Poetry 1
Giving human characteristics to animals or non-living things.
Personification
A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things using the connecting words "like" or "as." EXAMPLE: Love is like a battlefield.
Simile
A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things without using the connecting words "like" or "as." EXAMPLE: Love is a battlefield.
Metaphor
A single line of poetry.
Verse
A figure of speech where the writer purposely and obviously exaggerates to an extreme. It is used for emphasis or as a way of making a description more creative and humorous.
Hyperbole
A joke based on the interplay of homophones- words with the same pronunciation but different meanings. It can also play with words that sound similar, but not exactly the same.
Pun
A figure of speech that puts together opposite elements. The combination of these contradicting elements serves to confuse or give the reader a laugh. EXAMPLE: Her room is an organized mess, or controlled chaos, if you will.
Oxymoron
A phrase that expresses a figurative meaning different from the actual meaning of the words used. EXAMPLE: "Kick the bucket" is means "death."
Idiom
A word that sounds like what it means. EXAMPLE: Buzz! Click! Bang! Whoosh!
Onomatopoeia
A story or narrative in poetic form.
Ballad
A unified group of lines in poetry. This is often marked by spacing between sections of the poem.
Stanza
An object or action that means something more than the literal meaning.
Symbol
The central meaning or dominant message the poet is trying to deliver to the readers.
Theme
The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. EXAMPLE: "From Forth the Fatal loins of these two Foes; A pair of star-crossed lover take their life."
Alliteration
The author's specific word choice.
Diction
Poetry that does not rhyme or have a measurable meter.
Free Verse
This occurs when one line ends without a pause or any punctuation and continues onto the next line.
Enjambment
The attitude the poem's narrator (this may or may not be the actual poet) takes towards a subject or character----serious, humorous, sarcastic, etc.
Tone
The recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry. Depending on how sounds are arranged, the _____ of a poem may be fast or slow, choppy or smooth.
Rhythm
The measured arrangement of sounds/beats in a poem, including the poet's placement of emphasis and the number of syllables per line.
Meter
A brief reference to a real or fictional person, event, place, or work of art.
Allusion
The ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem or verse ex: AABB or ABAB
Rhyme Scheme
A type of rhyme with words that have similar, but not identical sounds. ex: "girl" and "world" or "home" and "none"
Slant Rhyme
“Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. "It is a long tail, certainly, but why do you call it sad?”
Pun
You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.
Oxymoron