1. Poetry Terminology

2. Alliteration
Definition: The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or within words
Ex) “All day within the dreamy dwelling
The doors darkened with dew.”

3. Assonance Repetition of vowel sounds in or at the beginning of words.
Example: Try to light the fire.
Hayden plays a lot.

4. Daddy's Gone A Hunting by: Mother Goose
Notice the alliteration in the following poems:
Daddy's Gone A Hunting by: Mother Goose
Bye, baby bunting, Daddy's gone a - hunting, Gone to get a rabbit skin To wrap baby bunting in.
Dancing Dolphins by: Paul McCann Those tidal thoroughbreds that tango through the turquoise tide. Their taut tails thrashing they twist in tribute to the titans. They twirl through the trek tumbling towards the tide . Throwing themselves towards those theatrical thespians.

5. Free Verse
Definition: Poetry that is not written in a regular pattern or meter
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that “anything goes,” because some poets like to make their lines rhythmic.
One way they do that is by repeating sentence patterns. One example is Walt Whitman’s poem, “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun.”

6. from “Give me the Splendid, Silent Sun”
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,
Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows,
Give me an arbor, give me the trellised grape…

7. Free Verse, continued Other free verse poems:
Pg. 671 “I Hear America Singing”
Pg. 672 “I, Too, Sing America”

8. Imagery Concrete images that appeal to the senses
A quarter horse, no rider
canters through the pasture
thistles raise soft purple burrs
her flanks are shiny in the sun

9. Mood
The total feeling in a literary work or the choice of setting, objects, details, images and words that contribute to a specific mood

10. Stanza
A group of consecutive lines in a poem that form a single unit

11. Simile
Definition: A comparison between two unlike things using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles.
Example: The steak is tougher than an old shoe.
Example: My mom is as old as a Civil War soldier.
Example: The cat is soft like peach fuzz.

12. Metaphor
Definition: an imaginative comparison between two unlike things in which one thing is said to be like another
Ex) Fog rubbing its back on windows
makes a sudden leap and curls
around the house to fall asleep
By using words that we associate with a cats behavior, the author, Eliot, suggests a comparison without stating, “The fog is a cat.”

13. Metaphor (cont) Ex) Computers are the vehicles for tomorrow
Ex) The parks are the lungs of London.
Ex) My heart is a lonely hunter.

14. Onomatopoeia
Definition: The use of words whose sounds imitate or suggest their meaning.
Ex) Buzz, boom, tick tock

15. Personification
Definition: A figure of speech in which an object or animal is spoken of as if it had human thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way and that, she peers and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees

16. Repetition
When the author repeats a word or phrase to emphasize it in the poem.

17. Hyperbole
An exaggerated statement used especially as a figure of speech to heighten effect.
There was a young lady from Lynn
Who was so exceedingly thin
That when she essayed
To drink lemonade
She slid down the straw and fell in.
Let’s look at “Cremation of Sam McGee” pg. 637 for more hyperbole.

18. Symbol
A person, a place, a thing, or an event that has meaning in itself and stands for something beyond itself as well
Ex) The American eagle stands for freedom.
Let’s read “The New Colossus” pg. 493 of you Literature book.

19. Meter
The PATTERN of stressed and unstressed syllables/beats in spoken or written language

20. Rhyme
The repetition of vowel sounds and all the sounds following them in words that are close together in the poem.

21. Rhythm
A musical quality produced by the pattern of stresses of beats in spoken or written language