1. Poetry Terms
“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” ~Thomas Gray
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” ~Robert Frost

2. PART 1: Sound Devices
Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds at any place in a series of words
Do you like blue?
We viewed the movie about mooing rookies at the school.
“Well he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no” – Robert Service (“The Cremation of Sam McGee, pg. 709)

3. Sound Devices cont.
Alliteration: The repetition of a sound at the beginning of a series of words
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers…”
“Rain races, ripping like wind. Its restless rage rattles like rocks ripping through the air.”
A fly and a flea flew up in a flue.
Said the fly to the flea, “What shall we do?”
“Let’s fly,” said the flea.
“Let’s flee,” said the fly.
So they fluttered and flew up a flaw in the flue.

4. Sound Devices cont.
Consonance: The repetition of a consonant sound at any place in a series of words.
I dropped the locket in the thick mud.
Eric liked the black book
“And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.” –Edgar Allen Poe

5. Sound Device cont.
Onomatopoeia: The use of words whose sound makes one think of its meaning
Wham! Bonk!
Ding-dong
“Cuckoo”
Tick-tock
“snap, crackle, pop”

6. PART 2: Figurative Language
Simile: A comparison of two unlike things using the words like or as
“My love for you is like a red, red rose”
Metaphor: A comparison of two unlike things saying that one thing is another
“All the world is a stage”
Extended Metaphor: a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph, or lines in a poem. It is often comprised of more than one sentence, and sometimes consists of a full paragraph.

7. Figurative Language (cont.)
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Mood: evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions. Usually, mood is referred to as the atmosphere of a literary piece, as it creates an emotional situation that surrounds the readers. Mood is developed in a literary piece through various methods, such as setting, theme, tone and diction.
Diction: style of speaking or writing determined by the choice of words by a speaker or a writer
Tone: an attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience. Tone is generally conveyed through word choice, or POV. Tone can be formal, informal, serious, comic, sarcastic, sad, or cheerful, or it may be any other existing attitude.

8. Figurative Language (cont.)
Example of Mood: Charles Dickens creates a calm and peaceful mood in his novel “Pickwick Papers”:
“The river, reflecting the clear blue of the sky, glistened and sparkled as it flowed noiselessly on.”
The depiction of idyllic scenery imparts a serene and non-violent mood to the readers.
Example of Tone: In this short excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, the culminating tone of the writer is that of peace and serenity, though he talks of the day time in a bit different tone.
“It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference.”

9. Figurative Language (cont.)
Allegory: a figure of speech in which abstract ideas are described in terms of characters, figures and events. Used in prose and poetry to teach an idea or a principle (i.e. communism is bad)
Allusion: a reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance
I.e. “This place is nicer than Eden,” or “Don’t mess with him, unless you want to open Pandora’s box”

10. Figurative Language cont.
Hyperbole: Extreme exaggeration for the sake of making a point
The books weigh a ton.
I could sleep for a year.
I have a million things to do.
Personification: When a non-living object has been given qualities of a person
The wind whispered through the trees
The moon danced on the water
“Oreo: Milk’s favorite cookie.”

11. PART 3: Rhythm & Meter
Rhythm: The beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem. Rhythm can be created by meter, rhyme, alliteration, refrain, and more.

12. Rhythm & Meter
Meter: A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry
Meter occurs when the stressed and unstressed syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern.
When poets write in meter, they count out the number of stressed (strong) syllables and unstressed (weak) syllables for each line. They they repeat the pattern throughout the poem.

13. Rhythm & Meter
Foot: unit of measurement for meter. A foot can have two or three syllables, and usually consists of one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables.
TYPES OF FEET - The types of feet are determined by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables.
(cont. on next page)

14. Rhythm & Meter TYPES OF FEET (cont.) Iambic - unstressed, stressed
(ex: a-bout)
Trochaic - stressed, unstressed
(ex: lit-tle)
Anapestic - unstressed, unstressed, stressed
(ex: inter-vene)
Dactylic - stressed, unstressed, unstressed
(ex: mer-rily)

15. Rhythm & Meter
LINE LENGTH: Each line of poetry contains a certain number of feet, creating a repeating pattern.
Monometer: a line with one foot
Dimeter: line with two feet
Trimeter: line with three feet
Tetrameter (4), pentameter (5), hexameter (6), heptameter (7), octameter (8)

16. Rhythm & Meter
Scanning a poem refers to the practice of figuring out its poetic feet and line length.
Free verse: poetry that does not rhyme or have regular meter
Blank verse: a signature style of meter made famous by Shakespeare, also known as iambic pentameter (each line is a pattern of 5 feet of unstressed/stressed syllables).
But soft! / What light / through yon/der win/dow breaks?

17. Rhythm & Meter
Rhyme scheme: the pattern of rhyme that comes at the end of each verse or line
Alternate rhyme: also known as ABAB rhyme scheme, it rhymes as “ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH.”
Couplet: two line stanzas with “AA,” rhyme scheme that often appears as “AA, BB, CC and DD…”

18. Rhythm & Meter
End Rhyme: Rhyme that appears at the end of two or more lines of poetry
“I would not, could not, in a box.
I could not, would not, with a fox.
I will not eat them with a mouse.
I will not eat them in a house.
I will not eat them here or there.
I will not eat them anywhere.
I do not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”

19. Rhythm & Meter
Internal Rhyme: The rhyming of words within one line of poetry
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping...”

20. Rhythm & Meter
Repetition: The repeating of a word or phrase to add rhythm or to emphasize an idea
“And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.” –Robert Frost, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Refrain: a verse, a line, a set, or a group of some lines that appears at the end of a stanza, or appears where a poem divides into different sections (a type of repetition)
Most well-known is “The Raven”

21. PART 4: Forms
Stanza: A division in a poem named for the number of lines it contains, such as a couplet (2 lines), triplet (3 lines), quatrain (4 lines), and octave (8 lines)
This is as though the poem is broken up into “paragraphs”
“Gleaming in silver are the hills!
Blazing in silver is the sea!
And a silvery radiance spills
Where the moon drives royally!” –James Stevens, “Washed in Silver”

22. Forms cont.
Sonnet: a 14 line poem comprised of 3 quatrains with alternate rhyme scheme and one couplet. The English sonnet, popularized by Shakespeare, follows iambic pentameter
Example: Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

23. Forms
Limerick: a five-line witty poem with a distinctive rhythm. The first, second and fifth lines, the longer lines, rhyme. The third and fourth shorter lines rhyme. (A-A-B-B-A).
Haiku: A three-line poem that originated from Japan, often about nature, with a syllable pattern of 5, 7, 5
narrative: tells the story of an event in the form of a poem

24. Form
Poetry Slam: a type of competition where people read their poems without props, costumes, or music. After performing, they receive scores (0-10) from 5 randomly selected judges. The judges can be anyone: they don’t even need to be poets! Scores are awarded based on how much each judge likes a poem. The purpose of this judging process is to make poetry participatory for everyone. Slam Poetry doesn’t need to be a specific form of poetry.
Example: