Today Poetry On The Air deals with the way poets use the grouping together of lines to make stanza forms.
Tune in to RTHK's Radio 4 at 10.05 am and you will learn about some of the great poets throughout history.
We already know the first eight lines of a sonnet are called the 'octet' or the 'octave'. This word 'octave' also may be used to mean a stanza form of eight lines which can stand alone - and are not simply the first part of a sonnet.
James Simmons, a Northern Irish poet and singer, used an octave very effectively to write a brief birthday poem for his daughter which reminds us of an unwelcome truth: each birthday brings us nearer to death.
A British Poem For Rachel For every year of life, we light a candle on your cake to mark the simple sort of progress anyone can make, And then, to test your nerve or give a proper view of death, You're asked to blow each light, each year, Out with your own breath.
Octaves also can be the building blocks of much longer poems, perhaps a narrative poem - that is, a poem which tells a story.
In his magnificent ode, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, John Milton used a group of seven-line stanzas to begin the poem, giving us the background to Christmas morning.
