English 9H
Poetry Packet
Spring 2013
Most definitions from this packet are courtesy of McGraw-Hill Online Learning Center.
POETRY TERMS
Structural Terms
Couplet – a pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem
Foot – a metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables
Iambic Pentameter – consists of lines of 5 feet, each foot being iambic, meaning two syllables long, one unstressed followed by an stressed; iambic pentameter has 10 syllabes per line
if YOU | would PUT | the KEY | inSIDE | the LOCK
da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM
Meter - the measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems
Quatrain – a four line stanza in a poem
Rhyme – the matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words
Rhyme Scheme – the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song
Rhythm – the recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the following lines from "Same in Blues" by Langston Hughes, the accented words and syllables are underlined
I said to my baby,
Baby take it slow....
Lulu said to Leonard
I want a diamond ring
Stanza – a division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form--either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme and meter, or with variations from one stanza to another
Verse – a single metrical line in a poetic composition
Sound Devices
Alliteration – The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words
Assonance – The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in "I rose and told him of my woe."
Consonance – Consonance is the repetition, at close intervals, of the final consonants of accented syllables or important words, especially at the ends of words, as in blank and think or strong and string
Onomatopoeia – The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe
Parallelism – the repetition of sentence structure or word order to achieve a rhythmical effect. The overall effect is that sentence parts seem to rhyme. More importantly, the thoughts that these parts express are either repeated or contrasted.
Repetition – frequent use of the same sounds, words, or rhyme in a poem to create the desired effect
Figurative Language
Allusion – a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or a representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication
Hyperbole – extreme exaggeration
Imagery – the pattern of related images
Metaphor – acomparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as; an extended metaphor is when the poet carries the metaphor throughout several lines of the poem, such as the following excerpt from Romeo and Juliet:
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
Personification – giving inanimate objects or ideas humanlike qualities
Simile – a figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like or as
Symbolism – a poet uses an object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself
Miscellaneous Terms
Apostrophe – Words that are spoken to a person who is absent or imaginary, or to an object or abstract idea
Mood – the feeling or atmosphere the reader gets by the words that the author uses
Theme – The idea of a literary work learned from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a general statement
Tone – The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work
TYPES OF POEMS
Ballad – A narrative poem written in four-line stanzas, characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style.
Blank Verse Poem – a poem with no rhyme but does have iambic pentameter.
The Structure of a Blank Verse Poem
Five feet of iambic syllables -
Sounding du DUM du DUM du DUM du DUM du DUM
each foot making the verse sound like it has heart beat rhythm
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Epic Poem – a lengthy narrative poem usually about the deeds of a hero or event that are significant to a culture (ex: The Odyssey)
Free Verse Poem – poetry written with rhymed or unrhymed verse that has no set meter to it
Winter Poem by Nikki Giovanni
once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
still and was a flower
Fog by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Haiku – a short form a japanese poetry that contains 3 lines with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern; often about nature and usually make comparisons
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.
Lyric Poem – a type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling
We outgrow love like other things by Emily Dickinson
We outgrow love like other things
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.
Narrative Poem – a poem that tells a story
Sonnet – typically associated with Shakespeare, it is a 14- line poem consisting of 3 quatrains (4 lines) and 1 couplet; uses iambic pentameter; the rhyme scheme is:
a-b-a-b
c-d-c-d
e-f-e-f
g-g
William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
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