Poetry Vocabulary

1. Poetry Vocabulary Aren’t you excited??

2. Pre-Test • Write down anything you know about the following words: • Allusion • Idiom • Metaphor • Simile • Personification • Hyperbole • Symbol • Pun

3. Allusion • An indirect reference to another literary work or to a famous person, place, or event. • For example: • “He’s a modern day Elvis!” • Today you have to be the tortoise, not the hare. • Jack and Diane • I Go Back • Star Wars

4. More examples of Allusions • Background: • Charlie Bit My Finger • After Dentist • Double Rainbow • Actual Allusions • Glozell

5. Hyperbole • An extreme exaggeration. • YOU USE THIS ALL THE TIME! • Examples: • “That test was 1,000 pages long! • “I was at school ALL DAY yesterday.” • “I had like twelve hours of homework last night!”

6. Simile • A comparison of two objects using the words “like” or “as” • Example: • He’s as big as a barn. • She skates like a swan. • He’s cute as a button. • It’s as colorful as a peacock.

7. Simile Similes in songs • Like a circus • Like a G6 • As a cactus • As the beating drum • Like the last slice

8. Metaphor • A comparison of two things using without using the words “like” or “as.” • Generally, it will have the word “is” • Example: • Love is a battlefield. • The sun is an angry warrior on a humid day. • Examples in Pop Songs

9. Metaphor • Just because it has “IS” does not mean it’s a metaphor • She is pretty • I think he is nice • NOT EXAMPLES!

10. Personification • Giving human characteristics to something that is not human. • Example: • The weather smiled at us on our wedding day. • The trees arms stretched up toward the sky. • Your turn…

11. Personification • MORE EXAMPLES • The shadow of the day will embrace the world in gray • This love is killing me • When the city sleeps…

12. Symbol • A person, place, activity, or an object that stands for something beyond itself. • Example: • The American Flag. • The Olympic Games. • The Cross • Can you think of others?

13. Symbol This symbolizes the Toyota car company In poetry and in literature, winter usually symbolizes the end of life.

14. PUN! • A joke that comes from a play on words. • Example: • Two pencils decided to have a race. The outcome was a draw. • Hockey players are terrible chess players because they are always getting checked. • Tennis players don't marry because Love means Nothing to them.

15. Idiom • An expression that has meaning different from the meaning of its individual words. • For example: • “hold your horses” does not literally mean to hold the reigns of a horse, it means “slow down.” • “I’m on the fence.” • “That test was a piece of cake.”

16. Irony • A specific type of contrast between appearance and reality- usually one in which reality is the opposite from what it seems. • When something happens that you did not expect. • Example: • you read a supposed love letter from your significant other and at the end they break up with you. • You expect every one in a story to live happily ever after and they die in a car wreck in the end.

17. Imagery • This consists of descriptive words and phrases that re-create sensory experiences for the reader. Using descriptive words so the reader can imagine a scene in his/her head. • Vague: “It was cold when I walked outside” • Example: “As I walked out in the crisp morning, I could feel the frigid air begin to seep into my skin and burn in my lungs.”

18. THE END!