Elements of Poetry
Rhythm – The poem’s beat, created through the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables.
meter – A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Great streets of silence led away
To neighborhoods of pause;
Here was no notice — no dissent —
No universe — no laws.
-Emily Dickinson
Rhyme – harmony of sounds in a poem.
end rhyme – rhyming words at the end of lines. (seed, creed & rain, again)
couplet – two consecutive rhyming lines.
The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn’t been peppered.
-Ogden Nash
rhyme scheme-the pattern of end rhyme in a poem (ex: A, B, A, B, B)
Murmuring how she loved me -- she
Too weak, for all her heart endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
-Robert Browing
internal rhyme-rhyming within lines.
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
as if someone gently rapping, rapping
at my chamber door.
-Edgar Allen Poe
approximate rhyme-sounds that are similar, but not perfect rhymes. (fellow, hollow & cat,
catch)
Free Verse - poems that do not have regular rhythmic and rhyme schemes.
Give me the splendid silent sun with
all his beams full-dazzling,
Give me juicy autumnal fruit ripe and
red from the orchard,
Give me a field where the unmowed
grass grows,
Give me an arbor, give me the trellised
grape . . . .
-Walt Whitman
Alliteration- repetition of consonant sounds (knick knack, final four, road rage)
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free ;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Assonance- the repetition of vowel sounds in non-rhyming words
“Hear the mellow wedding bells”
“The crumbling thunder of seas”
Onomatopoeia- the use of words whose sounds echo
their meaning (bang, click, buzz, pop)
Imagery- language that evokes sensations of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. In a sense,
imagery is the eye in poetry!
Figurative Language-language based on comparisons that is not literally true.
simile- a comparison that uses like or as.
“your eyes are like the sun”
metaphor - states that one thing is something else. It is a comparison, but it does NOT use like
or as to make the comparison.
“you are my sunshine”
personification- a figure of speech that gives non-humans and objects human traits and
qualities.
Types of Poems
Ballad: songlike poem that tells a story, often of betrayal, death, or loss. Ballads usually have a
regular, steady rhythm, a simple rhyme pattern, and a refrain, all of which make them easy to
memorize.
Epic: long, narrative, and culturally specific poem about the many deeds of a great hero.
Narrative poem: poem that tells a story.
Lyric poem: poem that does not tell a story, but expresses the personal feelings of a speaker.
Ode: long lyric poem, usually praising some subject, and written in dignified language.
Sonnet: fourteen-line lyric poem that follows strict rules of structure, meter, and rhyme.