Poetry
What is it?
What am I talking about?
Metaphor,
in the large sense
and the ,
is the main property
of poetry.
small
Poet Richard Wilbur
METAPHOR is about
comparison*.
*only the similarities are not LITERALLY true!
METAPHOR
Now we’re talkin’
WHY ENGLISH TEACHERS RETIRE EARLY
Metaphors Found in High School Essays
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two
sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he
was room-temperature Canadian beef.
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a
dog makes just before it throws up.
The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had
disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a
rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free
ATM.
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket
fences that resembled Jessica Simpson’s teeth.
He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the
East River.
Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel
trap only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted
shut.
Shots rang out, as shots are known to do.
The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike
Phil, this plan just might work.
The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from
not eating for a while.
He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame
duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe
from stepping on a land mine or something.
The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one
slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids
around with power tools.
He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he
heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
Time to play the
impossible
metaphor game!
There are many ways to make
comparisons - OOPS!
I mean METAPHOR:
•Extended metaphor
•Lipogram
•Simile
•Analogy
Together, these are known as
Figurative
Language
Mother to Son
Langston Hughes
Extended metaphor: Establish a
Well, son,
I'll tell you: and developing the
central
comparison
Life for with
me ain't
been no crystal
stair.
image
supporting
details.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
Mother to Son
Langston Hughes
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
This poem, by the Harlem Renaissance
poet, Langston Hughes, represents BOTH
the African-American experience as well as
a universal one.
It effectively uses the vernacular, as well.
Langston Hughes
(1902 - 1967)
Time to think about
LOVE!
This is a most unusual paragraph. How
quickly can you find out what is unusual
about it? It looks so ordinary you’d think
nothing was wrong with it. It is unusual,
though. Why? Study it, think about it,
and you may find out. Try to do it
without coaching. If you work at it for a
bit it will dawn on you. So jump to it and
Lipogram: Excluding a specific letter
try your skill at figuring it out. Good luck
– don’t blow your cool!
Mary Had a Lipogram
A. Ross Eckler
Mary
Mary
had
had
a tiny
a pygmy
lamb
lamb
Mary
owned
a
little
lamb
Polly
owned
one
little
sheep
Mary
had
a
little
lamb
itshis
wool
fleece
waswas
was
pallid
pale
as as
snow
assnow
snow
its
fleece
pale
its
fleece
shone
white
like
snow
with
fleece
a
pale
white
hue
and
and
any
every
spotplace
place
that
Mary
where
didMary
walk
walked
and
every
its
mistress
went
every
region
where
Polly
went
and
everywhere
that
Mary
went
this
her
lamb
lamb
would
did
also
always
go
go
it
certainly
would
go
the
sheep
did
surely
go
the
lamb
kept
her
in
view
This
He
lamb
came
did
inside
follow
her
Mary
classroom
toone
school
once
It
followed
Mary
to
class
day
He
followed
her
to
school
one
time
To
academe
herigid
went
with her
although
which
broke
against
a
a
law
rule
it
brokebroke
a rigid
which
thelaw
rigid rule
illegal
and
quite
rare
How
How
girls
children
and
boys
all
did
didlaugh
laugh
and
and
play
play
It
made
some
students
giggle
aloud
The
children
frolicked
in
their
room
It
made
the
children
laugh and play
that
on
lamb
seeing
in
class
a
lamb
all
in
saw
school
a
in
class
allin
saw
to
see
sheep
school
tolamb
viewthe
a lamb
in
there
The lipogram has a long history.
In 1939, an American author named Ernest Vincent Wright
published Gadsby: A Novel of Over 50,000 Words Without
Using the Letter “E”.
In 1969, the French writer Perec completed Las
Disparitions, a novel without the letter E.
In 1994, Gilbert Adair translated this novel into English as A
Void. The translation also does not contain the letter E.
Think about that!
When the lipogram technique is reapplied on a different
scale to create a poem which purposefully excludes a
certain word, you have a
liponym.
A poem deliberately excluding words a particular number
of letters in length is a liponol.
Love Without Love
Luis Llorens Torres
I love you, because in my thousand and one nights of dreams,
I never once dreamed of you
I looked down paths that traveled from afar,
but it was never you I expected.
Suddenly I've felt you flying through my soul
in quick, lofty flight,
and how beautiful you seem way up there, far
from my always idiot heart!
Love me that way, flying over everything.
And, like the bird on its branches, land in my arms
only to rest,
then fly off again.
Be not like the romantic ones who, in love, set me on fire.
When you climb up my mansion,
enter so lightly, that as you enter
the dog of my heart will not bark.
Simile: Comparison established by
statement that one thing is LIKE the other
Falling in love
is like
owning a dog
Poet Taylor Mali
Time to practice
Chain of
Similes!
On a piece of paper, write a sentence with a simile about
school:
The school food was like algae growing on a pond.
Then, pass your paper to your partner.
Use the 2nd half of the simile to begin the next line. Make
a new simile.
The algae growing on a pond was like the inside of
pimples.
Then - fold over the first line so that only the NEW simile is
showing. Pass that to the next partner.
New partner - repeat the process.
The inside of pimples was like glue.
Continue making new similes from the line
above, folding over the top, and passing to
partner, until everyone in your group has
had a chance to create new similes.
When you get your original one back, write
the last simile - end it with your first
(original) image:
The school food was like algae growing on a pond.
The algae growing on a pond was like the inside of
pimples.
The inside of pimples was like glue.
The glue was like my mother’s mashed potatoes.
My mother’s mashed potatoes were like storm clouds.
The storm clouds were like giants of the skies.
The giants of the skies were like obnoxious, screaming
children.
Obnoxious, screaming children were like school food.
William Wordsworth
•English poet of 19th century
•with Samuel Coleridge, published a
“revolutionary” book of poems called
Lyrical Ballads. This ushered in the
“Romantic” period of literature.
•Poets were urged to abandon formal
language and elaborate verse formats
and to incorporate the vernacular.
•Lyric poems express powerful
emotions – especially about nature.
Allen Ginsberg
•American poet of the 20th
century.
•“Exploded” on the scene with the
publication of Howl, a furious,
passionate attack on the
complacency of the 1950s.
•Known for his long, free-verse
style, he inspired a whole
generation of experimental writers
known as the Beat Poets.
Synethesia: Comparison that
mixes up the five senses.
It makes metaphors and similes
VERY powerful.
Smelling of elongated honey off the
Arthur Rimbaud
rose,
Broken now and then by a hiss:
When the boy's head, full of raw torment, saliva sucked
Longs for hazy dreams to swarm in
Back from the lip, or a longing to be
white,
kissed.
Two charming older sisters come to his
bed
He hears their dark eyelashes start
With slender fingers and silvery nails.
in the sweetSmelling silence and, through his
They sit him at a casement window,
grey listlessness,
thrown
The crackle of small lice dying,
Open on a mass of flowers basking in
beneath
blue air,
The imperious nails of their soft,
And run the fine, intimidating witchcraft electric fingers.
Of their fingers through his dew-dank
hair.
The wine of Torpor wells up in him
then - Near on trance, a harmonicaHe listens to their diffident, sing-song sigh -And in their slow caress he
breath,
feels the endless ebb and flow of a
desire to cry.
The Seekers of Lice
Alliteration: Effect created by
repeating a consonant sound
The hardest alliterative sentence in English:
The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.
Try this a few times:
Three free throws
A box of biscuits, a batch of mixed biscuits
This one’s naughty
- alliterate at your
own risk:
I am not the pheasant plucker,
I'm the pheasant plucker's mate.
I am only plucking pheasants
'cause the pheasant plucker's running late.
Homoliteration: Effect created
by using the sound at the end of
a word to begin the next word
Once eleven nasty yaks slowly
yodeled delightful lovesongs.
Suddenly, yo! One elegant tiger
roared dangerously. Yelling,
growling, grabbing guts
(sickening, gruesome entrails),
slurping gallons slowly. Yaks
swallowed. Done. Eliminated.
Dead!
End rhyme: The sound at
the end of
one line is repeated in
following lines.
Part of what is considered
to make
two words rhyme is that
they not only
sound alike, but that the
portion of the word that
sounds alike is the "tonic"
(accented) syllable of the
two words.
For example, the tonic syllable
in "bungee" is "bun-" so under
"normal" circumstance, it would
not be considered to rhyme with
words like "me" or "agree."
From “Stopping by Woods
on a Snowy Evening”
Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I
think I know,
His house is in the village,
though;
He will not see me stopping
here
To watch his woods fill up
with snow.
Internal rhyme: The sound in one word
is repeated within the same line.
From "The Raven”
Edgar Allen Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume
of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping
at my chamber door.
‘Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at
my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more."
Internal rhyme is
also the most
frequently used
device in hip hop
(rap) music.
"Freedom”
Jurassic Five
Hold on to this feelin',
Freedom]
Yo, Seldom travel
by the multitude
The devil's gavel has a cup of food
My culture's screwed cause this word is misconstrued
Small countries exempt from food cause leader have
different views
You choose
What meen the world to me is bein' free
Live and let live and just let it be (Let it be)
Love peace and harmony, one universal family
One God, one aim and one destiny
Are we there?
Imagine life without a choice at all
Given no hope without a voice at all
These be the problems that we face
I'm talkin' poverty in race
But no matter what the case we gotta...
Yo, I'm the first candidate to hate
Had to beat on the drum to communicate
For what was to come to those who were
hung
They would decapitate the tongue if you
would mention the word (Freedom)
Got people screamin' free Mumia Jamal
But two out of three of ya'll will probably
be at the mall
I'm heated wit ya'll, been defeated before
And complete an unsolved when the
word freedom's involved
Yo, my forefathers hung in trees to be
free (Rest in peace)
Got rid of slavery but kept the
penitentiary
And now freedom got a shotgun and
shells wit cha name
Release the hot ones and let freedom
ring…
Approximate rhyme: The sound pattern
is similar, but not exact. This is also known
as a “slant” or “oblique” rhyme.
This is a terrible example:
I see London, I see France
I see ____________’s underpants.
This is a much better example
Forgive My Guilt
Robert P. Tristram Coffin
Not always sure what things called sins
may be,
I am sure of one sin I have done.
It was years ago, and I was a boy,
I lay in the frostflowers with a gun,
The air ran blue as the flowers, I held
my breath,
Two birds on golden legs slim as
dream things
Ran like quicksilver on the golden
sand,
My gun went off, they ran with broken
wings
Into the sea, I ran to fetch them in,
But they swam with their heads high
out to sea,
They cried like two sorrowful high
flutes,
With jagged ivory bones where wings
should be.
For days I heard them when I walked
that headland
Crying out to their kind in the blue,
The other plovers were going over
south
On silver wings leaving these broken
two.
The cries went out one day; but I still
hear them
Over all the sounds of sorrow in war
or peace
I ever have heard, time cannot drown
them,
Those slender flutes of sorrow never
cease.
Two airy things forever denied the air!
I never knew how their lives at last
were spilt,
But I have hoped for years all that is
wild,
Airy, and beautiful will forgive my
guilt.
Assonance: The sound of
the vowels in two or more
words is the same but
the consonant sounds
preceding and following
these vowels do not agree.
It is also called “medial”
rhyme.
American English has
about fifteen vowel sounds
- do you know what the
most common is?
From the IPA (Int’l Phonetic Association):
Onomatopia:
Creating a word from
the sound
associated with it.
How is this part of
figurative language?
Why might you use
it in writing?
achoo
bah
bark
beep
blurt
bong
boom
buzz
chirp
clap
clink
crackle
ding
fizz
ahem
bam
bash
belch
boing
bonk
bubble
chatter
clang
clatter
cluck
crunch
drip
flick
baa
bang
bawl
blare
boink
boo
bump
cheep
clank
click
clunk
cuckoo
eek
flutter
Pun: Humorous “play” on words - used to suggest two meanings.
Upun my word - prepare to groan
Some friarsGandhi,
were behind
on
theirknow,
belfry payments,
so
they
Mahatma
as
you
walked
barefoot
And
finally,
there
was
the
person
who
Two
vultures
board
an
airplane,
each
Two
boll
weevils
grew
up
South
A
woman
has
twins
and
gives
them
up for
adoption.
Did
A
Two
three
you
Eskimos
hear
about
sitting
dog
the
walks
inraise
Buddhist
ain
kayak
into
aSince
were
saloon
who
group
of
chess
enthusiasts
checked
into
a
opened
up
alegged
small
florist
shop
to
funds.
everyone
most
of
the
time,
One
of
them
liked
to
buy
flowers
from
the
men
of to
God,
a rival
florist across
Carolina.
One
went
to
Hollywood
carrying
two
dead
raccoons.
The
sent
ten
different
puns
hotel
and
were
refused
in
chilly,
the
Old
but
Novocain
when
West.
they
He
during
slides
lit
a
a
fire
root
which
produced
an
impressive
setThe
of"Ahmal."
calluses
on
town
thought
the competition
goes
to
a
family
in
Egypt
and
is
named
The
and
became
a
famous
actor.
other
standing
in
the
lobby
discussing
their
recent
flight
attendant
looks
at
them
and
canal?
up
in
the
to
the
craft,
He
bar
wanted
it
and
sank,
announces:
to
proving
transcend
once
"I'm
dental
again
friends,
with
the
hope
that
at
least
one
was
unfair.
He
asked
the
good
fathers
to
close
down,
but
they
other
goes
to
a
family
in
Spain;
they
name
him
"Juan."
his
feet.
He
also
ate
very
little,
which
made
him
stayed
behind
in the
cotton
fields
tournament
victories.
After
about
an
hour,
the
would
not.
He
went
back
and
begged
the
friars
to
close.
They
says,
"I'm
sorry,
gentlemen,
only
one
medication.
looking
that
you
for
can't
the
have
man
who
your
shot
kayak
my
and
paw."
Years
later,
Juan
sends
a
picture
of
himself
to
his
birth
of
the
puns
would
make
them
rather
frail
and
with
his
odd
diet,
he
suffered
from
ignored
him. came
So,amounted
theout
rival of
florist
Hughand
McTaggart,
the
and never
tohired
much.
The
second
manager
the
office
asked
mother.
Upon
receiving
the
picture,
she tells her
carrion
allowed
per
passenger."
heat
it,
too.
bad
breath.
This
made
him
....what?
roughest
and
most
vicious
thug
in
town
to
"persuade"
them
to
laugh.
Unfortunately,
no
pun
in
ten
did.
one,
naturally,
became
known
as
the
them
to disperse.
"But why?"
they
as
husband
that
she
had
aasked,
picture
of
close. Hugh
beat
up wishes
the friarsshe
and also
trashed
their
store, saying
lesser
ofifhusband
two
they
off.weevils.
"Because,"
he
said,
"I they
can't
Ahmal.
Her
responds,
"They're
twins!
Ifdid so,
he'd
bemoved
back
they
didn't
close up shop.
Terrified,
A thereby
super
calloused
fragile
mystic
hexed
by
proving
that
Hugh,
and
only
Hugh,
can
prevent
florist
you've
seen Juan,
seenin
Ahmal."
stand chess
nutsyou've
boasting
an open foyer."
halitosis.
friars.