Dr. Pamela Troyer
Assistant Professor of English, MSU Denver
Cheryl Upshaw
English Major / Tech Comm Minor, MSU Denver
Social Media Assistant / Intern, Teaching with Primary Sources

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Asyndeton - “not bound”
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Anadiplosis -“to double back”
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Paronomasia - “two meanings”
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Prosopopoeia -“making a mask”
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Hyperbole - “excess”

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite --
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."
Alexandrine Line (iambic hexameter)
Asyndeton (not bound)
Anadiplosis (to double back)
Hyperbole (exaggeration for effect)
Consonance (repetition of consonants)
Prosopopoeia (personification)
Paronomasia (double meaning)
Conceit (elaborate and unusual comparison)

Before the war, they were happy, he said quoting our textbook (this was senior-year history class) The slaves were clothed, fed, and better off under a master's care.
I watched the words blur on the page. No one raised a hand, disagreed. Not even me.
It was late; we still had Reconstruction to cover before the test, and, - luckily three hours of watching Gone with the Wind.
History, the teacher said, of the old South - a true account of how things were back then.
On screen a slave stood big as life: big mouth, bucked eyes, our textbook's grinning proof - a lie my teacher guarded. Silent, so did I.
Meiosis (understatement)
Paronomasia (double meaning)
Juxtaposition (next to)
Irony (unexpected meaning)
Hyperbole (exaggeration)
Prosopopoeia (personification)

Low Pay Piecework
The fifth-grade teacher and her followers—
Five classes, twenty-eight in each, all hers:
One-hundred-and-forty different characters.

The poem creates a space. It hides in a tent in a forest. Making its own bed, it falls asleep in the dark, wakes up under a lamp or the sun.