Figurative Language
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
-"Sonnet 130," by William Shakespeare
What is
a simile?
"Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake"
-"Romance" by Edgar Allen Poe
What is
rhyme?
a group of lines within a poem
What is
a stanza?
the pattern of rhyming lines within a particular poem
What is
rhyme scheme?
a 14-line love poem of alternating rhyme written in iambic pentameter
What is a sonnet?
"Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up"
-"Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes
What is a
metaphor?
"Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow"
-"Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
What is
alliteration?
the type of line breaks in the following poem:
"the back wings
of the
hospital where
nothing
will grow"
-"Between Walls" by William Carlos Williams
What are
enjambed lines?
or
What is enjambment?
The rhyming pattern in the following poem:
"I found a book of poems.
I brought the book to school.
And every time I looked at it.
I giggled like a fool."
What is
ABCB?
a poem with no specific pattern of rhymes or syllables
What is
free verse?
"Here,
in the room of my life
the objects keep changing...
a knife waiting for someone to pick it up...
the starving windows..."
-"The Room of My Life" by Anne Sexton
What is
personification?
"Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings"
What is
assonance?
or
What is
onomatopoeia?
Originating in Japan, a three-line poem following a 5-7-5 syllable pattern
What is
a haiku?
In the following poem by Emily Dickinson,
"Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all…."
soul and all are example of this type of "rhyme"
What is
near rhyme?
or
What is
slant rhyme?
Not quite a haiku, this seven-line Japanese poem has syllable counts of 5-7-5-7-7
What is
tanka?
"And her beauty still evermore. You see...
one by one she scorched you with her radiance."
-"Poem to Some of My Recent Poems" by James Tate
What is
hyperbole?
Harsh or discordant sounds, often the result of repetition and combination of consonants like f, p, b, and so on.
What is
cacophony?
What is
14?
Originating in Italy but popularized by British poet William Shakespeare, sonnets follow this alternating rhyme scheme
What is
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG?
Both blackout poetry and magnetic poetry fall into this "discovery" category of poems
What is
found poetry?
"a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam"
-"Messenger" by Mary Oliver
What is
imagery?
repetition of the same phrase at the start of successive lines of poetry ie.,
"Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free."
What is
anaphora?
a stanza made up of seven lines
What is
a septet?
This word is one of 10 common words in the English language that don't rhyme with anything.
What is
orange or purple or rhythm or walrus or month
or bulb or almond or false or husband or wasp
or wolf?
popular in elementary school, the first letter of each line in these poems spells out a word when read vertically
What is
acrostic poetry?