The Story of Poetry

Words That Sing

Have you ever read a nursery rhyme, sung a song, or said a little verse that bounced along like music? If so, you already know poetry. Poetry is a special way of using words — carefully chosen and arranged so they sound musical, paint pictures in your mind, and share strong feelings.

A poem can be silly or serious, long or very short. It can make you giggle, feel cosy, or even feel a little sad. In this book we will discover where poetry came from, learn about its magic ingredients like rhyme and rhythm, and find out how you can write a poem all of your own.

Chapter 1: What Makes a Poem a Poem?

A story and a poem both use words, so what makes a poem different? The secret is that in a poem, the way the words sound is just as important as what they mean. A poet chooses each word with care, like picking the perfect bead for a necklace.

Poems often look different on the page, too. Instead of long paragraphs, they are written in short rows called lines, and groups of lines are called verses or stanzas. Poems also love to play with sounds — words that rhyme, words that bounce with a beat, and words that copy real noises, like buzz, splash and bang. All of this gives a poem its special music.

Chapter 2: The Oldest Poems

Poetry is much older than books. In fact, it is older than writing itself! Long ago, before people could read or write, they told their most important stories out loud. And here is the clever part: they often turned those stories into poems.

Why? Because poems are easy to remember. The rhyme and rhythm act like glue, helping the words stick in your memory. (Think how easily you remember a song, but how hard it is to remember a page of plain facts.) Storytellers would recite long poems by heart around the fire, passing them down from grandparents to grandchildren. Some of these ancient poems were enormous adventures about heroes, monsters and gods, kept alive for hundreds of years before anyone wrote them down. Poetry, music and storytelling all began as close cousins, as you can read in The Story of Music.

Chapter 3: The Magic of Rhyme

One of poetry's favourite tricks is rhyme. Words rhyme when they end with the same sound, like star and far, or moon and spoon, or cat and hat.

Rhyme makes a poem feel playful and complete, like the click of two puzzle pieces fitting together. It is why nursery rhymes are so much fun to chant:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.

Did you feel how star and are snap together? Many poems rhyme at the ends of their lines like this. But not every poem has to rhyme. Some of the most beautiful poems have no rhyme at all — they create their music in other ways. Rhyme is a wonderful tool, but it is only one of many in a poet's kit.

Chapter 4: The Beat of Rhythm

The second great ingredient of poetry is rhythm. Rhythm is the beat you can feel in the words, made of strong and soft sounds, like a drum quietly tapping along under the poem.

Try saying this slowly, tapping the table on the strong parts:

HICK-ory DICK-ory DOCK.

Can you feel the beat? That bounce is rhythm. It is what makes some poems feel like a gentle lullaby and others feel like a marching song. Poets carefully arrange their words so the beat matches the feeling — slow and calm for a peaceful poem, quick and lively for an exciting one. Rhythm is the heartbeat of a poem.

Chapter 5: Painting Pictures with Words

Poems do more than sound nice — they help you see, hear and feel things inside your imagination. Poets do this with word pictures, also called imagery.

Instead of just saying "the night was dark," a poet might say "the night wrapped the town in a soft black blanket." Suddenly you can almost feel it! Poets also love comparisons. They might say the moon is like a silver coin, or that the wind whispered through the trees as if the wind could talk. These little tricks turn plain words into vivid pictures, helping you imagine the world in a fresh way. Painting pictures, whether with paint or with words, is at the heart of all art, as you can explore in The Story of Art.

Chapter 6: So Many Kinds of Poem

There are many, many kinds of poem, and each has its own shape and feel. Here are just a few you might enjoy:

• A nursery rhyme is a short, bouncy poem for young children.
• A limerick is a funny, five-line poem with a jolly rhythm.
• An acrostic spells a word down the side, using the first letter of each line.
• A haiku is a tiny poem from Japan with just three short lines, often about nature.
• A narrative poem tells a whole story, sometimes a very long one.

With so many kinds to choose from, there is a poem for every mood and every moment — and a kind of poem just right for you to try.

Chapter 7: Write Your Own Poem

The best news of all is that anyone can write poetry, including you. You do not need fancy words or special tools — just your imagination and a love of words. Here are some simple steps to begin:

1. Pick something you care about — your pet, the rain, your favourite food, or how you feel today.
2. Brainstorm words that go with it. Think about how it looks, sounds, smells and makes you feel.
3. Play with the words. Try making some lines rhyme, or just arrange them so they sound pleasing. Read them out loud.
4. Add a word picture. What is your subject like? The sea like blue glass? A cat like a soft shadow?
5. Read it aloud and polish it until you love how it sounds.

There are no mistakes in poetry — only your own special way of seeing the world. So grab a pencil and give it a go. Every great poet, in every age, once started with a single line. The story of poetry is still being written, and now you can add a page of your very own.

Words to Remember

• Poetry: using words in a special, musical way to share feelings and pictures.
• Line: a single row of words in a poem.
• Rhyme: when words end with the same sound, like star and far.
• Rhythm: the beat you can feel in the words of a poem.
• Imagery: word pictures that help you imagine what the poem describes.