more, or google an author you liked more than the rest.
Introduction to poetry: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html (text 1.43 in PhilpotNew, so leave this out at this point, we'll do it as part of PhilpotNew)
More on meter and the like:
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xmeter.html
Rhythm:
http://www.angelfire.com/ct2/evenski/poetry/rhythm.html
+ dictionary of poetry terms:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0903237.html
http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/glossary_poetic_terms_s.htm
http://www.hinduwebsite.com/general/poetry.asp
Scansion, rhythm and meter:
https://www.writingforward.com/poetry-writing/poetry-rhythm-and-meter
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiOXVoDBul4
How to write a limerick:
http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-a-limerick.html
http://www.oedilf.com/wiki/index.php/Writing_a_Limerick
Concrete poetry = pattern poetry = shape poetry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_poetry
Google for examples:)
Acrostic: https://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-Acrostic-Poem
Haiku: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Haiku-Poem
Sonnet: http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm
How to write a poem: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/poetry-writing-tips-how-to-write-a-poem/
Task: Try your hand at writing some forms of poetry. Comment on other people's creations.
This is for inspiration: https://penandthepad.com/arrange-lines-poem-20713.html
Homework based on this:
Read a lot of poetry, e.g. at Poetry 180 (US Library of Congress poetry collection): http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/p180-list.html
I want you to read as many poems from the site as possible, preferably aloud with a friend, choosing them because of their titles, or their subject matter, and then create blog posts with short reflection on each poem, Each person should reflect on at least 5 poems, including one general idea from the poem that you thought interesting, and one specific line (quotation) that you liked + a short explanation why you liked it.
This is a sample reflection by a Mr Kew, from whom I borrowed this task:
Poem 1 – “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins
One idea that I really like in this poem is how the poet shows us how to enjoy poetry and experience it rather than focusing only on its “secrets.”
One line in this poem that I really like is “They begin beating it with a hose / to find out what it really means” because it is humorous, but also makes us think about the way that poetry analysis should not be like torture.
