Poetry Practice
Name: ____________________________________________
After reading the definition of each poetic device, write ONE of your own lines of poetry using the literary device provided. Do not use the example words in your work.
1. Assonance-is the repetition of vowel sounds in a poem (break, main, face)
2. Dissonance-is when an author uses unlike vowel sounds to show contrast in sound and/or meaning
3. Slant rhyme-is also known as “almost” rhyme and is a popular tool with rap artists. (weird and gears, bring and winning)
4. Perfect rhyme-this is the rhyme you grew up with and many poets never learn to use well. (house, mouse, blouse)
5. Consonance-this is when an author uses the same consonant sounds anywhere in a word repeated throughout a poem. Do not confuse this with alliteration, which has to come at the beginning of a word. (Above the bells the abrasive blackbird sings)

JABBERWOCKY
By Lewis Carroll
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
Short answer: What do you think this poem MEANS? What words and/or sounds are “fun” to say?

by Pablo Neruda
Furrowed motherland, I swear that in your ashes 
 you will be born like a flower of eternal water 
 I swear that from your mouth of thirst will come to the air the petals of bread, the spilt 
 inaugurated flower. Cursed, 
 cursed, cursed be those who with an ax and serpent came to your earthly arena, cursed those 
 who waited for this day to open the door 
 of the dwelling to the moor and the bandit: 
 What have you achieved? Bring, bring the lamp, 
 see the soaked earth, see the blackened little bone 
 eaten by the flames, the garment 
 of murdered Spain.
Directions: Find and label ALL examples of assonance, dissonance, consonance, and rhyme in the poem. Turn in at end of period. Write them below!

by Pablo Neruda 
 Translated by Clayton Eshleman
There is something dense, united, settled in the depths, repeating its number, its identical sign.
How it is noted that stones have touched time, 
 in their refined matter there is an odor of age, of water brought by the sea, from salt and sleep.
I'm encircled by a single thing, a single movement: a mineral weight, a honeyed light 
 cling to the sound of the word
"noche": 
 the tint of wheat, of ivory, of tears, things of leather, of wood, of wool, archaic, faded, uniform, 
 collect around me like walls.
I work quietly, wheeling over myself, 
 a crow over death, a crow in mourning.
I mediate, isolated in the spread of seasons, centric, encircled by a silent geometry: 
 a partial temperature drifts down from the sky, a distant empire of confused unities 
 reunites encircling me.
Directions: Find and label ALL examples of assonance, dissonance, consonance, and rhyme in the poem. Turn in at end of period. Write them below!