LSNB 3.7: Poetry Terms
3rd Quarter Vocab Test
March 10 (A)
March 11 (B)
alliteration
•  A device in which successive words begin with
the same consonant sound or letter
•  We hear it everywhere!
•  Tongue twisters: Peter Piper picked a peck of
pickled peppers
•  Catchy phrases: Baby boomers, Beavis and ButtHead, Do or Die, The more the merrier, Sink or
swim
The Pool Players:
Seven at the Golden Shuffle
(Gwendolyn Brooks)
We real cool. We
left school.We
lurk late.We
strike straight.We
sing sin.We
thin gin.We
jazz June.We
die soon.
(alliteration)
onomatopoeia
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A word that imitates the sound it represents:
A balloon bursting: Pop!
A gun being shot: Bang!
A light switch being turned on: Click!
Someone eating chips: Crunch!
Sweeping a broom: Swoosh!
Find examples of onomatopoeia
in the next poem:
The clouds do darken, the rain does drop
I wonder when its going to stop.
The pitter-patter of rain does fall
Against my windows, against my wall.
The wind does blow, the rain does lash
Against my house's pebbledash.
The sounds of never-ending rain
Gurgling down pipes into the drain.
Cars make splashes on wet streets,
Drops on puddles make them meet
In rivulets of rain, rushing onwards
Till the rain and wind abate,
And the sun comes out to dissipate
The water back to heaven
To fall as rain again at seven.
Copyright ©2003 Jonathan Goldman
(onomatopoeia)
personification
•  Giving person-like traits, feelings or
characteristics to things that are not human
The leaves danced in the wind.
The sun hid itself behind the clouds.
Check out all the ways that Langston Hughes personifies
rain in the following poem…
April Rain Song
(Langston Hughes)
Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain
(personification)
From “Morning” by Billy Collins
then night, with his notorious perfumes
his many pointed stars
(personification)
imagery
•  Mental pictures created by writing
•  Uses sensory language
•  Uses metaphor, simile, personification,
onomatopoeia to create a vivid experience
for the reader
EXAMPLES:
•  The strong smell of Axe cologne choked
him as he walked past the boys locker
room.
•  “I heard the wind rustling through trees,
and ghostly voices rose from the fields….”
•  “My father’s house shines hard and bright,
it stands like a beacon calling me in the
night.”
–  Bruce Springsteen, My Father’s House
(imagery)
rhyme scheme
•  The rhyming pattern in a poem
•  EXAMPLES:
–  aaaa
–  abab
–  aabb
–  abcba
Crane Fly
I’m Lambert with the lanky limbs;
My love turn on when twilight dims.
Watt fun,
Circling my electric sun!
Avis Harley
(rhyme scheme)
Crane Fly
I’m Lambert with the lanky limbs;
My love turn on when twilight dims.
Watt fun,
Circling my electric sun!
Avis Harley
(rhyme scheme)
Crane Fly
I’m Lambert with the lanky limbs; a
My love turn on when twilight dims. a
Watt fun, b
Circling my electric sun! b
Avis Harley
(rhyme scheme)
Dragonfly
Hello, down below!
Look how fast I can go!
I’ve just shed my skin
And I’m on my first spin!
(rhyme scheme)
Dragonfly
Hello, down below! a
Look how fast I can go! a
I’ve just shed my skin b
And I’m on my first spin! b
(rhyme scheme)
Dragonfly (part iii)
…make the air come alive
With my delicate dive,
Fly backward and swoop
Through an aerial loop;
I carve up the sky …
(rhyme scheme)
Dragonfly (part iii)
…make the air come alive a
With my delicate dive, a
Fly backward and swoop b
Through an aerial loop; b
I carve up the sky … c
(rhyme scheme)
stanza
•  A group of lines in a verse
•  Often each stanza has the same rhyme
pattern and same meter
•  Often set apart by a space
•  Allows the poet to shift moods and change
topics
Common English Stanza
•  Couplet – 2 line stanzas
•  Tercet – 3 line stanza
–  (aaa or aba)
•  Quatrain – 4 line stanza
–  (aaaa, aabb, abab)
•  Quintain – 5 line stanza
–  (rhymed or unrhymed)
•  Sestet – 6 line stanza
(stanza)
rhythm
•  We all use rhythm when we talk, otherwise we’d
sound like robots!
•  Certain words and syllables are stressed
(like “HAPpy” and “comPUter”- try saying
“hapPY” or “COMputer” and see how weird it
sounds!)
•  Rhythm in poetry can sound a lot like the beat in
music
See how the following poem uses
rhythm (and onomatopoeia!) to mimic
the sound of tribal dancing in Africa:
Rhythm Blues (Amiri Baraka)
I am the boogey man, the woogey man,
catch as catch can
the rabbit, the monkey
blue hard, blue slick
blue slow, blue quick
blue cool, blue hot
everything I am, everything I’m not
slave boy, Leroy from Newark Hill
if capitalism don’t kill me, racism will
(rhythm)
From “The Congo”,
by Vachel Lindsay
Try reading this with no
rhythm. Then, try reading it
again to really hear the rhythm.
Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
(rhythm)
simile
•  Used to describe something
•  Compares two unlike things using “like” or
“as”
He eats like a pig.
She blew into the room like a tornado.
Her smile was as bright as the sun.
From “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop
here and there, his brown skin
hung in strips like ancient wallpaper
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age
I thought of the course white flesh
packed in like feathers…
…and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony
(simile)
metaphor
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Used to describe something
Very close to a simile: “He eats like a pig”
A metaphor doesn’t use “like” or “as”
EX: “He is a pig when he eats”
Don’t be fooled, though. Not every
metaphor is so obvious.
Can you spot the metaphors in the
following poem?
Fifth of July
My family is an expired firecracker
set off by the blowtorch of divorce.
We lay scattered in many directions.
My father is the wick, badly burnt
but still glowing softly.
My mother is the blackened paper fluttering down,
blowing this way and that, unsure where to land.
My sister is the fallen, colorful parachute,
lying in a tangled knot,
unable to see the beauty she holds.
My brother is the fresh, untouched powder that
was protected from the flame. And I,
I am the singed, outside papers, curled away
from everything, silently cursing
the blowtorch.
By: John
Excerpted from Writing Process Activities Kit.
(metaphor)
From “Afternoon with Irish Cows” by Billy Collins
..they would be lying down
on the black and white maps of their sides
(metaphor)
refrain
•  A line or sequence of words repeated throughout a song
or a poem
•  Usually found at the end of a stanza (but not always!)
When Miley Cyrus
gets to this part:
So I put my hands up, they’re playin’ my song
The butterflies fly away
I’m noddin’ my head like, “yeah”
Movin’ my hips like, “yeah”
…it’s the refrain!