The document provides definitions and examples of various poetic forms, devices, and terminology. It begins by defining different types of poems like ballads, elegies, sonnets, odes, and free verse. It then explains common poetic structures, such as stanzas, rhyme schemes, and line breaks. Finally, it outlines several literary devices that poets use to add depth and meaning, including metaphor, personification, allusion, and irony. The document serves as a reference guide for understanding different elements of poetry.

1. Not just for poetry

2. What kind of poem am I reading/hearing?

3. A kind of narrative poem
A long poem that uses rhyme
to tell a story, often a
folktale or legend. A
traditional ballad has a
refrain (chorus)

4. • The structure of the
poem is integral to
the understanding of
it and adds an
unexpected visual
element
A poem written inside a
shape that is reflective
of the poem itself

5. • The elements of a traditional elegy
mirror three stages of loss. First, there is
a lament, where the speaker expresses
grief and sorrow, then praise and
admiration of the idealized dead, and
finally consolation and solace
• Example:
is traditionally written in
response to the death of a
person or group. Though
similar in function, the elegy
is distinct from the epitaph,
ode, and eulogy: the
epitaph is very brief; the
ode solely exalts; and the
eulogy is most often written
in formal prose.

6. A short, humorous, or
nonsense poem with a strict
rhyme scheme (AABBA).
The first two lines rhyme with
the last line
and the third and fourth line
rhyme, and they are usually
shorter.

7. A type of poetry of intense
feeling and emotion
• Often short
• Elegy, Sonnet, Ode or
Free Verse

8. A type of poetry where
the poem tells a story
Often has a repeating
rhythm

9. A type of Lyric Poem
• Serious in nature
• In praise of something
or someone

10. (Shakespearean)
• Iambic pentameter
• 14 Lines
• Specific Rhyme
Scheme

11. While some poems may not be a specific type, they can still have an internal structure

12. • Notice the
lines are a similar
length (clue 1)
• Count the syllables
in each line and note
there are 10 in each
unrhymed lines of
iambic pentameter
meant to mimic patterns
of natural speech

13. A pair of successive
lines of verse,
especially a pair that
rhyme and are of the
same length
(approx.)

14. the continuation of a
sentence or clause over
a line-break
Pay close attention to
enjambment when reading
a poem so you read a
complete thought
Notice how
the lines
change
meaning
when you
pay attention
to the line
stops and
enjambment

15. End Stopped Lines
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
Then be not coy, but use your time,
Run on or Enjambed Lines
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.
• Consider :
• Why might a poet use one over the other?
• How this impacts a reading
• How this impacts your understanding

16. • “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.
• Consider the effect of using structure
verses not using any sort of structure on a
poem and its intent.
Free verse poems do
not follow the rules, and
have no rhyme or
rhythm; but they are still
an artistic expression

17. Free Verse
“After the Sea-Ship” Walt Whitman
After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars
and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening,
lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of
the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling,
blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven,
emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and
buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking,
displaced the surface;
Rhyme Scheme
“Shall I Compare thee to a Summer’s Day”
Shaksepeare
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,
And every fair from fair some-time declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

18. is a grouped set of lines
within a poem, usually
set off from
other stanzas
(a paragraph in poetry)

19. Internal Rhyme
“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and
weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered,
“tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
End Rhyme
• “The Lady of Shalott” Lord Tennyson
• Part One
• On either side the river lie
• Long fields of barley and of rye,
• That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
• And thro' the field the road runs by
• To many-tower'd Camelot;
• The yellow-leaved waterlily
• The green-sheathed daffodilly
• Tremble in the water chilly
• Round about Shalott.
•
Willows whiten, aspens shiver.
• The sunbeam showers break and quiver
• In the stream that runneth ever
• By the island in the river
• Flowing down to Camelot.
• Four gray walls, and four gray towers
• Overlook a space of flowers,
• And the silent isle imbowers
• The Lady of Shalott.
•

20. Ways that poets can add depth to their words to make readers/listeners understand their thoughts

21. The repetition of a
word or phrase at the
beginning of successive
clauses or verses (think
Google!)

22. a brief reference to a
person, event, or place,
real or fictitious, or to a
work of art. An allusion
may be drawn from
history, geography,
literature, or religion.

23. Sound device
Repetition of the front
consonant sounds. Needs
only two and they don’t
need to be back to back.
“her frolicking kitten favored
the snow”

24. Sound Device
Repeating vowel sounds
in the middle of words.
The sound must repeat
not just the letter.

25. An address to a dead
or absent person, or
personification as if
he or she were
present

26. Sound Device
Repeating consonant
sounds in the middle of
words

27. A phrase, line or
expression that has
been so over-used it
has become common
place and unoriginal
• It was a dark and stormy night
• Then they lived happily ever after
• After everyone counted him out, he
scored the winning goal
• Can often be used like stereotype

28. The substituting of a
mild, indirect, polite or
vague term for one
considered harsh or
offensive
Examples:
• Saying that someone has recently
‘passed away’ (in place of died)
• Saying that a car is ‘certified-pre
owned’ instead of saying used.

29. an imperfect rhyme in
which two words are
spelled similarly
but pronounced
differently (such as
move and love)
Eye rhyme serves to make
the poem look more
cohesive and while the
words do not actually rhyme,
they look like they belong

30. A special kind of
metaphor that uses
extreme exaggeration
for effect

31. Sayings or expressions
we use in the English
language that wouldn’t
translate literally

32. Use of vivid and
descriptive language to
appeal to the reader’s
senses thus forcing them
to create a mental
picture

33. Dramatic: When the
audience knows something is
coming, but the characters
do not
Verbal: opposite of what is
said, is meant (sarcasm)
Situational: When the
opposite of what is expected
to happen, happens.

34. a figure of speech in
which a term or
phrase is applied to
something to which it
is not literally
applicable in order to
suggest a
resemblance

35. The name of one object
is substituted for
something closely
associated with it
(“Hollywood to mean
the film industry)

36. Sound device
Words that imitate
sounds
Be on the lookout for
more subtle examples

37. A pair of single word
opposites placed side by
side for dramatic effect
(must be in contradiction
to each other)

38. • Statements such as Oscar
Wilde’s “I can resist anything
except temptation” and G.K
Chesterton’s “spies do not look
like spies” are examples of
rhetorical paradox.
• Polonius’ observation in Hamlet
that “though this be madness,
yet there is method in’t
• G.W Bush “when we talk
about war, we're really
talking about peace”
is a statement that
apparently contradicts
itself and yet might be
true
(similar to Oxymoron, but
longer)

39. Giving human qualities
to non-human objects or
things (this includes
animals)

40. A play on a word’s
meaning versus how it
sounds

41. Two unalike things are
compared directly using
the words “like” or “as”
(and sometimes “than”)

42. the practice or art of
using an object or a
word to represent an
abstract idea. An
action, person, place,
word, or object can all
have a
symbolic meaning and
significance
“In the spring, I asked the daisies
If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
Always knew.
Now the fields are brown and barren,
Bitter autumn blows,
And of all the stupid asters
Not one knows.”
In the above lines, “spring” and “daisies” are symbols of youth. “Brown and
barren” are symbols of transition from youth to old age. Moreover, “Bitter autumn”
symbolizes death.
“Wild Asters”
Sara Teasdale

43. • “His eye met hers as she sat
there paler and whiter than
anyone in the vast ocean of
faces about her” (The Lady or the Tiger)
• Faces represent the people in the crowd and
because a face is a part of a human, this is
synecdoche
• My parents bought me a new
set of wheels
• The wheels are a part of the car meant to
represent the whole of the car
(a special kind of
metonymy)
a figure of speech in
which a term for a part
of something refers
to the whole of
something, or vice-
versa

44. The opposite of hyperbole
Stating less than is necessary
and deliberately
downplaying something