Poetry Terms
“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and
words that burn.” ~Thomas Gray
“Poetry is when an emotion has found
its thought and the thought has found
words.” ~Robert Frost
Sound Devices
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Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds
at any place in a series of words
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Do you like blue?
We viewed the movie about mooing rookies at the
school.
“Well he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no” –
Robert Service (“The Cremation of Sam McGee,
pg. 709)
Sound Devices cont.
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Alliteration: The repetition of a sound at the
beginning of a series of words
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“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers…”
“Rain races, ripping like wind. Its restless rage
rattles like rocks ripping through the air.”
A fly and a flea flew up in a flue.
Said the fly to the flea, “What shall we do?”
“Let’s fly,” said the flea.
“Let’s flee,” said the fly.
So they fluttered and flew up a flaw in the flue.
Sound Devices cont.
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Consonance: The repetition of a consonant
sound at any place in a series of words.
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I dropped the locket in the thick mud.
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Eric liked the black book
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“And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each
purple curtain.” –Edgar Allen Poe
Sound Device cont.
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Onomatopoeia: The use of words whose
sound makes one think of its meaning
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Wham! Bonk!
Ding-dong
“Cuckoo”
Tick-tock
“snap, crackle, pop”
Figurative Language
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Simile: A comparison of two nouns using the words
like or as
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Metaphor: A comparison of two nouns saying that
one thing is another
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“My love for you is like a red, red rose”
“All the world is a stage”
Idiom: An expression that is like a saying. When it’s
translated literally, it makes no sense
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“Easy as pie”
Figurative Language cont.
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Hyperbole: Extreme exaggeration
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The books weigh a ton.
I could sleep for a year.
I have a million things to do.
Personification: When a non-living object
has been given qualities of a person
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The wind whispered through the trees
The moon danced on the water
“Oreo: Milk’s favorite cookie.”
Figurative Language cont.
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A Symbol: a person, place, thing, or
event that stands for itself and for
something beyond itself as well.
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Examples: the American flag symbolizes
freedom, liberty, and love for America.
A wedding band symbolizes_______.
A white flag symbolizes__________.
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Figurative Language cont.
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Prominent Symbols in Literature
The Four Seasons:
Spring: birth, rebirth, new beginnings, new life, etc.
Summer: the prime of life, youthful, energetic,
growing
Fall: the decline, the approach of death, getting old
Winter: death, the end of life, something comes to
an end
Day: life, goodness, knowledge, honesty,
happiness, energy, purity, positive, light,
understanding, clarity
Night: death, evil, darkness, mystery, bad, the end,
scary, uninformed, unknown
Figurative Language cont.
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Prominent Symbols in Literature cont.
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The Cycle of Life:
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Dawn: new beginning, birth, rebirth
Dusk: approach of the end, unknown
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Paths/Roads: journey, life’s journey, choices, obstacles
Bridges: movement form one place to another symbolically
Water: gives and takes life, thought to be the source of first life,
rebirth
Earth: mother, life giving, fertility Gardens: fertility, life giving
Rocks/Doors/Weather: obstacles, problems (could be good or
bad)
Rhyme
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End Rhyme: Rhyme that appears at the end
of two or more lines of poetry
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“I would not, could not, in a box.
I could not, would not, with a fox.
I will not eat them with a mouse.
I will not eat them in a house.
I will not eat them here or there.
I will not eat them anywhere.
I do not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”
Rhyme
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Internal Rhyme: The rhyming of words within
one line of poetry
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“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...”
Rhythm
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Repetition: The repeating of a word or
phrase to add rhythm or to emphasize an
idea
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“And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.” –Robert Frost,
“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”
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“The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple
moor, And the highwayman came riding- Riding-ridingThe highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.”
–Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”
Form
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Stanza: A division in a poem named for the number
of lines it contains, such as a couplet (2 lines), triplet
(3 lines), quatrain (4 lines), and octave (8 lines)
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This is as though the poem is broken up into “paragraphs”
 “Gleaming in silver are the hills!
Blazing in silver is the sea!
And a silvery radiance spills
Where the moon drives royally!” –James Stevens, “Washed
in Silver”
Form cont.
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Haiku: A three-line poem that originated from
Japan, often about nature, with a syllable
pattern of 5, 7, 5
Verse: The name for a line of traditional
poetry written in meter
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A line of poetry