Comments on Hurricane Preparedness Watch

This didactic poem “Hurricane Preparedness Watch” is made up of decasyllabic quatrains rhyming aabb. This is a term used for a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables each, usually with a rhyme schemes aabb. When the decasyllabic quatrain has a rhyme scheme abab, it is often referred to as the "heroic quatrain", "heroic stanza" or the "four-line stave". It came to prominence in the poem Nosce Te ipsum (know thyself) by Sir John Davies in 1599. The history of English Literature shows that the most common usage for the decasyllabic form had existed long before Davies's poems in the form of the heroic couplet, where two lines of iambic pentameter verses were composed with a rhyme scheme aabb.

Before writing came into general use, instruction was conveniently expressed in verse, as being more easily remembered than prose. The Greeks did not recognize didactic poetry as a separate literary genre; since it was written in hexameters they regarded it as a form of epic poetry. In Greece this kind of composition died out in the fifth century BC with the rise of prose literature, but was revived in the Hellenistic age. Didactic Poetry is intended to convey instruction and information in a "fun sort of way" while at the same time putting across a delicate or serious message. It can assume the mode and features of imaginative works by infusing knowledge in a variety of poetic forms where various poetic techniques, diction and style are infused to keep readers' interest from start to finish. There is the popular view that allegory, aphorisms, apologues, fables, gnomes and proverbs are specific types of Didactic Poetry because of their close affinity. When reading didactic poems, focus on the serious messages each conveys. However, bear in mind that every poem has a didactic thread either overly or covertly.