Elements of Poetry
Oxymoron - figure of speech that combines two contradictory words.
Example: I tripped on my shoelace,
And I fell up －
living dead, dark light
Consonance- repetition of final consonant sounds.
Example: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Alliteration - repetition of consonant sounds
Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Assonance - repetition of vowel sounds.
Example: The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains.
End rhyme - when the end words have similar sounds.
Example: Do you like green eggs and ham?
I do not like them Sam I am!
Internal rhyme - When two or more words in a sentence have similar sounds.
Example: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
Simile - Comparing two unlike things using “like” or “as.”
Example: wandered lonely as a cloud.
Metaphor - Comparing two unlike things NOT using “like” or “as.”
Example: Thunder was a drum.
Personification - Giving non-human things human qualities.
Example: The car danced on the icy road.
Free verse - Poetry without a regular meter or rhyming scheme.
Example:Sitting on the edge of a dock,
Waiting on a boat to come ashore.
Imagery - Appeals to the five senses.
Example: Eerie glow in the morning fog.
Shrieking, wailing, and moaning.
Fast rise of garbage stinch.
Soup seems all too bitter.
Mud oozed in my palm.
Line & Stanza - Poems are written in lines which can vary in length.Lines are grouped
together in stanzas. Stanzas are sections of the poem grouped together and separated by
a space. They can also vary in size.
Onomatopoeia - using words whose sound suggest their meaning.
Example: Woosh, Buzz, Pow, Bang
Quatrain - Poem or stanza of four lines.
Example: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Repetition - Repeating a word, phrase, line, or stanza multiple times within a poem.
Example: I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.
Rhyme scheme - The pattern of end rhymes in a poem. Distinguish this by using different
letters of the alphabet each time.
Example: Twinkle, twinkle little star (A)
How I wonder what you are (A)
Up above the world so high (B)
Like a diamond in the sky (B)
Meter - A way of placing emphasis on words and syllables that create a repetitive rhythm.
Iambic pentameter - 10 syllables per line.
Example: Shall I Compare thee to a Summer’s Day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperamen
Sonnet - 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter.
Example: Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
Couplet - a two lined stanza of rhymed iambic pentameter.
Example: Hey diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle.
Hyperbole - another term for exagerating
Example: School is killing me.
Died laughing.
Rhyme - repetition of similar sounds in two or more words.
Example: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Rhythm - Words arranged to make a pattern or a beat.
Example: Hickery Dickery Dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
Limerick - Five line poem made up of one couplet and one triplet. Meant to be funny
and last line should contain a punch line.
Example: There was an old man from Peru,
Who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He woke in the night,
With a terrible fright,
And found out that it was quiet true.