Poetry Terms to Know and Love

1. Poetry Terms to Know and Love (And understand on a test)

2. What is poetry? There is no one correct definition of poetry. The definition is something different to each person. Usually, though, when we look at poetry, we examine: • FORM • SOUND • RHYTHM • IMAGERY • TONE • FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

3. Form Form refers to the line length, breaks between words, and grouping of ideas. Sound Sound refers to the rhymes, rhythms, and repeated sounds in the poem. Rhythm Rhythm refers to the pattern of accented and unaccented syllables in a line

4. Imagery Imagery refers to sensory descriptions that make an object or experience seem so real that you can easily imagine it Tone Tone refers to the attitudes or feelings that the poem shows toward the subject [what the poem is talking about] and to the audience [the reader of the poem] Figurative Language Figurative Language refers to imagery and to descriptions which go beyond the ordinary meaning of words or phrases

5. Form -- TheStanza • A stanza is a division of lines within a poem. A stanza is to a poem as a paragraph is to an essay. • A couplet is the oddball stanza. It can be simply a separate two-line stanza, or it may also be two rhyming lines, not necessarily separate from the rest. • The rest are easy! • A tercet (also known as a triplet) is a three-line stanza. • A quatrain is a four-line stanza. • A cinquain is a five-line stanza.

6. Sound --Alliteration This is dependent upon how the words sound, not how they are spelled. Look at the following example and see if you can guess the definition of this term: Great green gobs of greasy, grimy, gopher guts… Here’s another: Katy carefully crossed the chasm. Alliteration is the repetition of initial (beginning) consonant sounds.

7. Sound -- Assonance Look at the following example and see if you can guess the definition of this term: It was too late—the great wave of the lake had sealed the maiden’s fate. Here’s another: Hannibal the Cannibal smashed his mandible when he bit a tin can. Assonance is the repetition of NON-initial vowel sounds. If the sounds are all at the beginning, then it is called Alliteration

8. Sound --Onomatopoeia Look at the following examples of onomatopoeia and see if you can guess the definition of this term: buzz plop meow crack barf Onomatopoeiais the use of words that sound like what they mean.

9. Sound --Repetition • This is just what it says: the repetition of a sound, a word, a phrase, or a line two or more times. Alliteration and Assonance are also forms of Repetition. • For example, at the end of Twelfth Night, Feste sings this song: • When that I was a little tiny boy, • With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, • A foolish thing was but a toy, • For the rain it raineth every day. • But when I came to man's estate, • With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, • 'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate, • For the rain it raineth every day.

10. Sound -- Rhyme Rhyme usually comes from consonant and assonant [vowel] sounds within a poem. There are different kinds of rhyme, but they are pretty easy to tell apart. Perfect rhyme means the sounds at the ends of the words are identical. For example: chance/dance seed/weed knew/due A close or slant rhyme means that the sounds are almost alike, but are not identical. The reader knows they are intended to rhyme from where they fall in the poem. boot/put role/pull shoe/fool

11. Rhyme (continued) Sight rhyme means the words have the same appearance at the end. For example: foot/root Stacy/lacy mop/sodapop Note that a sight rhyme can be either perfect or slant in the way it sounds.

12. Rhyme Scheme A rhymescheme is the pattern into which the rhyme within a poem falls. A poem can have rhyme without having a rhyme scheme.Rhyme schemes are determined by assigning each ending sound a letter, beginning with A. It was many and many a year ago, A In a kingdom by the sea, B That a maiden there lived whom you may know A By the name of Annabel Lee B

13. Rhyme Scheme A rhymeschemeis the pattern into which the rhyme within a poem falls. A poem can have rhyme without having a rhyme scheme.Rhyme schemes are determined by assigning each ending sound a letter, beginning with A. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. A A B A B B C B

14. Rhyme Scheme A Rhyme schemes are determined by assigning each ending sound a letter, beginning with A. A There's a Polar BearIn our Frigidaire--He likes it 'cause it's cold in there.With his seat in the meatAnd his face in the fishAnd his big hairy pawsIn the buttery dish,He's nibbling the noodles,He's munching the rice,He's slurping the soda,He's licking the ice. A A B C D C E F A F

15. Rhythm – Free Verse • Free verse is poetry that does not have a regular rhyme, rhythm, or line length. The rhythm resembles. • Sometimes, the only way to tell the difference between free verse and “regular writing” [called prose] is that the lines are uneven in length and break off in strange places. • The fog comes • on little cat feet. • It sits looking • over harbor and city • on silent haunches • and then moves on.

16. Imagery The author or poet will use words to paint a picture (create an image) in the reader’s mind. “Maycomb…was a tired old town. …In rainy weather, the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. …Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”

17. Tone A poem's tone is the attitude that its style implies. Tone can shift through a poem: 'A Barred Owl', by Richard Wilbur, has a first stanza with a comforting, domestic tone, and a second stanza that shows this kind of comfort is false. The shift in tone is part of what is enjoyable about the poem. The warping night-air having brought the boomOf an owl's voice into her darkened room,We tell the wakened child that all she heardWas an odd question from a forest bird, Asking of us, if rightly listened to,"Who cooks for you” and then "Who cooks for you?" Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,Can also thus domesticate a fear,And send a small child back to sleep at nightNot listening for the sound of stealthy flightOr dreaming of some small thing in a clawBorne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

18. Figurative Language • Figurative Language includes many of the literary terms we have studied before: • Simile • Metaphor • Personification • Hyperbole • Onomatopoeia

19. Simile Look at the following example and see if you can guess the definition of this term: Like a Lear jet, the football streaked out of his hand across the field. Here’s another: She was smart as a whip. A simile is a comparison of two dissimilar things, USING the words like or as.

20. Metaphor Look at the following example and see if you can guess the definition of this term: The clouds were a grey veil across the sky. Here’s another: Although the dwarves thought her dead, the roses in Snow White’s cheeks had not faded. A metaphor is a comparison of two dissimilar things, NOT using the words like or as.

21. Personification Look at the following example and see if you can guess the definition of this term: The last piece of pizza lay, sad and lonely, on the table. Here’s another: The leaves skipped and danced in the autumn breeze. Personification is when the writer gives human qualities to something that is not human.