FORM & STRUCTURE
This element gives written poetry its visual layout on the page using stanzas, typography, and blank white space.
What is Page Architecture / Visual Layout?
These punctuation marks inside a written poem force a reader to make a silent pause.
What is a caesura?
This sound device involves repeating vowel sounds across a line of poetry.
What is assonance?
Written poetry creates this type of quiet, personal relationship between the poem and the reader.
What is a one-on-one (or intimate) dialogue?
This device directly states that one thing is another to make a comparison without using "like" or "as".
What is a metaphor?
Unlike fixed written poems, this performance art form shifts its shape fluidly to keep the audience listening.
What is Spoken Word Poetry?
In spoken word, the artist uses their physical body and this natural habit to control speed and room energy.
What is breathing (or somatic delivery)?
Māori and Pasifika spoken word poets often weave these traditional oral items into their performances.
What are waiata or mōteatea?
Spoken word artists use their loud, live voices on stage to achieve this physical goal.
What is the reclamation of physical space?
This language feature compares two different things using the words "like" or "as".
What is a simile?
This rigid musical time signature provides the set grid loop that rappers fit their lyrics into.
What is a 4/4 Bar Grid (or Time Signature)?
A rapper uses this technique to "dance" or stretch their syllables across the drum beats.
What is Flow?
Rappers layer traditional instruments, like these, underneath modern synthetic bass lines.
What are taonga pūoro?
Modern Māori and Pasifika hip-hop connects modern city life with this deeply rooted history.
What is ancestral heritage/ whakapapa?
This technique uses words that mimic the actual sound they describe, such as "boom" or "pop".
What is an onomatopoeia?
In written poetry, line breaks and blank space do this to help the reader understand the text.
What is force the reader to pause and reflect?
While written poetry relies on silent punctuation, spoken word relies on this physical element to build room tension.
What is dramatic silence (or voice projection)?
Spoken word uses alliteration and internal rhymes so words stick in your head without needing this.
What is background music (or an instrumental track)?
A written poem feels like a private reflection, whereas a live spoken word piece acts as this public action.
What is a community declaration? What is a personal yet public declaration?
This sound device matches the ending vowel and consonant sounds in two or more words.
What is a rhyme?
Spoken word artists break rigid structural rules so they can adapt to these shared community gathering spaces.
What is a stage?
Hip-hop takes internal poem rhythms from the page and transforms them into this shared physical experience.
What is a heavy bassline/beat that listeners can feel?
Incorporating te reo Māori or indigenous instruments transforms simple rhyming into this proud statement.
What is a declaration of cultural identity and heritage?
Across page, stage, and beat tracks, contemporary Kiwi artists use voice and tone to challenge stereotypes and do this.
What is celebrate cultural heritage on their own terms?
This style of poetry breaks away from fixed rules, lacking a regular meter or rhyming scheme.
What is free verse?