Poetry Terms 2022 Flashcards
Denotation (Kiersten)
The denotation of a word is its literal definition—its dictionary definition.
Example: “denotation of the word “blue” is the color blue, but its connotation is “sad””
Example Sentence:
The blueberry was very blue.
Anaphora (Kiersten)
The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of sentences, phrases, or clauses.
Example: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.”
Parallelism (Kiersten)
The repetition of the same grammatical form in two or more parts of a sentence.
Example: I like to jog, bake, paint, and watch movies
Syntax (Kiersten)
The set of rules that determines the arrangement of words in a sentence.
Example: “The boy ran hurriedly,” reads differently than, “Hurriedly, the boy ran.”
Iambic Feet (Kiersten)
Consists of two syllables. Has one unstressed syllable followed by another stressed syllable.
Example: amuse (a-MUSE), portray (por-TRAY), delight (de-LIGHT)
Simile (Karsten)
A comparison using “like” or “as”
Example: She remembered how one teacher, Mrs. Horn, had a “nose like a hook….” (Viramontes, “Under the Feet of Jesus”)
Personification (Audrey)
Giving person-like qualities to non-human objects
Example: the wind howled, the trees groaned, the car wheels screeched
Understatement (May)
Understatement is an expression of lesser strength than what the speaker or writer actually means or than what is normally expected.
Example: Hurricane “It looks like it rained last night.”
Colloquial Diction (Lily M)
Use of informal, local expressions or slang
Example: “I am going to order a pop with my sandwich” (pop is midwestern, pop v soda)
Eye/sight Rhyme (May)
An instance in which the endings of two or more words appear to rhyme but do not
Example: move and love
Iambic Feet (Lily M)
Unstressed syllable followed by stressed syllable
Examples: amuse (a-MUSE), delight (de-LIGHT), return (re-turn)
Slang
A type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people.
Example: Grass is slang for marijuana
Euphony (Kaitlyn A)
the quality of being pleasing to the ear, especially through a harmonious combination of words
Example: Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are
Synecdoche (May)
A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa
Example: Ask for her hand in marriage
Scansion (Lily M)
Breaking up poem’s lines or verses into metrical feet and identifying the stressed / unstressed syllables
*it’s an action to help the reader recognize regularity and variation in a poem, an example would be scanning a line of a verse to determine its rhythm
Couplet(Lily Wang)
A pair of successive rhyming lines, usually of the same length.
Example: Good night! Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow / That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Quatrain(Lily Wang)
A four-line stanza, lines 2 and 4 must rhyme.
Example: ABAB, ABCB
Visual Imagery(Lily Wang)
The poet appeals to the reader’s sense of sight by describing something the speaker or narrator of the poem sees.
Example: The white frost creeping up on the windowpane made her look at her car covered under a 3-inch thick blanket of the snow.
Metaphor(Lily Wang)
An object in a poem is described as being the same as another otherwise unrelated object.
Example: Life is a highway. Her eyes were diamonds.
Dactylic Feet (Kaitlyn A)
A long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight
Example: Hickory, dickory, dock
Meter (Lily M)
The basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse
Examples: Iambic, trochaic, dactylic, anapestic, and spondaic
Tactile Imagery (Kaitlyn A)
Description that stimulates your sense of touch
Example: the soft, smooth blanket grazed the chair as I walked by
Anapestic Feet (Kaitlyn A)
Poetic meter that has four anapestic metrical feet per line. Each foot has two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable
Example: The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
Metonymy (Hannah O)
A figure of speech in which the name of an object or concept is replaced with a word closely related to or suggested by the original.
Example: The Show - Owen Sheers
“leaving a crocodile pit of cameras / flashing their teeth for more”
Oxymoron (Hannah O)
A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.
Example: Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespare
“Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!”
Auditory Imagery–Audrey
Using sound-based words to describe a situation; appealing to the reader’s sense of hearing in writing
Example: “And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn / Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft” from “To Autumn” by John Keats
Consonance (grace)
A speech sound that -when combined with a vowel- can make a syllable. This style of writing is when the same speech sound is repeated in a sentence. ex: He struck a streak of bad luck. Or Mike liked his new bike
Extended Metaphore (grace)
Use of a single metaphor that is revisited throughout the story or poem, or contains similie and metaphor. ex: The thunderous roar of the ceiling’s collapse was loud enough to wake the dead.
Internal Rhyme (grace)
A rhyme involves a word in the middle of a sentence and a word nearer to the end of the sentence. ex: I’m in heaven with Kevin! There is the glue in my shoe.
Slang (Hannah O)
Words that are very specific to a region and time, and have been recently coined.
Example: 2 mothers in a h d b playground - Arthur Yap
“come, cheong, quick go home & bathe / ah pah wants to take you chya-hong in new motor-car”
Onomatopoeia (grace)
A word that is spelled/formed according to a sound that can be heard or made (bam, sizzle, cuckoo)
Synecdoche (Hannah O)
When a piece is used to represent a whole.
Example: Sujata Bhatt - Search for My Tongue
“Search for my tongue”
Stanza (Katarina)
A group of lines in poetry, usually offset by a blank line or indentation
Example: The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Tone–Audrey
The attitude with which the poet views their poem’s narrator (not what it makes the reader feel, but what the poet themselves feels)
Couplet (Katarina)
Two lines of a verse that are joined by a rhyme and have the same meter
Example: On a branch an owl was perching
For his dinner he was searching
Antithesis (Ryn)
A contrast or opposition between two things that is established through parallel of words, phrases, or sentences
Ex: “…it was the season of life, it was the season of darkness.” (From “A Tale of Two Cities”)
Pun–Audrey
Using words and their definitions in a joke
Example: “A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two-tired” (instead of “too tired”)
High Diction (Lily T)
Formal or elevated diction used in formal settings such as research papers
Ex. “It would be a privilege to assist you with the formation of this institution.”
Synesthesia (Lily T)
When an author blends the senses to describe something
Ex. “The shiny screeching car flew past me.”
Olfactory Imagery (Lily T)
Using smell as a way to describe an object or memory
Ex. “The sweet scent of fresh apple pie always reminded me of my grandma.”
Overstatement (Lily T)
Expressing something strongly; exaggerating
Ex. “That fish I caught this weekend was bigger than me!”
Octave/Octet (Stella)
An eight line stanza
Example:
When Eve walked among
the animals and named them—
nightingale, redshouldered hawk,
fiddler crab, fallow deer—
I wonder if she ever wanted
them to speak back, looked into
their wide wonderful eyes and
whispered, Name me, name me.
(Ada Limon)
Exact Rhyme (Allie W)
exact rhyme occurs when the exact vowel sound on the stressed syllable and the following consonant sounds are repeated in another word
example: Macbeth:
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
Onomatopoeia (Bree)
Figure of speech that imitates the sound.
Example: “Yet the ear, it fully knows, By the twanging, And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows.” (Poe, “The Bells”)
Auditory Imagery (Stella)
a form of mental imagery that is used to organize and analyze sounds when there are no actual sounds present
Example: While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,/As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. (Edgar Allan Poe)
Gustatory Imagery (Allie W)
the poet appeals to the reader’s sense of taste by describing something the speaker or narrator of the poem tastes
example: William Carlos Williams, this is just to say
“I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold”
Exact Rhyme (Bree)
The repetition of the same stressed vowel sound as well as any consonant sounds that follow the vowel.
Example: “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side” (Poe, “Annabel Lee”)
Tercet (Allie W)
any three lines of a poem
example: Dylan Thomas, do not go into that good night
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Apostrophe (Stella)
refers to a speech or address to a person who is not present or to a personified object
Example: Wild nights - Wild nights!/Were I with thee/Wild nights should be/Our luxury! (Emily Dickinson)
