Meter

Definition: a recurring pattern of stressed (accented, or long) and unstressed (unaccented, or short) syllables in lines of a set length.

Example:

That time | of year | thou mayst | in me | behold

Significance: Meter in poetry and verse lets the reader/speaker understand how to read it, and the flow of the poem. The rhythm of the poem is also really related to the meter. This makes it easier to see the pattern of the words.

Rhythm

Definition: movement or procedure with uniform or patterned recurrence of a beat, or accent.


Example: 

 Love For The Music

The rhythm, and of course the beat.
Moving side to side and dancing the floor.
Feel the music flowing all through your feet.
The beats so good, it makes you want some more.
Get lost in the music, carried away.
Feel the deep passion coming from your heart.
Warm like the sun on the beach on mid day.
It’s been a part of my life from the start.
Made from things happening in real life.
If you listen closely there is a song.
Some are love and some are blunt as a knife.
I can listen to music all day long.
Music’s love or whatever it can be.
Music’s the life that is inside of me.

Significance: Rhythm refers to the pattern of sounds made by varying the stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem. This gives a very distinct form to a verse and gives it a beat. It also helps our understanding of how we are suppose to read the poem.

Rhyme

Definition: verse of poetry having corresponding sounds in the lines.

Example:

Beautiful Soup
'Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau - ootiful Soo - oop!
Beau - ootiful Soo - oop!
Soo - oop of the e - e - evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

'Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau - ootiful Soo - oop!
Beau - ootiful Soo - oop!
Soo - oop of the e - e - evening,
Beautiful, beauti - ful soup!'

~ Through the Looking Glass-Lewis Caroll

Significance: Rhyme gives poems a beat and rhythm, which is very useful if you are speaking it aloud. The reader will understand the flow of the words more easily by using rhyme.

Onomatopoeia

Definition: is a word or phrase that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes.

Example:

Hallelujah!

Significance: Onomatopoeias give the poem more auditory imagery. Using this can give the reader an idea of what is making the noise, where they are, or what they are doing.

Personification

Definition: the literary device that gives a non-human a human personality and abitilities.

Example: My homework and I had a staring contest.

Significance: People can connect more with non-human beings more when they are given humane properties. Relating to what the reader knows must be illustrated in the poem for them to interpret it correctly.

Imagery

Definition: the use of an object that is not really there, in order to create a comparison between one that is. There are six types of imagery : auditory, visual, gustatory, tactile, olfactory, kinesthetic, and organic.

Example: The day was so blistering hot that the sidewalk can easily burn someone's bare feet.

( This shows tactile imagery, because you can feel the hot weather.)

Significance: The use of imagery evokes a more meaningful visual experience for the reader. It allows an author to add depth and understanding to his/her work. Imagery allows the reader to live and feel the poem.

Simile

Definition: a literary device that uses "like" or "as" to compare different things.

Example: 

Life is like a box of chocolates;

You dig through the box until you find the one you like :)

A simile may be as simple as this line.

Significance: A simile is exact and precise, and not as vague as a metaphor. The common comparisons are used to easily let the reader understand the poem. A simile is a figure of speech that allows for the reader or listener to understand a concept through the understanding of a related concept.

 

Repetition

Definition: the action of repeating words and phrases that have already been written in the poem.

Example:

Lines

Draw a line. Write a line. There.
Stay in line, hold the line, a glance
between the lines is fine but don't
turn corners, cross, cut in, go over
or out, between two points of no
return's a line of flight, between
two points of view's a line of vision.
But a line of thought is rarely
straight, an open line's no party
line, however fine your point.
A line of fire communicates, but drop
your weapons and drop your line,
consider the shortest distance from x
to y, let x be me, let y be you.

~Martha Collins

* The word "line" is repeated many times in this poem.

Significance: Repetition can set the mood of the poem as more interesting. Repitition poems are very simple and easy to understand. The poet may be trying to express an emotion or phrase using repetition.

Tone

Definition: the attitude you feel is in the poem, or the mood that was created for the reader.

Example:

"Problems"

2 and 2 are 4.
4 and 4 are 8.

But what would happen
If the last 4 was late?

And how would it be
If one 2 was me?

Or if the first 4 was you
Divided by 2?

~Langston Hughes

* The tone of this poem is satirical and playful.

Significance: The tone of a poem make the readers feel the mood that the poet wanted them to feel. Tones can be happy or tragic, sad or joking, but either way the reader feels something from the poem, which is very important. The attitude of the poem corresponds with the meaning too.

 

 

Significance: The tone of a poem make the readers feel the mood that the poet wanted them to feel. Tones can be happy or tragic, sad or joking, but either way the reader feels something from the poem, which is very important. The attitude of the poem corresponds with the meaning too.

Interpretation

Definition: the explanation of the meaning of the poem.

Example:

 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 visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."
~ Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

( You can interpret from this stanza that a man is sleeping in the middle of the night when suddenly, he hears a tapping on his door.) 

Significance: The interpretation of a poem may be the most important of what you get from reading it. Understanding what the poem is telling you and the explanation is necessary if you want to truly enjoy it. A poem with no meaning, nothing you can interpret from it, is not a good poem.

Methaphor/Extended Metaphor

Definition: a comparison of objects or actions that is not literally applicable, often because it is an exaggeration. An extended metaphor is more than one metaphor in a stanza.

Example: Light blossomed from the Sun, as sky met sea, and the world exploded with colors. 

Significance: Metaphors and extended metaphors are used in poetry to connect with the reader on a more personal level. This makes the poem more interesting and adds more style to the writing. The human brain makes sense of metaphors automatically, so poets use this literary device to help the reader understand.

Speaker

Definition: the person who is telling the poem from their perspective.

Example:

 Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I rise.

~Maya Angelou

(In this case, the speaker can be anybody, but most likely it is the poet.)

Significance: The difference of the speaker and the poet is very important. The poet is not always the speaker. The poet may be writing from the perspective of a family member, friend, or even a complete stranger! The speaker is also the narrator of the poem.

Symbol

Definition: a representation of something else.

Example: The Apple Company logo symbolizes the apple that fell on Newton's head which lead to the discovery of gravity. Also it represents taking a "byte" out of the apple of knowledge.

Significance: Symbolism in poetry is important because it communicates the meaning of the words. Metaphors and similes are symbols, and they make the poem more thoughtful.This makes the poem more 3-D and interesting to read.

Couplet

Definition: A pair of lines in a poem with rhyming end words.

Example: Good night! Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow;

That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow

~Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare

Significance: Couplets are a simple rhyme scheme that still counts as poetry. Rhyme and idea are very close in the two lines.

Stanza

Definition: a group of lines in a unit of a poem.

Example: I think it was raining from my basement room;

But basements make for faraway ears;

 And so many things can sound like rain.

I still think it was rain.
~Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements

Significance: Stanzas seperate ideas in a poem, it is what makes poems poetry instead of paragraphs of writing. Stanzas are like paragraphs in poetry.