POETRY NOTES
How to use the “poetry book” and filling in
the table of contents.
• Starting from the inside of the cover page, start numbering the pages
#1-#26. The inside of the last page should be page #26.
• Once that is done, go back to the table of contents page, that’s page
one.
Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Table of content
What is poetry?
Analyzing poetry using S.I.F.T.
S.I.F.T. notes cont….
Alliteration
Allusion
Cliche
Cacophony
Connotation
Denotation
Consonance
Irony
Table of contents continue…
13. Euphemism
14. Hyperbole
15. Metaphor
16. Simile
17. Rhyme
18. Refrain/repetition
19. Motif/Paradox
20. Symbol
21. Theme
22. Tone
POETRY is…
a type of literature that
expresses ideas and
feelings, or tells a story
in a specific form
(usually using lines and stanzas)
POETRY SPEAKS TO THE HEART
Poetry asks you to feel something (that’s the heart
part), not just think about it. You can tell how the
poet feels about being alone in the following
example:
Silence is
A friend in times of sorrow
When all the amiable chatter in the world
Brings no relief
-Jennifer Karakka
POETRY SPEAKS TO THE SENSES
Poets create word pictures that build an image in your
mind. Notice how the following example appeals to your
sense of sight:
As night falls we head for bed,
Great-grandma in her velvet, royal blue nightgown,
Her silver hair like a moon in a night sky,
Her curlers, when the light hits them just right,
Sparkling like stars.
-Carrie Materi
Go to Sift Powerpoint
Alliteration
When the first sounds in words repeat.
Example
Peter Piper picked a pickled pepper.
Slim-pinioned swallows sweep and pass
CARING CATS
Caring cats cascade off
Laughing lamas
Lounging.
Underneath yelling yaks,
Yelling at roaming
Rats.
By Rachael
http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112392/alliteration.html
Rain
Rain races,
Ripping like wind.
Its restless rage
Rattles like
Rocks ripping through
The air.
~By Jake
http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112392/alliteration.html
ALLUSION
• From the verb “allude” which means “to refer to”
• A reference to someone or something famous.
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave.
-from “Snowbound” by John Greenleaf Whittier
That is so Cliché………
• a phrase or expression that has been used so often that it is no longer
original or interesting.
Cacophony
• If we speak literally, cacophony points to a situation where there is a
mixture of harsh and inharmonious sounds. In literature, however, the
term refers to the use of words with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious
sounds primarily those of consonants to achieve desired results.
• ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
• Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
• All mimsy were the borogoves,an
• 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!”
CONNOTATION vs
DENOTATION
• Connotation: an emotional or social association
with a word, giving meaning beyond the literal
definition
• Denotation: the specific, literal image, idea,
concept, or object that a word or phrase refers to
Word
Denotation
Connotation
a star
ball of light/gas in the sky
a wish
a family
group of related individuals
love, trust, closeness
a dog
four legged mammal
friend, protector, pet
CONSONANCE
• Similar to alliteration EXCEPT:
• repeated consonant sounds can be anywhere in the
words, not just at the beginning!
And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day
…How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe
Will, mouthed to flesh-burst,
Gush!—
- From “The Wreck of the Deutschland” by Gerald Manley Hopkins
Examples of Consonance….
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mike likes his new bike.
I will crawl away the ball.
He stood on the road and cried.
Toss the glass, boss.
It will creep and beep while you sleep.
He struck a streak of bad luck.
When Billie looked at the trailer, she smiled and laughed.
I dropped the locket in the thick mud.
The black sack is in the back.
The zoo was amazing, especially the lizards and chimpanzees.
Irony
• Definition: the use of words that mean the opposite of what you
really think especially in order to be funny.
• A situation that is strange or funny because things happen in a way
that seems to be the opposite of what you expected.
3 different kinds of Irony
• Dramatic Irony.
Irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is
understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the
play.
• Verbal Irony (Sarcasm)Irony in which a person says or writes one thing and means another,
or uses words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of the literal
meaning.
• Situational Irony (aka Contextual Irony)
Situational Irony (aka Contextual Irony)
•
noun1.irony involving a situation in which actions have an effect that i
sopposite from what was intended, so that the outcome is contrary to
what was expected.
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare - Romeo finds Juliet drugged and assumes she is dead. He kills
himself then she awakens, see that he is dead and kills herself.
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - This book is on the top 100 list of banned books in America.
• A fire station burns down
• The marriage counselor files for divorce
• The police station gets robbed
• A fertility counselor has difficulty getting pregnant
• Posting on Facebook complaining how useless Facebook is
Euphemism
• To Soften an Expression
• Some euphemisms are used in order to make a blunt or unpleasant
truth seem less harsh.
• Passed away instead of died
• Correctional facility instead of jail
• Departed instead of died
• Differently-abled instead of handicapped or disabled
• Fell off the back of a truck instead of stolen
Hyperbole
Exaggerating to show strong feeling or effect.
Examples
I will love you forever.
My house is a million miles from here.
She’d kill me.
Metaphor
A metaphor states that something is
something or someone else. It is a
comparison, but it does not use like
or as.
“It's raining cats and dogs"
Life is a mountain, filled with
switchbacks and rock slides and
few straight paths to the top
Metaphors and Similies
I wish I could dream up a meta-phor or five
To keep my poems more poetically alive
I will always be known as the poet who's hacking
If I continue to write poems metaphorically lacking
Similarly, since I've similies few
My poems can be tasteless as cheeseless fondue
Literature in meters, we refer to as verse
Lacking metaphors or similies, there's nothing much
worse
Those figures of speech, though elusively distant
Should enter my head if my brain is persistant
I'll continue to strive to creatively write
Hoping metaphors and similies come into sight
A comparison between two usually
unrelated things using the word “like”
or “as”.
Examples:
Joe is as hungry as a bear.
In the morning, Rae is like an angry lion.
By Archibald MacLeish
Simile
A poem should be palpable
and mute as a globed fruit,
Silent as the sleeve-worn
stone
Of casement ledges where the
moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
Simile
Let’s see what
this looks like
in a poem we
have never
seen before in
our lives
Simile
Ars Poetica
The repetition of sounds
Example: hat, cat, brat, fat, mat, sat
My Beard
by Shel Silverstein
My beard grows to my toes,
I never wears no clothes,
I wraps my hair
Around my bare,
And down the road I goes.
Here is another example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGrcdq2viZg
It is also called Refrain. Using the same key
word or phrase throughout a poem.
This should be fairly selfexplanatory,
but . . .
at risk of sounding like a
broken record . . .
Motif and Paradox
• Motif: A motif is a narrative element with symbolic meaning that
repeats throughout a work of literature.
A recurring subject, theme, idea, etc., especially in a literary, artistic,
or musical work.
• Paradox: a statement or proposition that seems selfcontradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
• a self-contradictory and false proposition.
• any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory
in nature.
• an opinion or statement contrary to commonly accepted opinion.
Examples of Motif and Paradox
• In his most famous speech, Martin Luther King Jr. used the motif of “I
have a dream” to tie together desperate ideas.
• Your enemy’s friend is your enemy.
• I am nobody.
• “What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.” – George
Bernard Shaw
• Wise fool
• Truth is honey which is bitter.
• “I can resist anything but temptation.” – Oscar Wilde
Symbols as thematic word
choice
Symbols are words, ideas etc. used to
represent something else or an idea.
Symbols are used often in poetry. A word, a
phrase or the whole poem could be a
symbol.
“The Raven” What does that symbolize in the
poem?
SYMBOLISM
• The use of a word or object which represents a
deeper meaning than the words themselves
• It can be a material object or a written sign used to
represent something invisible.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-from “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
What is tone?
The attitude with which the speaker or narrator treats
his or her subject.
• Tone is similar to tone of voice.
• The same adjectives can be used to describe the
narrator's tone.
• You can't hear the narrator, so you have to infer the
tone from his or her words.
Tone is not Mood
Tone: how the narrator or speaker feels about their
subject.
Mood: how the reader is supposed to feel when
reading the work.
Mood
Reader
Narrator
Tone
Review
• Tone and mood are different but related.
• Tone describes the narrator's attitude or voice.
• Mood is how the reader is supposed to feel.
• Ex: A reader can feel scared for a character even if the
narrator is indifferent.
What is a Theme?
Theme: Life lesson, meaning, moral, or message about life or human
nature that is communicated by a literary work.
In other words…
Theme is what the story teaches readers.
Themes
A theme is not a word, it is a sentence.
You don’t have to agree with the theme to identify it.
Examples
Money can’t buy happiness.
Don’t judge people based on the surface.
It is better to die free than live under tyranny.
What is the theme?
Jenny Puchovier was so excited. She had a pack of
Starburst in her lunch and she had been looking forward to
eating them all morning. Lunch finally came and Jenny sat
down to eat her Starbursts when her friend Yudy sat next
to her. “Let me get the pink ones,” asked Yudy. Jenny
liked the pink ones best, but she thought Yudy was funny
and Jenny wanted Yudy to like her, so Jenny gave Yudy all
of her pink Starbursts. Before Jenny was done giving Yudy
the pink ones, Carrie sat on the other side of Jenny. “Let
me get the red and the orange ones, Jenny. Remember
when I gave you that Snickers?” Jenny didn’t remember
that, though she did remember when Carrie ate a whole
Snickers in front of her, but Jenny thought Carrie was cool,
so she gave her the red and the orange Starbursts. Now
that she only had the yellow ones, Jenny wasn’t so excited
about eating starbursts anymore.
Example Answers
You can’t buy friends.
You have to take care of yourself.
Not everybody is your friend.
Review
1. Theme is what we can learn from a story.
2. Themes must be inferred.
3. Themes are about the BIG world.