1. POETRY The following are poetic terms and figurative language terms related to poetry.

2. POETRY
A type of literature that expresses ideas, feelings, or tells a story in a specific form (usually using lines and stanzas)

3. POINT OF VIEW IN POETRY POET the author of the poem. SPEAKER
“narrator” of the poem.

4. POETRY FORM FORM - the appearance of the words on the page
LINE - a group of words together on one line of the poem
STANZA - a group of lines arranged together
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

5. KINDS OF STANZAS Couplet = a two-line stanza
Triplet (Tercet) = a three-line stanza
Quatrain = a four-line stanza

6. Tone
the attitude the author takes
It sets the mood in the reader

7. Sounds of Poetry

8. RHYTHM The beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem
Rhythm can be created by meter, rhyme, alliteration and refrain.

9. METER A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
da DUM A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

10. RHYME
A repetition of end sound
LAMP
STAMP
Activity: Rhyme group game

11. END RHYME
A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line
Hector the Collector
Collected bits of string.
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.

12. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
INTERNAL RHYME
A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
From “The Raven”
by Edgar Allan Poe

13. Near Rhyme or Slant Rhyme
imperfect rhyme, close rhyme
Heart
Dark
Bridge
Grudge

14. RHYME SCHEME
The pattern of rhyme in lines of poetry (can be shown by letters of the alphabet)
Activity: Rhyme Scheme group game

15. SAMPLE RHYME SCHEME The Germ by Ogden Nash
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ. a b c

16. ONOMATOPOEIA
Words that imitate the sound they are naming
BUZZ

17. ALLITERATION Repetition of beginning sounds
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
Activity: Alliteration group game

18. CONSONANCE
Repetition of consonant sounds (can be anywhere in the words)
“silken, sad, uncertain, rustling . . “

19. (All share the long “a” sound.)
ASSONANCE
Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line or lines of poetry.
Lake Fate Base Fade
(All share the long “a” sound.)

20. ASSONANCE cont. Examples of ASSONANCE:
“Slow the low gradual moan came in the snowing.”
John Masefield
“Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep.”
- William Shakespeare

21. REFRAIN A sound, word, phrase or line repeated regularly in a poem.
“Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

22. Application: I.D. the sounds of poetry:
“The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse hoofs ringing clear; Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?

23. Poetic Forms (types)

24. FREE VERSE POETRY
does NOT have meter (patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables)
Does NOT have rhyme.
conversational - sounds like someone talking with you.
A more modern type of poetry.

25. Fixed Form poetry that follows a kind of template or formula .
Has set guidelines such as meter, rhyme scheme, and stanzas.
Ex: Haiku, Sonnet

26. BLANK VERSE POETRY
Written in lines of iambic pentameter, but does NOT use end rhyme.
from Julius Ceasar
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

27. LYRIC Short usually written in first person point of view
Expresses an emotion or an idea or describes a scene
Do not tell a story and are often musical

28. Ballad A song-like poem that tells a story.
At least 2 stanzas, sung to the same melody

29. SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET abab cdcd efef gg
A fourteen line poem with a specific rhyme scheme.
The poem is written in three quatrains and ends with a couplet.
The rhyme scheme is
abab cdcd efef gg
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.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest 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.

30. NARRATIVE POEMS A poem that tells a story.
Generally longer than the lyric styles of poetry b/c the poet needs to establish characters and a plot.
Examples of Narrative Poems
“The Raven”
“The Highwayman”
“Casey at the Bat”
“The Walrus and the Carpenter”

31. Literal vs Figurative Meaning is exactly as stated
What is said it different from meaning

32. SIMILE
A comparison of two things using “like, as than,” or “resembles.”
“She is as beautiful as a sunrise.”

33. METAPHOR A direct comparison of two unlike things
“All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.”
- William Shakespeare

34. EXTENDED METAPHOR
A metaphor that goes several lines or possible the entire length of a work.

35. IMPLIED METAPHOR The comparison is hinted at but not clearly stated.
“The poison sacs of the town began to manufacture venom, and the town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it.”
from The Pearl
by John Steinbeck

36. Cliché
An over-used expression that loses its meaning or emphasis (any saying that gets old)
Ex: sweet as sugar, raining cats and dogs

37. Metonymy
a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept
Ex: “lend me your ear”
“We need to take it to the White House”

38. Synecdoche A part is used to represent the whole or visa versa
“all hands on deck”
“check out my wheels”

39. Hyperbole
Exaggeration often used for emphasis.

40. Litotes or Understatement
Understatement - basically the opposite of hyperbole. Often it is ironic.
Ex. Calling a slow moving person “Speedy”

41. Idiom
An expression with totally different meaning from the what is said
Ex: kicked the bucket
Raining cats and dogs
Hit the roof

42. The trees danced in the wind.
PERSONIFICATION
Giving human qualities to something non-human or to an inanimate object
The trees danced in the wind.

43. Allusion
Allusion comes from the verb “allude” which means “to refer to”
An allusion is a reference to something famous.
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave.
From “Snowbound”
John Greenleaf Whittier

44. Apostrophe
Addresses an inanimate object, an idea, or a person that is dead or present
Ex: "Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again " (Paul Simon, "The Sounds of Silence")

45. Paradox
A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true
Ex: "The silence of midnight, to speak truly, though apparently a paradox, rung in my ears" (Mary Shelley).

46. Oxymoron a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms
Ex: extremely average, bitter sweet, deafening silence