Advanced Poetry Lesson: Odes

Let’s write some poetry!

The next two Tuesdays we’ll be learning about Odes!

A. Introduction to Odes:
An ode is a poem that celebrates or appreciates something or someone.

For example…
John Keats wrote an Ode to a Nightingale.
Pablo Neruda wrote an Ode To Sadness.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote an Ode about France.
There is an Ode to Silence, by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
William Wordsworth wrote an Ode to Duty.
There’s even an Ode To a Large Tuna in the Market by Pablo Neruda, who’s known for writing odes to unusual subjects.

Here’s part of an ode written by Pablo Neruda about a pair of socks (Translated by Robert Bly)

Ode to My Socks (lines 47-52)

“…The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.”

B. All About Odes

1. An ode is about loving, appreciating, or celebrating someone or something
2. An ode is full of emotion, strong images, and descriptive words
3. An ode can rhyme
4. An ode is usually quite serious but it can be silly if the ode is more of a joke

C. Reading Odes
As you read the following excerpts, ask yourself:
~What is the poet celebrating or admiring?
~Does the poem rhyme?
~Does it have strong imagery?

Ode to the West Wind (excerpt)
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts form an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow…”
   ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Blue Swallows
Across the millstream below the bridge
Seven blue swallows divide the air
In shapes invisible and evanescent,
Kaleidoscopic beyond the mind’s
Or memory’s power to keep them there.

“History is where tensions were,”
“Form is the diagram of forces.”
Thus, helplessly, there on the bridge,
While gazing down upon those birds—
How strange, to be above the birds!—
Thus helplessly the mind in its brain
Weaves up relation’s spindrift web,
Seeing the swallows’ tails as nibs
Dipped in invisible ink, writing…”
~Howard Nemerov

D. Writing An Ode
Your turn to write an ode!

Think of something or someone that you love and want to celebrate!
Try writing a short one to start (5 lines or so) and then grow it to 7 or 10 as you have more to say. If you’re a more experienced writer, see if you can make it 15-30 lines! If you like rhyming, go for it, but remember that not every ode has to rhyme.

E. Advanced: More About Odes:
For the purposes of this quick, fun, introduction, I’ve only talked about odes in general, but if you’re interested, look into the specific kinds of odes:
Pindaric
Horatian
Irregular

There are also different  ode parts:
The strophe
The antistrophe
The epode

Pleased with your ode? Share it on my Facebook page or in the comments!

Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…

Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Write Your Own Nursery Rhymes

Poem Study: My Shadow, by Robert Louis Stevenson