Style

1. Style No, it’s not just something that happens on accident.

2. Metaphor my friend and i got caught in a storm with tears for rain and shouts for thunder, lightning fists lashing out. “Clouds Rolling In,” Melissa Leigh Davis, age 14 Things I have to tell you What is the speaker comparing to a storm? Why?

3. Personification Inside this pencil crouch words that have never been written never been spoken never been thought they’re hiding they’re awake in there dark in the dark hearing us but they won’t come out not for love not for time not for fire “The Unwritten,” W.S. Merwin Truth and Lies Why does the speaker give human feelings and actions to words? What is he suggesting about them?

4. Consonance / Alliteration / Symbol When I slip, just slightly, in the dark, I know it isn’t a wet leaf, But you, loose toe from the old life, The cold slime come into being, A fat, five-inch appendage Creeping slowly over the wet grass, Eating the heart out of my garden. • “Slug,” Theodore Roethke Step Lightly: Poems for the Journey Why does Roethke repeat the “sl” and “l” sounds when describing the slug? How does the speaker feel about the slug? What might the slug represent in addition to its slimy self?

5. Imagery / Assonance a silk windsock of snow blowing under the porch light tangling trees which bend like old women snarled in their own knitting “Blizzard,” Linda Pastan Step Lightly: Poems for the Journey What do these images suggest about the snow and the trees? What words are connected by assonance? Why are they connected?

6. Wordplay Look at itsy-bitsy Mitzi! See her figure slim and ritzy! She eatsa Pizza! Greedy Mitzi! She no longer itsy-bitsy! “The Pizza,” Ogden Nash Custard and Company What is the tone of this poem? How does the wordplay affect it?

7. Pun O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told: Therefore I lie with her and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be. “When my love swears she is made of truth,” William Shakespeare Truth and Lies What is a habit? What two meanings apply here? How do the multiple meanings of lie apply to the concluding couplet?

8. Connotation / Denotation A woman of thirty or so, With three small children at home, She’s told me she likes A long walk by herself in the morning And with pride in her work, She’s wrapped the news neatly in plastic— A bread bag, beaded with rain, That reads WONDER. “Myrtle,” Ted Kooser The Invisible Ladder What does “WONDER” imply beyond the brand name of the bread? How does the speaker see this woman?

9. Understatement The world is not a pleasant place To be without Someone to hold and be held by “The World is Not a Pleasant Place to Be,” Nikki Giovanni The Invisible Ladder Is the world merely unpleasant when you are lonely? What is it like without “someone to hold and be held by”? Whom do we hold in life? Whom are we held by?

10. Hyperbole You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me; You have taken what is before me and what is behind me; You have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me; And my fear is great that you have taken God from me! “DonalOg,” Anonymous, Trans. Lady Augusta Gregory Step Lightly: Poems for the Journey Can someone be robbed of time, direction, the past, and the future? Can someone be robbed of faith? What is the speaker feeling? Who might be her audience and how does she feel about this person?

11. Allusion Loving you was a kind of Chinese guerilla war. Thanks to your lightfoot genius no Eighth Route Army kept its lines more fluid, traveled with less baggage, so nibbled the advantage. Even with your small bad heart you made a dance of departures. “After the Last Dynasty,” Stanley Kunitz The Invisible Ladder To what war is the speaker referring? What was the Eighth Route Army? What does this allusion suggest about the speaker’s relationship with his audience?

12. Rhythm / Cadence i. one. now another. one more. some again; then done. though others run down your windshield, when up ahead a sudden swirl and squall comes on like moths, mayflies in a swarm against your lights, a storm… from “Snow Songs,” W. D. Snodgrass The Invisible Ladder What is the subject of this poem? How do the short, one- or two-word sentences at the beginning reflect what the subject is doing?

13. Bibliography Anonymous. “DonalOg.” Step Lightly: Poems for the Journey. Trans. Lady Augusta Gregory. Ed. Nancy Willard. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998. Davis, Melissa Leigh. “Clouds Rolling In.” Things I Have to Tell You. Ed. Betsy Franco. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2001. Giovanni, Nikki. “The World Is Not a Pleasant Place to Be.” The Invisible Ladder. Ed. Liz Rosenberg. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. Kooser, Ted. “Myrtle.” The Invisible Ladder. Ed. Liz Rosenberg. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. Kunitz, Stanley. “After the Last Dynasty.” The Invisible Ladder. Ed. Liz Rosenberg. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. Merwin, W.S. “The Unwritten.” Truth and Lies. Ed. Patrice Vecchione. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 2001. Nash, Ogden. “The Pizza.” Ed. Quentin Blake. Custard and Company. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company, 1980. Pastan, Linda. “Blizzard.” Step Lightly: Poems for the Journey. Ed. Nancy Willard. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998. Roethke, Theodore. “Slug.” Step Lightly: Poems for the Journey. Ed. Nancy Willard. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998. Shakespeare, William. “When my love swears.” Truth and Lies. Ed. Patrice Vecchione. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 2001. Snodgrass, W. D. “Snow Songs.” The Invisible Ladder. Ed. Liz Rosenberg. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1996.