Poetry Essentials

1. Poetry Essentials Literary terms for interpreting poems

2. Sound Devices Used in Poetry RHYME/RHYTHM Internal Rhyme End Rhyme ALLITERATION ASSONANCE CONSONANCE ONOMATOPOEIA

3. INTERNAL RHYME Also called middle rhyme, a rhyme occurring within a line of poetry, as in this line from “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe: • “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...”

4. ALLITERATION The repetition of initial stressed, consonant sounds in a series of words within a phrase or verse line • “She walks in beauty, like the night •    Of cloudless climes and starry skies; • And all that’s best of dark and bright •    Meet in her aspect and her eyes; • Thus mellowed to that tender light •    Which heaven to gaudy day denies.” • -From “She walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron

5. ASSONANCE—internal vowel rhyme The CLOSE juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds, but with different end consonants, IN a line of poetry “He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound’s the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.” -From Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” • “Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight,Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” • -From Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into the Good Night”

6. CONSONANCE—internal consonant rhyme repetition of a consonant sound most often through the middle or end of several words that are close to each other “Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation, Into the school where the scholar is studying . . .” -From “Beat! Beat! Drums!” by Walt Whitman • “He clasps the crag with crooked hands; • Close to the sun in lonely lands, • Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.” • -From “The Eagle” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

7. ONOMATOPOEIA* • “I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, • I sound my barbaric yawpover the roofs of the world.” • -From “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman • *words that are spelled like the sounds they represent

8. Figurative Language and the Art of Poetry Simile Metaphor Extended Metaphor Personification Symbolism Allegory Metonym Synecdoche Hyperbole Understatement

9. SIMILE METAPHOR A comparison using the words “like” or “AS” an implicit, implied or hidden comparisonbetween two THINGS THAT AREN’T TYPICALLY COMPARED “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.” -From You Like It, Act II, Scene VII by William Shakespeare •  “In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun . . .” — The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane • “She entered with ungainly struggle like some huge awkward chicken, torn, squawking, out of its coop.” — The Adventure of the Three Gables, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

10. EXTENDED METAPHOR -A comparison between two unlike or dissimilar things that continues throughout a series OF lines in a poem But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now — For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. • “Mother and Son” • by Langston Hughes • Well, son, I’ll tell you: • Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. • It’s had tacks in it, • And splinters, • And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor — • Bare.

11. PERSONIFICATION -A figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes OR QUALITIES […] Then Beauty ... ah, Beauty— As I led her to the window I told her: “You I loved best in life ... but you’re a killer; Beauty kills!” Not really meaning to drop her I immediately ran downstairs getting there just in time to catch her “You saved me!” she cried I put her down and told her: “Move on.” […] -From “The Whole Mess . . . Almost” by Beat poet Gregory Corso • “I ran up six flights of stairs • to my small furnished room    • opened the window • and began throwing out • those things most important in life • First to go, Truth, squealing like a fink: • “Don’t! I’ll tell awful things about you!” • “Oh yeah? Well, I’ve nothing to hide ... OUT!”

12. SYMBOLISM ALLEGORY the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities a POEM OR STORY in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation • “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” • Did you hear about the rose that grewfrom a crack in the concrete?Proving nature's law is wrong itlearned to walk with out having feet.Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,it learned to breathe fresh air.Long live the rose that grew from concretewhen no one else ever cared. • -Tupac Shakur (b. 1971)

13. METONYM SYNECDOCHE a figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated a literary device in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” -From T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” *** “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” -Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” Act I. •  “The pen is mightier than the sword.” • *** • “The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh, • As he swung toward them holding up the hand • Half in appeal, but half as if to keep • The life from spilling . . . “ • -From Robert Frost’s “Out, Out—”

14. HYPERBOLE UNDERSTATEMENT exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally the presentation of something as being smaller,orless important than it actually is

15. HYPERBOLE UNDERSTATEMENT exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally the presentation of something as being smaller,orless important than it actually is “I have to have this operation. It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.” -Statement by Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye • “I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you • Till China and Africa meet, • And the river jumps over the mountain • And the salmon sing in the street, • I’ll love you till the ocean • Is folded and hung up to dry . . .” • -From W.H Auden’s poem “As I Walked One Evening”

16. THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF POETRY: FORM AND DICTION STANZA, LINE AND FORM RHYME SCHEME CONNOTATION DENOTATION TONE/POETIC DICTION

17. STANZA, LINE AND FORM • STANZA—A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem. In modern free verse, the stanza, like a paragraph in prose writing, can be used to mark a shift in mood, time, or thought. • QUATRAIN—A four line stanza • FORM—The way that the lines of a poem are arranged on a page • COUPLET—A pair of successive lines of verse, especially a pair that rhyme and are of the same length.

18. TONE POETIC DICTION A poem's tone is the attitude that its style implies. the term used to refer to the style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry I hate the way you're always rightI hate it when you lieI hate it when you make me laughEven worse when you make me cryI hate the way you're not aroundAnd the fact that you didn't callBut mostly I hate the way I don't hate youNot even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.  From Ten Things I Hate About You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGV4hxhxW8o • I hate the way you talk to meAnd the way you cut your hairI hate the way you drive my carI hate it when you stareI hate your big dumb combat bootsAnd the way you read my mindI hate you so much that it makes me sickIt even makes me rhyme