Poetry

Definitions

100

A group of lines in a poem

stanza

200

A pattern of rhyming lines in a poem

rhyme scheme

300

Language that is not intended literally, but is instead meant to be understood symbolically

figurative language

400

The repetition of sounds at the beginning of words close to one another

alliteration

500

The repetition of vowel sounds

assonance

Sound

100

What is the rhyme scheme in the following stanza? "Hold fast to dreams For when dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly."

ABCB

200

What literary term describes the sound in the following sentence? The old piano moaned.

assonance (repeated long o sound)

300

What kind of rhyme do the following lines use? "In the morning the sun shone bright Clearing the thoughts of the dark night."

true rhyme

400

What literary term describes the repeated sound in the following phrase? "Loose papers lift like a ladder on the wind."

alliteration (repeated "l" sound at the beginning of words)

500

What kind of rhyme do the following lines use? "Courage was mine, and I had mystery; Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery..."

slant rhyme

Original Examples

100

Give an example of a metaphor.

Answers will vary. (Example: Hope is a bird.)

200

Give an example of a simile

Answers will vary. (Example: Life is like a box of chocolates.)

300

Name two words with alliteration.

Answers will vary. (Example: green grass)

400

Name two words that have consonance, but not alliteration

Answers will vary. (Example: chocolate cookie repeats the hard "c" or k sound)

500

Name two words that have assonance, but do not rhyme.

Answers will vary. (Example: island and cry both have long "i" sounds)

Figurative Language

100

What type of figurative language is in the following stanza? "Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow."

Metaphor (Life is a barren field)

200

What type of figurative language does the following sentence use? "Life is like a box of chocolates."

simile

300

Explain the literal and figurative meaning in the following stanza: “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -"

Answers will vary (Literally, the stanza describes a bird perching and singing a song without stopping. Figuratively, the bird represents hope. Hope is perched on the soul, which means that we carry hope within us. Like the bird's song, hope persists through difficult times because it "never stops - at all -" (4).

400

Explain the literal and symbolic meaning in the following stanza: "In the grass that has overgrown causes and effects, someone must be stretched out blade of grass in his mouth gazing at the clouds."

Answers will vary (Literally, the stanza describes a person lying on the grass looking at the clouds. Figuratively, the person in the grass represents people who have started to ignore the war and the way it affected the town (the "causes and affects"). Instead of focusing on the effects of the past, he turns his attention to more pleasant thoughts (the clouds).)

500

What is the conflict in the poem "Bilingual/Bilingue"? How does the image of the heart in these stanzas show the conflict between the father and the daughter? My father liked them separate, one there, one here (allá y aquí), as if aware that words might cut in two his daughter’s heart (el corazón) and lock the alien part to what he was—his memory, his name (su nombre)—with a key he could not claim. (1-6)

Answers will vary. The father is worried that the daughter's heart will be "cut in two" by English words. This shows his fear that learning English will divide the daughter into two pieces: the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking part. He is worried that the Spanish-speaking part will be locked away, and he will lose his connection to his daughter.

Miscellaneous

100

True or false? Poetry uses figurative language, but prose does not.

False (Many prose pieces use figurative language. Night, for example, uses figurative language.)

200

A group of lines in a poem

stanza

300

Explain what each of the people represents in the following stanza: Someone, broom in hand, still recalls the way it was. Someone else listens and nods with unsevered head. But already there are those nearby starting to mill about who will find it dull.

The person speaking represents people who have experienced and remember the war. The person listening represents someone of a later generation who did not experience the war directly, or does not remember it, but who listens to the stories the older generation shares. The people walking around not listen represent those who ignore the war and its effects.

400

How do the parentheses in "Bilingual/Bilingue" show the speaker's conflict?

Answers will vary. (The words inside the parentheses are in Spanish, and the words outside are in English, just like the speaker speaks Spanish inside her house and English outside. This is a conflict for her because although she speaks Spanish with her father and wants him to share her poetry with him, she writes in English.)

500

Send one representative from your group to quote and correctly cite two lines from the poem on the whiteboard. Start your quotation with the phrase: The speaker says, " Autumn moonlight— a worm digs silently into the chestnut.

Answers will vary Example: The speaker says, "a worm digs silently / into the chestnut" (2-3).