Poetry Study Guide

1. Poetry Study Guide What would you like to learn about poetry?

2. Metaphor • Comparison of two seemingly unlike things without using like, as, than, or resembles. • Almost as if a statement of fact. • Example: The forest is a loud marketplace. • The fog comes on little cat feet.

3. Simile • A comparison of two seemingly unlike things using a connecting word. (Like, as, than, resembles) • Example: The class is like a crowd at a concert. • Do dreams dry up like raisins in the sun?

4. Personification • Language attributed to nonhuman things. • Example: The trees yawned in the strong breeze. • The sky hollered with a thunderous clap.

5. Onomatopoeia • The use of a word whose sound imitates its meaning. • Example: The bee buzzed around the flower. • The snake hissed in the grass. • We heard a honk right before the car accident.

6. Imagery • Descriptive language writers use to make word pictures or images. • Example: Describe the picture to the right in your own words.

7. Rhythm, Rhyme, Rhyme Scheme, Meter • Rhythm is the pattern created by the stressed and unstressed syllables of words in sequence. • Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar sounds in stressed syllables. • Rhyme scheme- a pattern of end rhymes. • Meter- controlled pattern of rhythm. • Free verse- no set meter or rhyme scheme. • We will explore these sound devices on Wednesday.

8. Alliteration, Consonance, Assonance • Alliteration- repetition of initial consonant sounds. • Example: Sometimes, super salmon sing songs. • Assonance- repetition of vowel sounds. • Example: I love gloves from the oven. • Consonance- repetition of consonants within nearby words in which the separating vowels differ. • Examples: live/love, lift/loft, sift/soft, tame/time

9. Foreshadow • Suggestion that something may happen • Indication of events/actions to come

10. Hyperbole • Exaggeration • Example: This is taking forever. • I could eat a horse.

11. Allusion • A casual reference • Example: Melinda speaks of Cubism and Picasso.

12. Repetition • Repetition- the use of any language element more than once. • Example: Hughes’s repetition of “Let America be America again”

13. Types of Poetry • Narrative- A story is told in verse. • Epic- a long narrative poem about gods and heroes. • Ballad- songlike narrative about an adventure or romance. • Lyric- a brief poem is which the author expresses the feelings of a single speaker. • Dramatic- writer tells a story using a character’s own thoughts or statements.

14. Elements of Poetry • Stanza- groupings of lines. • Couplets- groupings of two lines • Tercets- three-line stanzas • Quatrains- four-line stanzas • Sestet- six-line stanza • Octave- eight-line stanza

15. Sonnet and Haiku • Sonnet- fourteen-line lyric poem with formal patterns of rhyme, rhythm, and line structure. • See assignment for Wednesday and Thursday • Haiku- poem containing three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. • Usually used to convey a single, vivid emotion using imagery.

16. Iambic Pentameter • Iamb- short - long • Pentameter- five feet