1. Elements of Poetry

2. What is poetry?
Poetry is a form of writing in which the sound and meaning of language combine to create ideas and feelings. Poetry uses form, patterns of sound, imagery, & figurative language to convey its message.

3. Tone Writer’s attitude toward his or her audience and subject
Often be described by an adjective such as formal or informal, serious or playful, bitter or ironic
Factors that contribute to the tone are word choice, sentence structure, line length, rhyme, rhythm, and repetition

4. Mood Feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage
Similar to tone

5. Stanza
Group of lines of poetry that are usually similar in length and pattern and are separated by spaces
Like a paragraph of poetry
It states and develops a single main idea

6. Stanza Stanzas are groups of lines in a poem
I climbed up the door and I opened the stairs. I said my pajamas and buttoned my prayers.
I turned off the covers and pulled up the light. I’m all scrambled up since she kissed me last night.
stanza
Scrambled by Bruce Lansky, reprinted from My Dog Ate My Homework published by Meadowbrook Press.
stanza

7. Lines Poems are separated into lines on a page.
Sometimes they may have a rhyme pattern at the ends of lines.
I climbed up the door and I opened the stairs. I said my pajamas and buttoned my prayers.
Lines
Scrambled

8. Refrain
Averse or phrase that is repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem, usually after the chorus or stanza.
Example:
The cat so silent Lay curled up on the rug The fire a blaze The room so snug.
Purring, purring Quiet and still Purring, purring Content from his fill.
Tatters the cat Big, fat cat.
He had just eaten A dinner of fish What a treat to have Filling up his dish.
Purring, purring Quiet and still Purring, purring Content from his fill.
Tatters the cat Big, fat cat.
No more cold for the day He was in for the night Fun he had had When the day was light.
Purring, purring Quiet and still Purring, purring Content from his fill.
Tatters the cat
Big, fat cat.

9. Poetic Elements Dealing with Word Choice
Rhyme
Imagery
Figurative Language
Alliteration
Onomatopoeia
Hyperbole
Refrain
Tone
Mood

10. Rhyme Repetition of sounds at the ends of words.
Poets use rhyme to lend a song-like quality to their verses and to emphasize certain words or ideas
Many poems contain end-rhymes or rhyming words at the ends of lines

11. Rhyme poems that repeat the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more lines/words in the poem
I climbed up the door and I opened the stairs. I said my pajamas and buttoned my prayers.
I turned off the covers and pulled up the light. I’m all scrambled up since she kissed me last night.
Lines
stanza
rhyming words
Scrambled by Bruce Lansky, reprinted from My Dog Ate My Homework published by Meadowbrook Press.
stanza
rhyming words

12. Poets use imagery, figurative language, and sensory details to describe feelings, experiences, or ideas

13. Imagery Words or phrases that appeal to one or more of the 5 senses
Writers use imagery to describe how their subjects look, sound, feel, taste, and smell
Poets often paint images, or word pictures, that also appeal to your senses
These pictures help you experience the poem fully

14. Poets use of words or expressions to describe something or someone
Figurative Language
Poets use of words or expressions to describe something or someone
personification
metaphors
similes
alliteration
onomatopoeia
hyperbole
adapted from Developing Readers, Figurative Language anchor chart

15. but determined visitor.
Personification giving non-human objects human qualities or characteristics
WINTER
The chill night air
swept through my room
like an unwelcome,
but determined visitor.

16. Metaphor
Metaphors compare two things by saying that one thing is another thing.
Metaphors do not use the words like and as to compare.
The girl who sang the solo was a nightingale.
This metaphor describes a girl who sings beautifully.

17. My love is like a red, red rose.
Simile
Simile makes a comparison between two things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles.
My love is like a red, red rose.
- Robert Burns

18. Alliteration
Repeating the same beginning sound in more than two words.
Writers use this to draw attention to certain words or ideas to imitate sounds and to create musical effects
Example: Seven snakes slithered silently.
Crazy Kangaroos kissed quietly.

19. Onomatopoeia Words that sound like the or actions they refer to
Examples:
The mosquitos buzzed.
Thunder boomed overhead.

20. Hyperbole One way a writer can add humor to a story
Hyperbole One way a writer can add humor to a story. It is an exaggeration of the truth for emphasis or humorous effect.
Examples:
These books weigh a ton!
Our menus were so big that to read mine I almost had to stand up!

21. Idiom
Definition: word combinations which have a different meaning than the literal meanings of each word.
Your own example:
It’s raining cats and dogs.