This online course will allow you to study and practice poetry from home and in your own time. This includes expert input from professional tutors. You will develop your poetry writing skills as well as learn how to write poetry in a number of different styles and formats.
In bringing forth the poet inside
there is no need to stem the tide
This course has a style for me and you
From sonnets to odes and even haiku
Enroll today and find your flavour
Do your creative self a favour
Whatever you write has sound. People hear your words in their heads, and so the sounds you create can draw people’s attention to your message. Poets use a range of musical and figurative devices to achieve their effects. Some of these effects relate to the rhythm and metre of the words. The study of rhythm, stress, and pitch in speech is called prosody. In poetry, the meter (or metre) is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse.
The process by which we create a poem may be more important than the actual poem we create.
Are we born with creativity or is it something that we can teach and develop? In this lesson, we are going to encourage you to think about poetry and the ways in which you write. So this lesson will consist of a string of exercises that will encourage you to think about language, and how you use it. The way you use language in poetry is obviously different to the way that you talk. When talking, just like writing a poem, you use a wide vocabulary, but when writing poetry we tend to use more descriptive and emotive language.
“Stay young by taking inspiration from the young in spirit who remained creatively active all their lives: Goethe completing Faust at 80; Titian painting masterpieces at 98; Toscanini conducting at 85; Justice Holmes writing Supreme Court decisions at 90; Edison busy in his laboratory at 84; and Benjamin Franklin helping to frame the American Constitution at 80.”
Author Unknown
Course Structure:
The duration of this online course is 100 hours. This consists of 9 in-depth lessons:
1. Introduction, Nature and Scope of Poetry, Brief description of the many different types of poetry, Poetic Devices (Rhyme, Assonance, Alliteration, Personification, Onomatopoeia, Imagery, Symbolism, Simile, Metaphor), Styles that tell a Story (Monody, Ballad, Epitaph), Classic Styles (Sonnet, Ode, Haiku), Monorhyme, Trick Poems (Limerick, Tongue Twister, Shape Poem, Palindrome), Styles classified according to Arrangement of Lines (Quatrain Style, Pantoum, Free Verse, Villanelle, Clerihew, Damante, Acrostic Style), Keeping a Notebook, Editing, Terminology.
2. The Work of Other Poets
- Shakespeare
- Kendall
- Betjeman
- Angelou
- Shelley
- Dickinson
- Edgar Allen Poe
3. Encourage your Creativity
- Exploring Creativity
- Understanding your Own Creativity
4. Developing Different Styles of Poetry A
- Ode
- Sonnet
- Italian Sonnet
- Haiku
- Writing Haiku
5. Developing different Styles of Poetry B
- Following the Rules
- Quatrain
- Pantoum
- Acrostic
- 21st Century Visual Poetry
6. Developing Different Styles of Poetry C
- Poetry for Story Telling
- Developing a Story in Poetry
- Planning a Story
- Developing your Voice
- Ambience
- Ending a Story
- Epitaph Style
- Monody
7. Developing Different Styles of Poetry D
- Styles for Fun and Trickery
- Funny Poems
- Tongue Twisters
- Limericks
8. Getting Your Work Published
- How and Where
- Creative Writing Resources
- Other Industry Resources
- How and Where to Get Published
- Self Publishing
- Vanity Publishing
9. The Next Phase
- How To Continue to Improve
What are the Different Types of Poetry?
There are a number of standard styles or formats which poems tend to follow. These include:
Poems Focused on Telling a Story:
Ballad Style
This is a poem that tells a story; which is constructed as a series of stanzas. Each stanza would typically be two or four lines and usually a refrain. ballads often tell stories that are derived from folk lore or historical events.
Monody
This is a poem that laments the death (or cessation of existence) of a person, animal or thing.
Epitaph Style
This is a short poem commemorating the life of a deceased person; usually on a tombstone.
Classic Styles:
An Ode
This is a poem that praises or speaks highly of something, some place or someone.
Sonnet
A lyric poem of fourteen lines, which may follow any of a variety of different rhyming schemes. There are a variety of different types of sonnets (eg. Italian sonnet, Shakespearean Sonnet)
Haiku
This is a Japanese style that is made up of standardized numbers of syllables in each line; but where lines do not rhyme. It is also written of focus on nature.
Haiku (also called nature or seasonal haiku) is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Haiku is usually written in the present tense and focuses on nature (seasons).
Monorhyme
This is where all the lines have the same rhyme
Fun & Trick Poems:
Tongue Twister
These involve lines that are difficult to pronounce when you speak the line fast.
Limerick Style
This is characterised by humour, rhyme and often nonsense.
Shape Poetry
Lines are written in a way that represents the shape of what you are writing about
Eg. If your subject is a person, the poem is written so that the lines comprise the shape of a person
Palindrome
This is a poem where lines read the same whether read from start to finish or (backwards) from finish to start.
Poems classified according to how lines are constructed & arranged:
Quatrain Style
Comprises block of four lines of verse that adhere to a specific rhyming pattern
Pantoum
A pantoum is a poem that joins together a series of quatrains.
Acrostic Style
This is poetry that is constructed in such a way that when the first letter of each line is taken, and those letters compiled together; they will spell one or more words. The words spelt are often the same as the title
Free Verse
Free Verse is irregular. Content is free of traditional rules -free from fixed meter or rhyme.
Villanelle
A Villanelle is a nineteen-line poem consisting of a very specific rhyming scheme (eg. ide, idi, idi, idi, idee).
How does a Warnborough Online Course work?
You can start the course whenever is convenient for you. You will be studying from home and have access to support from our qualified tutors. Practical exercises and research tasks will be set at the end of each lesson – including an assignment. You will submit this assignment to your course tutor, who will mark your work and give you constructive feedback and suggestions.
If you have any questions please contact us.
