Alliteration
 The repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning
of neighboring words. (Consonants are all the letters
except a, e, i, o, u, and y.)
EXAMPLE:
The dark dance of death whisked her away.
Repetition of the “d” sound in “dark dance of death”
Like a lucky charm, he looks on.
Repetition of the “l” sound in “Like,” “lucky,” and “looks”
Allusion
•
A reference to a well-known
person, place, event, literary
work, or work of art
EXAMPLE: In Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have A
Dream" speech, he started off by saying "Five
score years ago". He was alluding to Abraham
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address which started with
the phrase "Four score and seven years ago".
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds of neighboring words.
(Vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and y.)
EXAMPLES:
Talking and walking, hours on end.
Repetition of the “ah” sound in “talking”
“walking”
A turtle in the fertile soil.
Repetition of the “er” sound in “turtle” “fertile”
Couplet
 Two successive lines of poetry with end-words that
rhyme. They often work as a unit.
EXAMPLE:
True wit is nature to advantage dress'd;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.
— Alexander Pope
Free Verse
 Poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern
or meter; a poem that does not rhyme and does not
conform to a standard beat or rhythm
EXAMPLE: next slide
 "Oranges"
Gary Soto (1995)
The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees. . . . .
Hyperbole
 An exaggeration (to emphasize something or for
humorous purposes).
EXAMPLES:
I love you more than life itself.
Love is exaggerated.
He could eat a horse.
His appetite is exaggerated.
Idiom
 an expression that does not mean what it looks like it
should
EXAMPLES:
It’s raining cats and dogs.
Don’t Let the cat out of the bag.
Imagery
 A word or phrase that appeals to one or more of the
five senses
EXAMPLE:
From “Mrs. Flowers” by Maya Angelou
A small widening of her thin black lips to
show even, small white teeth, then the
effortless closing.
Internal Rhyme
 Rhyme within a line
EXAMPLE:
“Back into the chamber turning, all my
soul within me burning.”
Irony
 Saying the opposite of what you actually mean; a
contradiction between what is expected and what
actually happens
EXAMPLE:
The name of Britain’s biggest dog was “Tiny”
Words
words
deceive
the masses
lies then become
truth
Lyric Poetry
 Highly musical verse that expresses the
observations and feelings of a single speaker
Metaphor
 A comparison of two unlike things without using
like or as.
EXAMPLES:
.
Bob is a hungry wolf.
Bob is compared to a wolf.
Sue is a rose, filling the room with her sweet
scent.
Sue (or Sue’s scent) and rose are being
compared.
Narrative Poetry
 A story told in verse (a story in poem form)
EXAMPLE:
“Casey at the Bat” a poem about a baseball game and
how one man could win it or lose it.
Onomatopoeia
 Words which imitate the sound they refer to.
EXAMPLES:
The eagle whizzed past the buzzing bees.
“whizzed” and “buzzing”
Rip-roar fire, the gun stutters on.
“Rip-roar” and “stutters”
Personification
 A type of metaphor in which non-human things or
ideas possess human qualities or actions.
Examples
The wind whispered her name.
Wind is being personified: “wind whispered”,
because “wind” can’t actually “whisper.”
Justice is blind.
Justice is being personified: blind justice,
because justice has no actual eyes that could
be blinded.
Repetition
 A sound, word, phrase or sentence that is repeated in a
story or poem
 From “The Highwayman”
“…and the highwayman came riding,
riding, riding,
The highwayman came riding up to the old inn door.”
(riding & the highwayman)
Rhyme Scheme
 A pattern of rhyme in a poem
EXAMPLE:
Roses are red
A
Violets are blue
B
Sugar is sweet
C
And so are you!
B
Simile
 A comparison of two unlike things using the words
like or as.
EXAMPLES:
Bob is hungry as a wolf.
Bob and wolf are the two things being compared,
using “as”
Sue smells like a rose.
Sue & rose are the two things being compared,
using “like”
Speaker
 The imaginary voice of the poet in a poem
 Like a narrator
Stanza
 A formal division of lines in a poem
considered as a unit
 Similar to a paragraph in prose
(regular writing)