Poetry Terms

A. Classifying poetry

1. Traditional poetry—follows fixed rules, such as a specified number of lines; has a regular pattern of rhythm and rhyme ; includes forms such as the sonnet , ode, haiku, limerick, ballad, & epic.

EXAMPLE TRADITIONAL POETRY

Notice that the lines are the same length,

there is a pattern of end rhyme, and

the words are arranged so that there is a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

from “The Fire of Driftwood” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said,

Of what had been, and might have been,

And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,

When first they feel, with secret pain,

Their lives henceforth have separate ends,

And never can be one again.

2. Organic poetry—does not have a regular pattern of rhythm

and may not rhyme ; may use unconventional spelling,

punctuation, and grammar ; includes free verse &

concrete poetry

EXAMPLE of ORGANIC POETRY (free verse)

Notice that the lines are different lengths,

there is no end rhyme, and

there is no pattern of rhythm. Instead,

the poem sounds like conversation.

Making a fist By Naomi Shihab Nye

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,I felt the life sliding out of me,a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.I was seven. I lay in the carwatching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past

the glass.My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

“How do you know if you are going to die?”I begged my mother.We had been traveling for days.With strange confidence she answered,“When you can no longer make a fist.”

Years later I smile to think of that journey,the borders we must cross separately,stamped with our unanswerable woes.I who did not die, who am still living,still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,clenching and opening one small hand.

B. Speaker—the imaginary voice assumed by the writer of the

poem; may be a person, an animal, a thing, or an

abstraction

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. ideas formed beforehand

Whatever I see I swallow immediatelyJust as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.I am not cruel, only truthful—The eye of a little god, four cornered.Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,Searching my reaches for what she really is. reaches = depths

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.I am important to her. She comes and goes.Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old womanRises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.C. Structure in poetry

1. stanza—a division of the lines of a poem based on thought

or rhyme. Each stanza conveys a unified idea. Often the

stanzas in a poem are separated by a space, but they do

not have to be. Stanzas are known by the number of

lines they contain:

couplet: ______ line stanza

tercet: ______line stanza

quatrain: ______line stanza

cinquain: ______line stanza

sestet: ______line stanza

heptastich: ______line stanza

octave: ______line stanza

The stanzas in a sonnet are not separated by a space.

Instead, each stanza is determined by end rhyme and

thought. Into what kinds of stanzas is this sonnet

divided?

Sonnet 65

by William Shakespeare, 1609

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o’er sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower? strength & energy

O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days, destructive

When rocks impregnable are not so stout, indestructible

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? goods seized by conquest

O none, unless this miracle have might,

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Into what kinds of stanzas is this poem divided?

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but theyOutdid the sparkling waves in glee:A poet could not but be gay,In such a jocund company:I gazed,--and gazed,--but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.

J. Rhythm—a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

in a line of poetry; Meter—a regular pattern of rhythm

Analyzing the effects of a poem’s rhythm begins with

scanning, or marking, the meter. Stressed syllables are

marked with a slanted accent mark ( ) and unstressed

syllables are marked with a curved accent mark ( ).

Poets use rhythm to emphasize ideas and to create a mood.

Mark each SYLLABLE as either a stressed syllable ( ) or an

unstressed syllable ( ) .

1. and answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying

2. Solemnly, mournfully

3. Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane

4. And your hair has become very white

5. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt, he falls.

F. The Sounds of Language/Musical Devices

Besides being concerned with the meaning of a word, a good poet

considers the sound that a word makes. The sound of a well-

chosen word can strengthen a mood, make an idea more forceful,

create a musical quality, emphasize words or ideas , create

rhythm, link related words together, or simply make poetry

pleasant to hear.

1. alliteration—repetition of consonant sounds at the

beginnings of words

Using alliteration, a good poet may make the sound reflect the meaning of a poem.

How does the repeated s sound reflect the meaning in this poem?

Sea-weed sways and sways and swirls

as if swaying were its form of stillness;

and if it flushes against fierce rock

it slips over as shadows do, without hurting itself

Other examples of alliteration:

A. “The Hart loves the high wood, the Hare loves the hill…”

B. “Cold are the crabs that crawl on yonder hills,

Colder the cucumbers that grow beneath…”

2. assonance—repetition of vowel sounds followed by

different consonant sounds; spelling doesn’t matter—

only the sound matters.

Examples of assonance:

“The waves break fold on jeweled fold.”

“Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears…

“I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.”

3. consonance—repetition of consonant sounds within and

at the ends of words

Example 1: “I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.”

Example 2: “Birches like zebra fish flash by in a pack.”

Example 3: “And black are the waters that sparkled so green.”

4. onomatopoeia—the use of words that imitate sounds,

such as pop and crackle

5. repetition—a sound, word, phrase, or line is repeated for

emphasis & unity

example: Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

6. rhyme—the repetition of sounds at the ends of words

end rhyme—rhyming words at the ends of lines of poetry

internal rhyme—2 or more rhyming words on the same line of a poem

slant/off rhyme—end rhyme that is not exact, butapproximate (bid --- fled)

What are two examples of end rhyme from the first stanza?

What is an example of internal rhyme from line 1?

from line 4?

Midsummer Jingle

I’ve an ingle, shady ingle, near a dusky bosky dingle

Where the sighing zephyrs mingle with the purling of the stream.

There I linger in the jungle, and it makes me thrill and tingle,

Far from city’s strident jangle as I angle, smoke and dream.

Through the trees I’ll hear a single ringing sound, a cowbell’s jingle,

And its ting-a-ling’ll mingle with the whispers of the breeze;

So, although I’ve not a single sou, no potentate or king’ll

Make me jealous while I angle in my ingle ’neath the trees.

Newman Levy

1. ingle—open fireplace 6. purling—rippling

2. dusky—shadowy 7. jangle—harsh sounds

3. bosky—wooded 8. angle—fish

4. dingle—small, wooded valley 9. sou—French coin

5. zephyrs—gentle breezes 10. potentate--monarch

rhyme scheme—a regular pattern of rhyming words in a

poem; indicated by using different letters of the

alphabet for each new rhyme, beginning with a

Determine the rhyme scheme for the following poem by Roy Atwell:

Some Little Bug

In these days of indigestion ___

It is often times a question ___

As to what to eat and what to leave alone; ___

For each microbe and bacillus ___

Has a different way to kill us, ___

And in time they always claim us for their own. ___

There are germs of every kind ___

In any food that you can find ___

In the market or upon the bill of fare ___

Drinking water’s just as risky ___

As the so-called deadly whiskey ___

And it’s often a mistake to breathe the air. ___

D. Figurative language—writing or speech not meant to be

interpreted literally; the use of words outside their literal, or

usual meaning

Literal and Figurative Language

Which lines in the following excerpt are literal? Which are figurative?

When I am old, wrinkled, chilly, and white-haired…

When age hath made me what I am not now;

And every wrinkle tells me where the plough

Of time hath furrowed; when an ice shall flow

Through every vein, and all my head wear snow;

--Thomas Randolph “Upon His Picture”

1. simile—a figure of speech in which words such as like or

as or as if are used to make a comparison between two

unlike things

What are the ways the sun and a tossed coin are similar?

example: The sun spun like / a tossed coin.

Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali“Sunset”

2. metaphor—a figure of speech with a comparison between

two unlike things, but without the words like or as; one

thing is spoken of as though it were something else.

Examples: I’m beginning to see the light.

This explanation is just the tip of the iceberg.

She shouldn’t wear her heart on her sleeve.

I would give him the shirt off my back.

You should walk a mile in my shoes.

Examples from poetry:

“But my love she is a kitten,

And my heart’s a ball of string.”

--Henry Leigh

3. extended metaphor—an implied comparison that

extends for several lines or an entire poem; several

comparisons between two things are made;

Extended Metaphor

Based on the following words and phrases,

what would you expect to read about?

prison, gamble, get caught, perfect crime, defenseless,

plea, lock me away, throw away the key, guilty,

begging for mercy, throw the book at me

Notice that the songwriter writes about falling in love, but he is using words normally associated with being convicted of committing a crime.

“Love in the First Degree” – Alabama

From Alabama Live 2000

I once thought of love as a prisonA place I didn't want to beSo long ago I made a decisionTo be footloose and fancy freeBut you came and I was so temptedTo gamble on love just one timeI never thought that I would get caughtIt seemed like a perfect crime

Baby, you left me defenselessI've only got one pleaLock me away inside of your loveAnd throw away the keyI'm guilty of love in the first degree

I thought it would be so simpleLike a thousand times beforeI take what I wanted and just walk awayBut I never made it to the doorNow babe I'm not begging for mercyGo ahead and throw the book at meIf loving you is a crimeI know that I'm as guilty as a man can be

Baby, you left me defenselessI've only got one pleaLock me away inside of your loveAnd throw away the keyI'm guilty of love in the first degree

1. What is the metaphor on line 6 in the following poem?

2. How does the poet extend the metaphor in lines 7, 9,

13, and 14?

Country Night by Selma Robinson

She lived in terror of the country night;

As soon as afternoon began to fade

She went about the house, lit every light,

Bolted the doors, and drew every window-shade.

The house was like a ship that slowly listed, leaned

6 The night was water, and it seemed to her

7 It rose relentlessly and unresisted,

Inevitable, black, and sinister.

9 The little liquid noises that she heard

Were friendly and familiar things by day:

Tree and insect, flower and grass and bird,

Nothing at all to frighten her this way—

13 But still the night rose higher, till it found

14 Her tense and quivering and almost drowned.

example: In the poem “Country Night,” the metaphor on

line 6 is “_________________________________”

The poet extends this metaphor when she speaks of

night with vocabulary that would normally be used to

discuss water:

line 7: night “_________________” ;

line 9 there were “_____________________,”

line 13 “still the night ___________________” ;

line 14 the woman is “almost ______________”

4. personification—a nonhuman object is given human

characteristics, or the qualities of life are given to

something lifeless

What is being personified in each of the following examples?

What human trait is each one given?

A. from “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day”

Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

B. from “The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face”

Of Morning blushing in the early skies.

What is personified in the following poem?What is the poet imitating by indenting the lines of the poem?

Uncoiling With thorns, she scratches

on my window, tosses her hair dark with rain,

snares lightning, cholla, hawks, butterfly cholla = cactus

swarms in the tangles.

She sighs clouds,

head thrown back, eyes closed, roars

and rivers leap,

boulders retreat like crabs

into themselves.

She spews gusts and thunder,

spooks pale women who scurry to

lock doors, windows

when her tumbleweed skirt starts its spin.

They sing lace lullabies

so their children won’t hear

her uncoiling

through her lips, howling

leaves off trees, flesh

off bones, until she becomes

sound, spins herself

to sleep, sand stinging her ankles,

whirring into her raw skin like stars.

--Pat Mora

5. hyperbole—the use of great exaggeration to emphasize

strong feeling or to create a humorous effect

What is being exaggerated in the following excerpt?

After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost

(In the first 26 lines of the poem, the speaker explains that he has finished his job of picking apples from an orchard.)

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking; I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

What is exaggerated in this excerpt?

Why does the poet use this exaggeration?

Here once the embattled farmers stood

and fired the shot heard round the world.

--from “The Concord Hymn” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I. Imagery—words and phrases that recreate sensory

experiences through details of sight, sound, taste, touch,

smell, or movement

Choose an example of sight imagery from the following poem:

IllusionsAs I neared,the knotsin the telephone wirebecame grackles.With another step they were airborne:a spoonful of poppy seeds catapulted at the sun

the spattering of a flicked paint brusha tribe’s simultaneous release of slingsa meteor shower in reversedozens of Mary Poppinses aloftbuckshota snapped string of black pearls bouncing

highoff a tile floorcarboned leaves rising from a backyard firePicasso’s view of cast dice.I watched;the wire reknotteda block away.

--Nancy B. Hascall

Choose an example of sound imagery from the following poem:

CheersThe frogs and the serpents each had a football team,and I heard their cheer leaders in my dream:

“Bilgewater, bilgewater,” called the frog,“Bilgewater, bilgewater, bilge—lowest inner part of a ship’s hull

Sis, boom, bog! bog—soft, waterlogged ground

Roll ‘em off the log,Slog ‘em in the sog, slog—walk with a slow, plodding gait;

Swamp ‘em, swamp ‘em sog--<dialectical—to soak

Muck mire quash!” muck—sticky mud; mire—slimy mudquash—to suppress forcibly and completely

“Sisyphus, Sisyphus,” hissed the snake, Sisyphus—king of Corinth

“Sibilant, syllabub, sibilant—making a hissing sound;

Syllable-loo-ba-lay. syllabub-a drink or dessert

Scylla and Charybdis, Scylla—sea monster; Charybdis—a whirlpool

Sumac, asphodel, sumac—a shrub; asphodel—a plant

How do you spell Success?With an S-S-S!”

--Eve Merriam

Choose examples of taste, touch, and smell imagery from the following poem:

Deified (raised to a divine rank; worshipped as a god; idealized)

I think the moonmust taste like mintcool and tinglingto the tongue.

If I could

I’d hold it tight

between my teeth

breathe in its minty mistthen swallow it whole

and hold it in the pit

of my stomach

change my name to Diana (Diana—Roman goddess of chastity

and keep myself chaste. [moral purity], hunting, and the moon)

Look in the palm of my left hand

where the moon glows.

Touch me if you dare.

--Eileen Blas Schaefer