Poetic Elements
A group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation.
What is a Stanza?
What directly compares two seemingly unlike things without using like or as?
What is a Metaphor
A poet's purposeful use of exaggeration or overstatement for emphasis:
That kitten was so cute I died when I saw it.
What is a Hyperbole?
Use of the word like or as to create a comparison between two things:
“My love is like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June” (Robert Burns)..
What is a Simile?
A type of short form poetry originally from Japan. These poems consist of three phrases composed of 17 phonetic units in a 5, 7, 5 pattern.
What is a haiku?
Any written work that follows a basic grammatical structure (think words and phrases arranged into sentences and paragraphs)
What is prose?
Any language that appeals to the reader’s five senses. If it helps the to imagine what something looks, tastes, smells, sounds, or feels like, it’s this!
What is a imagery?
In poetry, poets can use this device, for example: repeating a word, repeating a phrase, or even repeating a line.
What is Repetition?
Stating one thing is another to create a comparison for example:
“He’s a sly fox.”
What is a Metaphor?
This field of science that studies living things and their interactions with their environment.
What is Ecology?
A rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language often in poetry describing the musical quality of words.
What is Cadence?
Two lines of poetry that end on the same sound,
Ex. "Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
- Shakespeare
What is a Couplet/Rhyming Couplet?
An author gives objects, concepts or animals human characteristics, emotions or abilities for example:
The night sighed, and it seemed as if the evening sky was yawning.
What is personification?
When the poet uses the repetition of initial consonant sounds: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
What is Alliteration?
This Gothic writer set the stage for future narratives about monsters coming to life.
Who is Mary Shelley/ Frankenstein
A stanza or short poem consisting of FOUR lines.
What is a Quatrain
A reference to something outside of a literary work, like a Bible story, a verse or phrase, a movie reference, etc.
What is an allusion?
The name for words that sound like what they describe.
For example: Justin poured a glass of soda, listening to the bubbles fizz in the glass.
What is Onomatopoeia?
When two unlike images are positioned next to each other to create a contrasting effect for example:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
What is Juxtaposition/Oxymoron?
This poem by Billy Collins asks the question, "we should read poetry for the beauty of it and not because we have to in English class?"
What is an Introduction to Poetry?
This type of poetic element runs over one line of verse to the next without punctuation which often creates a jam.
What is an enjambment?
The pattern of rhyme in a poem based on the final word in each line. We use the letters of the alphabet to mark the pattern.
What is Rhyme scheme?
What is the rhyme scheme in the following poem?
The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.
“Neither Out Far Nor In Deep” by Robert Frost.
What is ABAB?
When a poet or a writer exploits or plays with the multiple meanings of words for example:
I read a book about gravity: it was pretty heavy.
What is a pun?
This epic poem was written in 1314 and it describes the nine circles of hell.
What is Dante's Inferno/Divine Comedy?