Name______Date Due______
Figurative Language in Poetry
Sound Devices – use of sound for certain literary effects.
Alliteration-repetition of sounds in stressed syllables, phrases, or words in sequence.
(example: She sells seashells down by the seashore.)
Onomatopoeia-sound device in which the word echoes or suggests its meaning, so that
sound and sense are reinforced (example: hiss, splash, zap, whoosh, etc.)
Rhyme-sound device marked by the repetition of identical or similar stressed sounds
perfect or exact rhyme: differing consonant sounds followed by identical vowel
sounds, as in “bee” and “see”
approximate rhyme: the final consonant sounds are identical, as in “trip” and “slap” or
“sky” and “bye”.
end rhyme: the rhyming words occur at the end of the lines of poetry
internal rhyme: rhyming words occur within the lines of poetry (example: While I nodded
nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping)
Rhythm-sound device characterized by the musical quality created by a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables
The Rusty Spigot
by Eve Merriam
The rusty spigot
sputters,
utters
a splutter,
spatters a smattering of drops,
gashes wider;
slash,
splatters,
scatters,
spurts,
finally stops sputtering
and plash!
gushes rushes splashes
clear water dashes.
Weather by Eve Merriam
Dot a dot dot dot a dot dot
Spotting the windowpane.
Spack a spack speck flick a flack fleck
Freckling the windowpane.
A spatter a scatter a wet cat a clatter
A splatter a rumble outside.
Umbrella umbrella umbrella umbrella
Bumbershoot barrel of rain.
Slosh a galosh slosh a galosh
Slither and slather and glide
A puddle a jump a puddle a jump
A puddle a jump a puddle splosh
A juddle a pump a luddle a dump a
Puddlemuddle jump in and slide!
Bear In There by Shel Silverstein
There's a Polar Bear
In our Frigidaire--
He likes it 'cause it's cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He's nibbling the noodles,
He's munching the rice,
He's slurping the soda,
He's licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he's in there--
That Polary Bear
In our Fridgitydaire.
SIFTS Method-A way to analyze literature and poetry.
Symbol: examine the title and text for symbolism for anything that can stand for something else such as a storm for anger.
Images: identify images and sensory details which are pictures you can see in you mind.
Figurative Language: analyze figurative language and other devices such as similie and metaphor.
Tone and Mood: discuss how all devices reveal tone and mood of poem
Sound Devices: identify how author uses words to create interesting
patterns in writing such as rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, and roar.
Theme: Main idea.
Similes- literary technique in which two unlike things are compared, using the words “like” or “as”
Examples: Some rain drops are as big as nickels. Ice is smooth as glass. His hair was like black flames as he rode his bicycle down the street.
Dreams by Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Symbols/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
Life by Naomi Long Madgett
Life is but a toy that swings on a bright gold chain
Ticking for a little while
To amuse a fascinated infant,
Until the keeper, a very old man,
Becomes tired of the game
And lets the watch run down.
Symbols/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
The Courage That My Mother Had by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still;
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.
The gold brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no treasure I treasure more;
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.
Symbols/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
Metaphor – literary technique that makes a direct comparison between two unlike things; a comparison that does not use the connective words “like” or “as”. Even though the items are not alike physically, they have one quality in common, enough to make a comparison.
Examples: Her mind is a computer. The inky-black sky is home to the bats. Love is a rose. His hair was black flames as he rode his bicycle down the street.
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.
Symbols/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
The Lighthouse by Katherine Sessor
The light house, the guardian angel of the night
She shines her light for all the lost sailors passing by
Her beam bright as the sun, flashing through the night sky
The lighthouse, a soldier during the storms
Standing tall, unafraid of the chaos
Her light piercing through the storm like sharp knives
The light house the night owl of the day
Sleeping and cozzed away until the night
Her beam off as silent as a deer not wanting to be found
/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
Loo-wit by Wendy Rose
She crouches in the north,
her trembling the source of dawn.
Light appears with the shudder of her slopes,
the movement of her arm.
Blackberries unravel,
stones dislodge;
it’s not as if they weren’t warned.
She was sleeping
but she heard the boot scrape,
the creaking floor,
felt the pull of the blanket
from her thin shoulder.
With one free hand
she finds her weapons
and raises them high;
clearing the twigs from her throat
she sings, she sings,
shaking the sky
like a blanket about her
Loo-wit sings and sings and sings!
The way they do
this old woman
no longer cares
what others think
but spits her black tobacco
any which way
stretching full length
from her bumpy bed.
Finally up
she sprinkles ashes
on the snow,
cold buttes
promise nothing
but the walk
of winter.
Centuries of cedar
have bound her
to earth,
huckleberry ropes
lay prickly
on her neck.
Around her
machinery growls,
snarls and plows
great patches
of her skin.
Symbols/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
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
/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
Personification -literary technique in which a non-living or non-human thing (e.g. animal, plant, object, natural force, emotion, idea) is endowed with human senses, characteristics, and qualities
Examples: The tea kettle whistled merrily on the stove. It was a happy home. His hair danced in the wind as he rode down the street.
The Rider by Naomi Shihab Nye
A boy told me
if he rollerskated fast enough
his loneliness couldn't catch up to him.
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.
A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
luminous pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.
/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
The Desert is My Mother by Pat Mora
I say feed me.
She serves red prickly pear on a spiked cactus.
I say tease me.
She sprinkles raindrops in my face on a sunny day.
I say frighten me.
She shouts thunder, flashes lightning.
I say hold me. She whispers, “Lie in my arms.”
I say heal me.
She gives me chamomile, oregano, peppermint.
I say caress me.
She strokes my skin with her warm breath.
I say make me beautiful.
She offers turquoise for my fingers,
a pink blossom for my hair.
I say sing to me.
She chants her windy songs.
I say teach me.
She blooms in the sun’s glare,
the snow’s silence,
the driest sand.
The desert is my mother.
El desierto es mi madre.
The desert is my strong mother.
Symbol / Images / Figurative LanguageTone / Theme / Sound Devices
Imagery- descriptive language that appeals to the five senses: touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight; mental pictures evoked through use of simile and metaphor; and sensory language words that show what the speaker feels, sees, hears, tastes, smells and touches.
Example: Snow fell like coconut flakes, fluttering to the cold ground as gracefully as feathers.
Seal
by William Jay Smith
From the rocks with a zoom!
See how he darts
Through his watery room
Past crabs and eels
And green seaweed,
Past fluffs of sandy
Minnow feed!
See how he swims
With a swerve and a twist,
A flip of the flipper,
A flick of the wrist!
Quick-silver quick,
Softer than spray,
Down he plunges
And sweeps away;
Be fore you can think,
Before you can utter
Words like “Dill pickle”
See how he dives
Or “Apple butter,”
Back up he swims
Past Sting Ray and Shark,
Out with a zoom,
A whoop, a bark;
Before you can say
Whatever you wish,
He plops at your side
With a mouthful of fish!
Symbols/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
/ Images / Figurative Language
Tone/Mood / Theme(main idea) / Sound Devices
Hyperbole-literary technique in which exaggeration is used to convey meaning
Example: Aunt Mary’s head was the size of a barn after I complimented her cooking. I’ve told you a million times.
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out
by Shel Silverstein
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel.
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans and tangerines,
Crusts of black burned buttered toast,
Gristly bits of beefy roasts…
The garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised the rood, it broke the wall…
Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from green baloney,
Rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled mile and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold French fries and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat,
At last the garbage reached so high
That finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
“OK, I’ll take the garbage out!”
But then, of course, it was too late…
The garbage reached across the state,
From new York to the Golden gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate,
That I cannot right now relate
Because the hour is much too late.