What Makes Up Joyful Poems

By Cara Torres


These days, we learn of so much controversies, tragedies and disasters though the news where most of it are a challenging and dangerous. They can be read and heard in many mediums like newspapers, internet, TV, radio and even on our mobile phones. These events can suck out the joy in our lives and to regain it, reading about joyful poems can be helpful.

Poems are made up of words used to express ideas or emotions conveyed through usage of imagery, sound patterns, and metaphors. These are composed in verses rather than in prose. Elements such as lines and stanzas, rhythm, voice, form, figure of speech, sound and so on, adds to the beauty of these literary works.

One element is the form, which can be flexible such as in free verses, where there is almost no rhythm and rhyme and these are becoming less structured over the generations. Still, it is easy to distinguished it from a prose through its form because it retains its basic structure which can easily be found in many free verses. Many classic styles does not conform to these standards just to have better emphasis for effect.

The three basic type in terms of form are lyric, narrative and descriptive poems, though there are others such as ballads, sonnets, free verse, haiku, limericks, and many more. Stanzas are a group of lines that are separated by an empty line, which is equivalent to a paragraph in an essay. Usually, all stanzas are made up of the same number of lines though there are also many that deviates from this structure.

A way to enhance the effect of the poem is through sound play or patterns, which is very complex itself. Examples of these are alliteration, rhyme, assonance, repetition, onomatopoeia, euphony, consonance and refrain. The most commonly used among them is the rhyme where the syllables at the end of each line is similar to each other or sounds alike.

The oral pattern created when stressing a certain syllable in every line is called the rhythm. Metric is the measurement unit of these stress patterns though it can only be demonstrated when it is read aloud. Since it has stresses in certain syllables, it will not sound like a steady hum of words rather it creates different tones because of the rising and falling of the voice almost like singing.

Using figures of speech when choosing words to compare various things, emotions and sense is called figurative language. Metaphor, simile, hyperbole, symbolism, allegory, personification and irony are some of these figures of speech. On one hand, imagery is the usage of detailed descriptions to convey a sensory experience in very lifelike and dramatic detail to create a specific mental image on the subject.

These details include experiences in the sense of touch, smell, taste, sound, and sight that is beyond any normal description. A voice refers to the presentation of the author of his work to the audience when speaking, which is either third or first person. Most of the poems has the writer as the one speaking, yet there are many times that the character and the author are not the same person.

In literary terms, the tone is referring to how the author feels on that certain subject, which will be reflected on the work. It may indicate feelings such as sadness, joy, confusion, anger, amusement and many others. The tone of joyful poems may evoke a happy, hopeful and loving feelings.




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