POETRY

1. POETRY Important Terms

2. Poetic Devices • ALLITERATION: • Repeated sounds in the initial position ("smoke smeared" "canned corn") • ASSONANCE: • Words having the same vowel sounds but not the same consonant sounds ("flat hat", "wade ... date") • CONSONANCE: • Words having the same end consonant sounds - but not the same vowel sounds ("cool...soul",   "midnight wait")

3. ONOMATOPOEIA: • Words that imitate the sound to which they refer ("crash," "shriek," "ping" and "quack") • INTERNAL RHYME: • Also called middle rhyme, a rhyme occurring within the line. The rhyme may be with words within the line but not at the line end, or with a word within the line and a word at the end of the line. • END RHYME: • A rhyme occurring in the terminating word or syllable of one line of poetry with that of another line. • FREE VERSE: • A fluid form which conforms to no set rules.

4. Figurative Language • The use of words, phrases, symbols, and ideas in such as way as to evoke mental images and sense impressions. Figurative language is often characterized by the use of figures of speech, elaborate expressions, sound devices, and syntactic departures from the usual order of literal language.

5. IMAGERY: • Lively descriptions that impress the images of things on the mind ("She has a smile that lights up a room"). • METAPHOR: • A figure of speech or implied comparison in which a word or phrase, ordinarily used for one thing, is applied to another ("runaway grass", "foot of the mountain"). • SIMILE:  • A figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, dissimilar thing using "like" or "as" ("as fresh as a daisy," "as pretty as a picture," "my love is like a red, red rose")

6. PERSONIFICATION: • A type of metaphor in which distinctive human characteristics, e.g., honesty, emotion, volition, etc., are attributed to an animal, object, or idea. • HYPERBOLE (hi-PER-buh-lee): • A bold, deliberate overstatement, e.g., "I'd give my right arm for a piece of pizza." Not intended to be taken literally, it is used as a means of emphasizing the truth of a statement.

7. Types of Poetry • ACROSTIC: • A poem in which certain letters of the lines, usually the first letters, form a word or message relating to the subject. • BALLAD: • A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. The story of a ballad can originate from a wide range of subject matter but frequently deals with folk-lore or popular legends.

8. CINQUAIN (sing-KANE): • A five-line stanza of syllabic verse, the successive lines containing two, four, six, eight and two syllables. • HAIKU (HIGH-koo): • A Japanese form of poetry consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Traditionally, they contain either a direct or oblique reference to a season. • LYRIC VERSE: • One of the three main groups of poetry. Poems in which the speaker's ardent expression of a (usually single) emotional element predominates.

9. NARRATIVE: • The narration of an event or story, stressing details of plot, incident, and action. • QUATRAIN: • A poem, unit, or stanza of four lines of verse, usually with a rhyme scheme of abab.

10. Important Terms • ANALOGY: • An agreement or similarity in some particulars between things otherwise different; sleep and death, for example, are analogous in that they both share a lack of animation and a recumbent posture. • CONNOTATION: • The suggestion of a meaning by a word beyond what it explicitly denotes or describes. The word, home, for example, means the place where one lives, but by connotation, also suggests security, family, love and comfort. • DENOTATION: • The literal dictionary meaning(s) of a word as distinct from an associated idea or connotation.

11. EUPHEMISM (YOO-fuh-mizm): • The substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression to replace one that might offend or suggest something unpleasant, for example, "he is at rest" is a euphemism for "he is dead." • STANZA: • A division of a poem made by arranging the lines into units separated by a space, usually of a corresponding number of lines and a recurrent pattern of meter and rhyme. • TONE: • The poet's attitude in style or expression toward the subject, e.g., loving, ironic, bitter, pitying, fanciful, solemn, etc.