Poetry Exercises
Word Choice: Imagery, Sound and Mood
1. The following verse about daffodils is from a poem by William Wordsworth:
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
a) Identify three words that suggest movement.
b) Identify three words that create the mood.
2. Read the following verse from a poem about winter:
The winter comes: the frozen rut
Is bound with silver bars;
The snow-drift heaps against the hut,
And night is pierced with stars.
a) Which phrase suggests that the winter is like a prison? What does the phrase literally mean?
b) Which word suggests the painful cold of winter?
3. This stanza is from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven”:
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there,
Wondering, fearing,
Doubting dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to
dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no
Token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered
word, “Lenore!”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the
word, “Lenore!”
Merely this and nothing more.
a) What are the repeated sounds in the first two lines?
b) What are the dominant sounds in the remaining lines?
c) How does the alliteration/repetition connect to what is going on in the stanza?
Rhythm
1. In each of the following sentences put an accent mark over the strong words or syllables.
(e.g. The ba ker sold a doz en dough nuts)
a) I sat today and read my book.
b) I gave the man a dirty look.
c) To fish we need a line and hook.
d) The dog and cat both bit the cook.
2. Create a sentence that continues the same rhythm as the above sentences.
3. How do the following lines use rhythm to emphasize their subject matter?
a) Bells rang all day long.
b) Harsh strokes of the lash dug deep wounds.
c) Rolling and tumbling and crashing, the sound of the thunder increased.
4. The following stanza is an example of blank verse:
A lengthy story which a poet writes
Is often told without the use of rhyme;
He finds that rhythm patterns are enough.
The thoughts he wants to tell the reader rest
On normal accents found in daily speech.
a) Is there any pattern of rhythm or meter being used?
b) Is there any use of rhyme?
Literary Devices
1. For each of the following lines, identify the literary device being used.
a) The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
b) His comb was redder than fine coral, tall and battlemented like a castle wall,
c) I heard the hoofbeats clip-clop, clip-clop
d) The startled waves leap in fiery ringlets from their sleep
e) The evening wind begins its whistling sound; the waning moon pours out wide beams.