Poetry Terms and Examples

1. Poetry Terms and Examples

2. Poetry? How do you define poetry? What actually makes something a poem?

3. Things to consider when discussing why you like a poem

4. Figurative Language • A literary device used to create a special effect or feeling by making some type of interesting or creative comparison

5. A comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as” What is the simile in this poem by Emily Dickinson? What are the two things being compared? There came a wind like a bugle; It quivered through the grass… Simile

6. I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud About thee, as wild vines, about a tree… I like to see it lap the miles,And lick the valleys up,And stop to feed itself at tanks;And then, prodigious, step Around a pile of mountains,And, supercilious, peerIn shanties by the sides of roads;And then a quarry pare To fit its sides, and crawl between,Complaining all the whileIn horrid, hooting stanza;Then chase itself down hill And neigh like Boanerges; Then, punctual as a star, Stop--docile and omnipotent--At its own stable door. A comparison of two unlike things without using “like” or “as” What is the metaphor in this poem by E.B. Browning? (Can you find a simile as well?) What is the metaphor in the poem (2nd poem) by Dickinson? Metaphor

7. A literary device in which the author speaks of or describes an animal, object, or idea as if it were a person What is being personified in this poem by Shel Silverstein? An oak tree and a rose bush grew, Young and green together, Talking the talk of growing things, Wind and water and weather. And while the rose bush sweetly bloomed The oak tree grew so high That now it spoke of newer things— Eagles, mountain peaks and sky… Personification

8. An exaggeration or overstatement What is the exaggeration in describing this boy in this poem by John Ciardi? Why does a boy who’s fast as a jet Take all day—and sometimes two— To get to school? Hyperbole

9. Sounds within a poem

10. The repetition of initial consonant sounds in words In this extract from the Anglo-saxon epic poem Beowulf, which lines contain alliteration? (Also, can you find assonance here as well?) Within the wine-hall he found the warriors Fast in slumber, forgetting grief, Forgetting the woe of the world of men. Grim and Greedy the gruesome monster, Fierce and furious, launched attack, Slew thirty spearmen asleep in the hall, Sped away gloating, gripping the spoil, Dragging the dead men home to his den. Alliteration

11. The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants In this poem by Emily Dickinson, what lines contain assonance? Her -- "last Poems" -- Poets -- ended -- Silver -- perished -- with her Tongue -- Not on Record -- bubbled other, Flute -- or Woman -- So divine -- Not unto its Summer -- Morning Robin -- uttered Half the Tune -- Gushed too free for the Adoring… Assonance

12. And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; The repetition of consonant sounds. Although similar to alliteration, consonance is not limited to the first letters of words. What is the consonance in this poem by Poe? (can you also find the assonance?) Consonance

13. The use of a word whose sound suggests its meaning, such as clang, buzz and twang. Which words are examples of onomatopoeia in this poem by Shel Silverstein? Eight balloons no one was buyin’ All broke loose one afternoon. Eight balloons with strings a-flyin’ Free to do what they wanted to. One flew up to touch the sun—POP! One thought highways might be fun—POP!... One sat around ‘til his air ran out—WHOOSH!... Onomatopoeia

14. TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; The similarity or likeness of sound existing between two words. Sat and cat are perfect rhymes because the vowel and final consonant sounds are exactly the same. What words rhyme in this first stanza from Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken. Rhyme

15. The tide rises, the tide falls, The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; Along the sea-sands damp and brown The traveler hastens toward the town, And the tide rises, the tide falls. Darkness settles on roofs and walls,But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;The little waves, with their soft, white hands Efface the footprints in the sands, And the tide rises, the tide falls. The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls; The day returns, but nevermoreReturns the traveler to the shore. And the tide rises, the tide falls. The rhyming of words that appear at the ends of two or more lines of poetry. In this poem by Longfellow, The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls, identify the end rhyme. What other conventions does this poem have? End Rhyme

16. Occurs when the rhyming words appear in the same line of poetry. You break my eyes with a look that buys sweet cake Internal Rhyme

17. The regular or random occurrence of sound in poetry Rhythm

18. I put my hat upon my head • And walked into the strand • And there I saw another man • Whose hat was in his hand

19. The patterned repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. Meter

20. The smallest repeated pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poetic line. Foot

21. Whenever Richard Cory went down town,   We people on the pavement looked at him:   He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim.   And he was always quietly arrayed,    And he was always human when he talked;    But still he fluttered pulses when he said,   "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.    And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—    And admirably schooled in every grace:     In fine, we thought that he was everything     To make us wish that we were in his place.   So on we worked, and waited for the light,   And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;   And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head. A division of poetry named for the number of lines it contains. In this poem by E. A. Robinson, how many stanzas are there? Stanza

22. A pair of lines of verse of the same length that usually rhyme. How easy is this couplet by Pope to identify? Which words rhyme? Know then thyself, presume not god to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: Couplet

23. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. The repeating of a word, a phrase, or an idea for emphasis or for rhythmic effect. In the verses by Shakespeare below, find and explain the repetition. Repetition

24. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-- The feeling the verse arouses in the reader: happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and so on. What is the mood in this extract from Poe’s The Raven? Mood

25. An unrhymed form of poetry that has no set format—no rhyme and no rhythm. Is there any predictable format to this poem, The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner, by Randall Jarrell? From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. Free Verse