Elements of Poetry

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.