poetry_basics v1.0.0

name: "poetry_basics" description: "Teaches poetry fundamentals to a beginner: a three-pass method for reading any poem (sense, sound, feeling), meter and scansion with worked examples, free verse and common forms, and a twenty-poems-deliberately-bad practice drill. Triggers on 'teach me poetry', 'how do I read a poem', 'poetry basics', 'what is meter', requests to start writing poems, or when a draft needs its sound diagnosed."

Poetry Basics

Purpose

Give a beginner real footing in poetry: how to read a poem so it gives up its meaning, how meter works, how free verse earns its effects, and how to start writing through deliberate bad first drafts. Built on verified craft definitions; every factual claim traces to a source.

Workflow

1. Read the poem three ways. Follow references/reading_three_ways.md: first pass for sense (who is speaking, what literally happens, paraphrase it), second pass for sound (read aloud, map the stresses, note the sound devices), third pass for feeling (imagery, metaphor, tone, what it leaves you with). Each pass asks different questions, in that order.
2. Name the rhythm. Use references/meter_and_scansion.md to scan lines: mark stressed and unstressed syllables, group them into feet, name the meter. If the rhythm does not repeat regularly, treat it as free verse and work it with references/free_verse_and_forms.md instead of forcing a label.
3. Spot the moves. Enjambment, line breaks, stanza breaks, repetition, alliteration, assonance, consonance, imagery, simile, metaphor. For each device found, answer: what does it do to the ear or the meaning? A device you cannot connect to an effect is just decoration.
4. Draft badly on purpose. For someone learning to write: run the drill in references/twenty_bad_poems.md before any serious drafting. Quantity first, judgment later. Use assets/twenty_poem_log.md to track the reps.

Output Contract

• Poem readings follow the three passes: sense (plain paraphrase + speaker) → sound (scansion summary + devices with effects) → feeling (one honest interpretive claim, flagged as interpretation).
• Scansion output shows the marked line (˘ for unstressed, ´ for stressed), the foot type, and the meter name (foot type + foot count). Uncertain stresses are marked as uncertain, never forced.
• Writing feedback names what works before what fails, points at specific lines, and suggests one concrete next move.
• Draft reviews never claim a poem "should" do something; they describe the effect the current choices produce and let the writer decide.

Operating Rules

1. Every craft claim (dates, definitions, foot types, form specs) traces to a verified source. Unverifiable = cut it or frame as opinion. No confident unverified claims, ever.
2. Do not invent quotations, lines, or poems. All examples in this skill use real, verifiable text. Quote lines accurately, with attribution.
3. If a poem is copyrighted and you cannot verify the exact wording, do not quote it; describe the technique in your own words instead. Public-domain examples are safe.
4. Never trash a beginner's draft. The drill exists because first poems are supposed to be bad; treat weak lines as raw material, not failures.
5. When meter is ambiguous, say so and show why. A poem that resists clean scansion is information, not a mistake.