Poetry Book Project

English 2A

Part 1: Poetic Terms and Definitions

Five Elements of Poetry 1. Use of the poetic line 2. Heightened use of sound 3. Poetic rhythms 4. Images 5. Density

Poetic techniques: the tools of poetry

Alliteration Consonance Overlapping Imagery the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words. Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship the repetition of consonant sounds anywhere within a line of poetry. Alliteration is a specific type of consonance. one definition very similar to another the use of words and phrases that appeal to the five senses. Writers use sensory details to help readers imagine how things look, feel, smell, sound, and taste. a technique in which a sound, word, phrase or line is repeated for effect or emphasis the repetition of vowel sounds within nonrhyming words . . .that hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. a person, place, object or action that for something beyond itself. For example, a dove may represent peace. The dove can be seen and peace cannot. a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature. Allusions are often indirect or brief references to well-known characters or events. a figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis or humorous effect. repetition in literature of one or more lines at regular intervals; sometimes called the chorus. a comparison between two things using the words like or as: My love is like a red, red rose. a comparison between two things NOT using the words like or as: His eyes were daggers that cut right through me. a figure of speech that compares two essentially unlike things in great length

Repetition Assonance Symbol

Allusion

Hyperbole Refrain Simile Metaphor Extended metaphor

Onomatopoeia Oxymoron Understatement

Sentimentality Personification Rhythm

the use of words whose sound suggest their meaning (ex. buzz, bang, hiss) a form of figurative language combining contradictory words or ideas (ex. jumbo shrimp, bittersweet). a statement that is restrained in ironic contrast to what might have been said; the opposite of hyperbole. Understatement is usually used for a humorous effect. overly sentimental ideas the attribution of human qualities to an object, animal, or idea: My stereo walked out of my car. wavelike repetition of a sound; the pattern of flow of sounds created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. a grouping of two or more lines within a poem. A stanza is comparable to a paragraph in prose. a short humorous poem composed of five lines that usually has the rhyme scheme aabba, created by two rhyming couplets followed by a fifth line that rhymes with the first couplet. A limerick typically has a sing-song rhythm. a way of placing emphasis on important words or syllables with a regular pattern of accented and unaccented syllables. Although all poems have rhythm, not all poems have regular meter. foot, the basic unit of meter. the feeling or atmosphere that the writer creates for the reader: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. use of words that gives more meaning and depth the exact or dictionary meaning of a word the soul behind the word; the idea and feeling associated with a word as opposed to its dictionary definition

Stanza Repetition Limerick

Meter

Iambic unit Tone/Mood Figurative language Denotation Connotation

Part 2: Poetic Terms and Examples

Alliteration Consonance Overlapping Imagery Repetition Assonance Symbol Allusion Hyperbole Refrain She sells sea shells by the sea shore. All mammals named Sam are clammy. He attacked the problem. The shiny, sleek dog galloped though the cool, glinting white snow. Oh Father, oh father, what have I done. They were making a rainbow. The sense of darkness, looming and forbidden. She bounced down the road to the school bus like Tigger on his way to Poohs house. He was so thirsty he thought he would die. A shot in the night a baby cries. A shot in the night a bullet flies. As he ran, he was like a bullet in the wind. She was my heart and soul. Her shoes clickety-clacked across the marble floor. The poem Exile uses an extended metaphor of the ocean throughout the poem. Hers was a well-known secret. As the doctor stitched up Samis leg, he said it was just a scratch. Their love was flowery rope linking the past and the future. The house creaked and groaned in the wind. There was an Old Man in a tree who was horribly bored by a bee A shot in the night a baby cries. There was an Old Person whose habits, Induced him to feed upon rabbits; When he'd eaten eighteen, He turned perfectly green, Upon which he relinquished those habits. Hickory, dickory, dock, The mice ran up the clock. He stumbled through the deep, dark desolate cave, slipping and sliding on wet stone as the walls closed in. She was my shining star, a light in the darkness. The sun rose above the clouds. She was my rising sun.

Simile Metaphor Onomatopoeia Extended metaphor Oxymoron Understatement Sentimentality Personification Rhythm Stanza Limerick

Meter Tone/Mood Figurative language Denotation Connotation

Part 3. Poetry in Song

"Where Is The Love?" by the Black Eyed Peas
What's wrong with the world, mama People livin' like they ain't got no mamas rhyme I think the whole world addicted to the drama Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism But we still got terrorists here livin' repetition In the USA, the big CIA The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK But if you only have love for your own race Then you only leave space to discriminate And to discriminate only generates hate And when you hate then you're bound to get irate, yeah Madness is what you demonstrate And that's exactly how anger works and ope rates hyperbole Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight Take control of your mind and meditate Let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all, y'all People killin', people dyin' Children hurt and you hear them cryin' Can you practice what you preach And would you turn the other cheek Father, Father, Father help us Send us some guidance from above 'Cause people got me, got me questionin' Where is the love (Love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love The love, the love It just ain't the same, always unchanged New days are strange, is the world insane If love and peace is so strong Why are there pieces of love that don't belong Nations droppin' bombs Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones alliteration With ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin' in Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug metaphor If you never know truth then you never know love Where's the love, y'all, come on (I don't know) Where's the truth, y'all, come on (I don't know) Where's the love, y'all People killin', people dyin' Children hurt and you hear them cryin' Can you practice what you preach And would you turn the other cheek Father, Father, Father help us Send us some guidance from above 'Cause people got me, got me questionin' Where is the love (Love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love The love, the love I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder Most of us only care about money makin' Selfishness got us followin' our wrong direction Wrong information always shown by the media Negative images is the main criteria Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity Whatever happened to the fairness in equality Instead in spreading love we spreading animosity Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found People killin', people dyin' Children hurt and you hear them cryin' Can you practice what you preach And would you turn the other cheek Father, Father, Father help us Send us some guidance from above 'Cause people got me, got me questionin' Where is the love (Love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love (The love) Where is the love (The love)

refrain

Part 4. Poetic Devices

Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knifeblade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. This is the place. And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.

imager symbolis

personificatio

simile

From Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 Copyright 1973 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Mole by Wyatt Prunty For weeks hes tunneled his intricate need Through the root-rich, fibrous, humoral dark, Buckling up in zagged illegibles The cuneiforms and cursives of a blind scribe. Sleeved by soft earth, a slow reach knuckling, Small tributaries open from his nudge Mild immigrant, bland isolationist, Berm builder edging the runneling world. But now the snow, and hes gone quietly deep, Nuzzling through a muzzy neighborhood Of dead-end-street, abandoned cul-de-sac, And boltrun from a dead-leaf, roundhouse burrow. May he emerge four months from this as before, Myopic master of the possible, Wise one who understands prudential ground, Revisionist of all things green; So when he surfaces, lumplike, bashful, Quizzical as the flashbulb blind who wait For color to return, hell nose our greenrich air with the imperative poise of now.
First published in New Criterion. Copyright 2006 Wyatt Prunty.

figurative language

assonance

Crossing Kansas by Train by Donald Justice The telephone poles Have been holding their Arms out A long time now To birds That will not Settle there But pass with Strange cawings Westward to Where dark trees Gather about a water hole this Is Kansas the Mountains start here Just behind The closed eyes Of a farmer's Sons asleep In their work clothes

personification

onomatopoeia

personification

First published in Night Light, 1967 Weslyan University Press

Part 5. My Poems
A. Sonnet
Pack by Nathan Supinski Darkly menacing, dressed fully in black Walking into the bank with a swagger A silent wolf with the rest of his pack. Sinister swish, he pulls forth a dagger. The pack moves swiftly through the human herd Snatching up money with a quick flourish. Laws broken, theater of the absurd Cash taken meant for others to nourish. But one of the scared herd wont be beaten. The cold leader of the pack curls his lip The lone animal who wont be eaten He slowly raises a gun from his hip. A sharp glint in the eye as bullets fly Many may miss, but only one to die.

metaphor

B. Limerick
My Dog by Nathan Supinski There once was a dog named Duke Who frequently had to puke He ran for the door But puked on the floor Which earned him an angry rebuke.

rhythm

C.

Haiku

Ice by Nathan Supinski twisting and turning freezing in the morning frost river dies alone frost clings to the trees soft white snow covers the ground Colorado spring

alliteration

D. Childhood poem
Where Im From by Nathan Supinski I am from lunchboxes, from laughter and Legos. I am from lost cities and new planets. (A thousand adventures in single backyard) I am from Rock Mountain, where the withered arms of the big dead tree held me high above the ground. I am from soft green grass and icy cold water balloons on a hot summer day. and the countless cuts, the scrapes: the boo-boos and Scooby Doo bandaids. assonance I am from strawberries stolen from Moms garden, and from ice fortresses in the backyard tundra. I am from scooters, rollerblades and bikes, and from joysticks, flashing lights and alien bandits. I am from beaches, ski trips, and What-did-you-do-at-school? dinners, family surrounding me like my favorite old t-shirt, a little shabby but always comfortable.

E. I am poem
I Am by Nathan Supinski I am quiet and calm I wonder if I will come up again I hear the engine stop I see the water slick on the deck I want to feel it cold on my skin I am quiet and calm

refrain

I pretend I'm ready to descend I feel like something is looming all around me I touch the valve of her air tank I worry it may run dry I cry at the thought of losing her I am quiet and calm I understand that everything is ready I say everything will be alright I dream of discovering something new I try to slow my breath I hope everything will be ok I am quiet and calm

F. Shape Poem

oxymoron