Stanza Lines of fixed length, used in poetry to organize ideas. They act similarly to paragraphs. Language Arts rocks, this statement is true, When I’m not in class, I feel very blue.

Speaker The character talking to us in a poem. It may be the poet, but most likely it is a character created by the poet.

Voice The tone of the speaker’s “voice”: happy, sad, scared, angry, etc. Palms sweating, heart pounding, I tiptoed up the stairs only to find my worst fear realized.

Mood The feeling a piece of poetry arouses in the reader: happiness, sadness, etc. Death, Death everywhere. Stench, Silence. Hot tears dripping off my cheeks.

Symbolism Use of an object in a poem to stand for or have meaning for something else entirely. The setting sun=death A red rose=love

Structure Physical construction a poet puts into a poem for deliberate effect: stanzas, indentations, capitalization, punctuation, line length, rhyme scheme, etc.

Literal Meaning Literally, what the poem is about. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveller, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference...Robert Frost

Symbolic Meaning Think bigger; what message may the poet be trying to get across to you? Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveller, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference...Robert Frost

Free-Verse Poetry Free verse is poetry that doesn’t have a regular rhythm, line length, or rhyme scheme. Free-verse poetry invents and following its own forms, patterns, and rules. Boys… greasy, mean, no good boys. I don’t care, he doesn’t like me, here one day, gone the next, just like my no good father. Why do we even have to have boys?

Personification Giving human qualities to inanimate objects. “The wind howled through the night.” “The walls whispered.”

Simile A comparison that uses “like” or “as”. “The cat has eyes as dark as a night river.”

Metaphor A comparison of two things without using “like” or “as”. It says one thing is something else. “The eyes are flashing beacons.” “The student is a raging animal.”

Alliteration Repetition of the initial consonants of words: Setting sun Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

Onomatopoeia A word that imitates the sound it represents. Buzz Crash Bang Splash

Hyperbole An extreme exaggeration I tried opening my locker a million times and it wouldn’t work! I Could eat a whole cow!