Poetry

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: language used in a way that is different from the usual, literal meaning in order to create a particular mental image

Extended Metaphor: a comparison that is carried through an entire poem

Metaphor: a comparison between two unlike things without using “like” or “as”

(“My love is a red, red rose.”)

Personification: giving human traits to anything that is not human

(“The branches of the trees screeched in the wind.”)

Simile: a comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as”

(“My love is like a red, red rose.”)

OTHER POETIC TERMS

Allegory: An extended metaphor in which the characters, places, and objects in a narrative

carry figurative meaning

(The graphic novel Maus appears to be about cats and mice, but really, the cats represent the Nazis and the mice represent the Jews of the Holocaust.)

Allusion: a reference in a piece of writing to some famous or well-known text, painting, event,

etc. (Calling a romantic couple “star-crossed lovers” is an allusion to Romeo & Juliet)

Chorus: a refrain in a song (In “Saltwater Joys”, the chorus is “I was born down by the water, it’s

here I’m gonna stay…”)

Couplet: two lines appearing next to each other in a poem that rhyme with each other (“I am

Sam / Sam I am”)

Diction: word choice

Foot (feet): A foot is a unit of metre (the basis for rhythm in poetry), consisting of a

combination of stressed and unstressed syllables; stressed syllables are marked "/" and unstressed "u" (de^u light^’ – the “de” is unstressed and the “light” is stressed)

Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration (I laughed so hard I nearly died!”, “So hungry I could eat a horse”)

Iambic Pentameter: a line of poetry that has 10 syllables, with a combination of stressed and

unstressed syllables

Imagery: language that appeals to the senses

· Auditory: hearing (The waves crashed on the shore.)

· Visual: sight (The dog raced down the road.)

· Tactile: touch (The smoothness of the desk surface was cool against my cheek.)

· Olfactory: smell (John's socks, still soaked with sweat from Tuesday's P.E. class, filled the classroom with an aroma akin to that of salty, week-old, rotting fish.)

· Gustatory: taste (The sweet sharp juice of the apple filled my mouth.)

Mood: the feeling a reader gets from a piece of writing; the way it makes a person feel (The

poem we read about losing a family pet had a sad mood because it made me feel sad.)

Refrain: chorus, regularly repeated words or phrases in a poem or song (“Baby you’re a firework” – Katy Perry)

Rhyme: words that end with the same sound (bed – shed – head – wed, etc.)

Rhyme scheme: the ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem or verse (“I am Sam(A) / Sam I am(A) / I do not like(B) / green eggs and ham(A)” – rhyme scheme is AABA)

Stanza: verses of a poem

Symbol: a thing that represents something else (a maple leaf is a symbol of Canada; a heart symbolizes love; a white dove symbolizes peace)

Theme: the main idea in a piece of writing

Tone: the author’s attitude toward his subject (The narrator had a thoughtful tone because in

his poem he wondered why people have to suffer.)

Verse: stanzas in a poem

SOUND DEVICES

Alliteration: the repetition of beginning sounds in words that are close together in a piece of writing (The bullbirds blew across the big blue ocean.)

Assonance: the repetition of VOWEL sounds in the middle of words that are close together in a piece of writing (A hunter should wear a hood in the woods.)

Cacophony: Harsh sounds, or words that do not sound good together; the opposite of euphony

(“Crash, bang, clang!” – the use of hard consonant sounds)

Consonance: the repetition of CONSONANT sounds in the middle of words that are close together in a piece of writing (The middle of the cake was muddled by the fuddy duddy.)

Euphony: the quality of being pleasing to the ear, especially through a harmonious

combination of words; the opposite of cacophony (lullabies are good

examples of cacophony)

Onomatopoeia: a device in which the sound of a word resembles its meaning (bang, boom, snap, crackle, pop, buzz, hiss, sizzle, whiz)

Repetition: the repeating of words and/or phrases through a piece of writing for the purpose of emphasis

Rhyme: The effect produced when similar vowel sounds chime together and where the final

consonant sound is also in agreement (“bat” and “cat”)

Rhythm: a strong, regular, repeated pattern of sound, represented by stressed and unstressed

syllables

POETIC FORMS

Ballad: a narrative poem or song that tells a popular story (The Cremation of Sam Magee or

Casey at the Bat)

Blank Verse: Verse that has a metre but does not use a rhyme scheme.

Epic: a long narrative poem dealing with the actions of legendary men and women or the history of nations (example: Beowulf)

Form: the particular style of a literary genre (example: a ballad, free verse, and blank verse are all examples of poetic forms. A biography, fiction, a thriller are all examples of narrative forms.)

Free Verse: poetry without a regular rhyme scheme (it doesn’t rhyme); common in modern poetry

Elegy: a poem written to mourn the dead

Haiku: a three-line poem of 17 syllables; line one has 5 syllables, line two has 7 syllables and line three has 5 syllables

Just look at the moon

So big and round; trustworthy

Guarding us at night.

Lyric Poetry: short poems, often written in the 'I' form, where the poet expresses his or her

feelings

Narrative Poetry: poems that tell a story

Ode: a lyric poem in the form of addressing a particular subject

Sonnet: a 14-line poem with 10 syllables per line that presents a problem in the first half and a

solution in the second half