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Alliteration: (Malene Little)
Definition:  the repetition of consonant sounds in words near each other.

Example One:  Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Eagle” contains “crag” and “crooked” (l 1) and are alliteration because they are separated by only one word and both have the “cr” sound.

Example Two:  “[W]atches” and “walls” in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Eagle” (l 5) is alliteration because both begin with “w.”

Example Three:  N. Scott Momaday’s “Comparatives” contain alliteration in “babbling boats” (l 5) because both begin with “b.”

Assonance: (Malene Little)
Definition:  the repetition of vowel sounds in words near each other.

Example One:  N. Scott Momaday’s “Comparatives” use assonance by repeating the “eh” sound in the words “crescent,” “flesh,” “extending,” and “death” (ll 8-10).

Example Two:  Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” uses assonance with the “ooh” vowel sound in his words “shoestring” and “whose” (l 11).

Example Three:  Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” uses assonance with the long “i” sound in “wild,” “I,” and “tie” (ll 10-11).

Ballad: (Richelle Braum)

A poem or verse that is set to music.  It usually tells a story, and contains a refrain that can be repeated 1 or more times throughout the work.

" Goodnight Saigon" pg 552  by Billy Joel

A poem that tells the story of a young soldiers tour through Vietnam.  It is set to music, and has a refrain that is repeated throughout.

The Ballad of Birmingham" pg. 609 by Dudley RAn

Blank Verse:  (Dana Garry)

Blank Verse is unrhyumed lines of Iambic Pentameter (five stressed and five unstressed syllables) meter. Many of Shakespeare's unrhymed passages are written in blank verse. Examples: 1) 'The Ex-Basketball Player' by John Updike      -Each line has 10 sylables      -The lines are unrhymed.  "Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot, Bends with the trolley trackes, and stops, cut off Before it has a chance to go two blocks, At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth's Garage Is on hte corner facing wset, and there,  Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out." (This is only the first stanza of the poem)

2) 'After Great Pain,a Formal Feeling Comes' by Emily Dickinson      -lines are in Iambic (sets of unstressed then stressed sylables)            Pentameter (5 unit lines, 10 sylables)       -the ends of the lines aren't in exact rhymes "After great pain, a formal feeling comes- The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs- The stiff Heart questions as it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or Centuries before?" (1st stanza) 3) 'I Knew a woman' by Theodore Roethke      -Has 10 sylable lines      -the end words don't rhyme      -It doesn't adhere to formalized English rules  "I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved , seh moved more ways than one:  The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,  Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek). (1st stanza)

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Caesura: (Raphael Duncan) A pause or break in a line of verse that modifies the regularity of accents; a caesura occurs after a punctuation mark or at a natural break in phrasing Examples: 1. "I'm Nobody! Who are You?" by Emily Dickinson (p. 577)         L1: I'm Nobody! Who are you?               Are you - Nobody - too?     In this passage, the dashes in line two create pauses to set "Nobody" apart from the rest of the line. 2. "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy (p. 590)         L9: I shot him dead because -                Because he was my foe,                Just so: my foe of course he was;     In this example, the pause created by the colon places emphasis on what occurs after it. 3. "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning (p. 583)         L37: Quite clear to such and one, and say, "Just this                  Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,                  Or there exceed the mark" - and if she let     The semi-colon, in the above example, creates a break that causes the reader to look at the quote in two     parts, while the dash sets the quote apart from the rest of the poem.

Couplet:  (Amanda Buechler)
In poetry, two lines that rhyme and are similar in length.

 Example #1: "First Fight. Then Fiddle." by Gwendolyn Brooks
                     "With feathery sorcery; muzzle the note.
                      With hurting love; the music that they wrote."
      Both of the lines rhyme because of the words note and wrote. The two lines are also close to the smae length and have
 the same meter.

 Example #2: "Delight in Disorder" by Robert Herrick
                     "A sweet disorder in the dress
                      Kindles in clothes a wantoness.
      These two lines use the words dress and wantoness to make them rhyme with each other. The lines also seem to follow the same rhythm pattern. (Example: A sweet -disorder- in- the dress, kindles- in clothes -a wan-toness.)
 Example #3: "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" bye Adrienne Rich
                     "Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
                      Bright topaz denizensof a world of green.
      The use of the words screen and green make these two lines rhyme. The two lines have the same meter. These lines are also similar in length.

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Dramatic monologue: (Brandi Friederich)
a poem in which the speaker (of that poem) is talking to the other characters who are being quiet and not saying anything in return. They just sit and listen. The speaker is being very informative and usually says more than he needs to in a dramatic monologue.

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Enjambment:(JoAnne Taylor)
lines that do not end with a strong pauses at the end of the line, but continue on into the next line,
                    enjambment usually occurs when there is no punctuation at the end of the line

Ex. #1: We have come home
            From the bloodless war
            With sunken hearts
            Our boots full of pride-
            From the true massacre of the soul
            When we have asked
            'What does it cost
            To be loved and left alone?'                "We Have Come Home" -Lenrie Peters
This segment of poem is a good example of enjambment because of the way you don't pause when you get to the end of the line, you keep on going, as if it were all one sentence, which it is.
Ex. #2: I gaze upon the roast,
            that is sliced and laid out
            on my plate
            and over it
            I spoon the juices
            of carrot and onion.                              "Pot Roast" -Mark Strand
From the second line on to the rest of this segment of the poem it is a wonderful example of enjambment.  You wouldn't take a breath between any of these lines because they really make up one sentence.
Ex. #3: The tigers in the panel that she made
            Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.     "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"  -Adrienne Rich
Once again this is a good example of enjambment because of the way the first line runs into the second line without a strong pause at the end of the first line.

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Haiku: (Natalie Jibben)
Is an unrhymed Japanses poem recording the essence of a moment keenly percieved, where nature is linked to human nature.  There poems are usually written in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. 
 

Example 1:page 730 Japanese haiku by Matsuo Basho  Silent and still:  then  Even sinking into the rocks,  The cicada's screech.

Example 2:  page 731  (not always consistant with the traditional subject matter.) Widow's Lament  by:  Richard Brautigan  It's not quite  cold enough to go  borrow soome firewood from the neighbors

Example 3:  page 731  Hokku Poems  by:  Richard Wright  I am nobody  A red sinking autumn sun  Took my name away Make up your mind snail! You are half inside your house And halfway out!  In the fallling snow  A laughing boy holds out him paalms  Until they are white  Keep straight down this block  Then turn  right where you will find  A peach tree blooming  Wiith a twitching nose A d og reads a telegram  On a wet tree trunk  The spring lingers oon  In the scent of a damp dog Rotting in the sun

 

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Imagery: (Barb Gunderson)
Imagery includes all words or phrases which evoke a response from one or more of the five senses.

In the poem "How Did They Kill My Grandmother?"  you can feel the weight of the bundles, and hear teh tin mugs clanking.  You can feel the shoves within the crowed of old people.  You can see the young men's indifferent faces.

                    We gathered holding thier bundles
                    And the German polizei were
                    herding the old people briskly
                    and their tin mugs clanked as
                    the young men led them away
                    far away.

In the poem "For the Union Dead" the specifics of color and texture allow the reader to see the scene which is being described.  The "thousand" and "air" illustrate the significance of the scene.  "Quilt" again reinforces the image of repetition and commonality of such a scene.  The items listed carry their own images through association (flags, churches, graveyards, etc).

                    On a thousand small town New England greens,
                    The old white churches hold their air
                    of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
                    quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army
                    of the Republic.

Within these two lines of the poem "Facing It" the metaphores of "stone" to "flesh" give the image of the speaker's hardened heart.  The adjective "clouded" enables the reader to see the clarity of the speaker's face on the glass of the memorial.

                    I'm stone.  I'm flesh
                    My clouded reflection eyes me.
 

Irony:  (Lynn Isackson)
 

Irony is the difference in which a reader (or audience) understands what is true in a piece of fiction and the difference in what is actually said. (there are three types of Irony; Dramatic, Situations, and Verbal) Example 1. Cinderella  Anne Sexton     "...And White doves pecked their eyes out..." The ironic usage of the doves is the example of used here. Doves are birds of peace and the author used them for a fairly violent act. Example 2. Hope- Ariel Dorfman     "...That a father's joy a mother's joy is knowing that they are still torturing their son..." The irony used in this passage describes the parents as being  happy their child is being tortured. How could that be? The poem goes on to say they are happy because they know their son is still living. Example 3. Prophyria's lover- Robert Browing     "...That moment she was mine, mine, mine, faire, perfectly pure, and good....three times her little throat around and strangled her..." Love? is this Love? The irony is plain to see her in the use of the murder of his love as being perfect fare and his all his.

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Metaphor: (William Deline)

A comparison between two unlike items that does not include the word 'like' or 'as'.

Examples:
"Rooming houses are old women/rocking dark windows into their whens"

    Taken from Audre Lorde's "Rooming Houses Are Old Women"

    Rooming houses and old women both enclose many years of suffering and disappointments and begin to physically
    deteriorate as time passes.
 

"My head is a badly organized file. My head is a switchboard/where crossed lines crackle."

    Taken from Marge Piercy's "The Secretary Chant"

    Throughout this poem, the author uses many comparisons of unlike objects to convey the caos an office worker endures
    while trying to do her or his job.
 

"Dull sublunary lovers' love/(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit"

    Taken from John Donne's "A Valedictorian: Forbidden Mourning"

    In this poem, the soul of lovers is viewed as being sense. Though soul and sense are dissimilar ideas, sense is considered
    the driving force of the soul.
 

Examples:

• Using "I've even seen love waltzing around." instead of talking about couples in love.(Gluck, p. 735)
• Saying somone went "From homogenized to Martini's at lunch." instead of saying they quickly went from being poor to rich.(Sexton, p. 606)
• Naming the sun "the eye of heaven." (Shakespeare, p. 662)

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Open Form - Free Verse: (Milanda Marmorstein)

Free Verse is poetry that has no set standard form.
It may or may not follow traditional styles.

Examples from Classic Literature:

A good example of free verse E.E. Cummings' 1925 poem, "the sky was can dy". Here is an exerpt:

Here Cummings breaks completely away from traditional form, breaking words into separate lines and presenting them in ways they would not generally be presented in.

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Quatrain: (Katy Holt)
A quatrain is a piece of a poem similar to a paragraph with extra rules.  A quatrain contains four lines of approximately equal length with some kind of rhyme pattern.

Example One:
    Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
    Old Time is still a- flying;
    And this same flower that smiles today,
    Tomorrow will be dying.

(each alternating line is approximately the same length with abab rhyme)

Example Two:
    "Mother dear, may i go downtown
    Instead of out to play.
    And march the streets of Birmingham
    In a Freedom March today?"

(again, each alternating line is approximately the same length, or syllable count with a rhyme scheme of abca)

Example Three:
    children guessed (but only a few
    and down they forgot as up i grew
    autumn winter spring summer)
    that noone loved him more by more

(the lines in this excerpt are close to the same length with an aabc rhyme scheme)

Rhyme:  (Tonya Hohenthaner)
When two or more words match in sound

Example: "A sweet disorder in the dress/Kindles in clothes a wontonness" (Herrick pg. 702).

Other styles of rhyme:

• imperfect rhyme: also called near rhyme, when the final consonant sounds are the same, but the vowels are not. Example: "pads/lids"
• eye rhyme: occurs when two words look like they should rhyme, but don't. Example: "watch/catch"
• end rhyme: when the rhyme occrs at the end of a line of poetry. Example: "Tiger! Tiger! burning bright/ In the forests of the night" (Blake pg. 781)
• internal rhyme: when the rhyme occurs within a line of poetry. Example: "Out of the sea came he!" ( Coleridge pg. 703)

beginning rhyme: when the rhyme occurs at the beginning of a line of poetry. Example: "Slow flow heat is silence/ No will is still as a river" (Elliot pg. 703)

Scansion: (Liz Koenig)
finding the stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of a poem.

This helps to indicate the beat or rhythm of a poem, similar to a song.

These beats can be arranged in different combinations (referred to as a foot).  This emphasizes the number of stressed beats in a line.

Example:US=unstressed syllable      S=stressed syllable

US    S       US        S    US         S         US          S
Lit-tle  Bo  Peep  has   lost   her   sheep
  S US     S          US               S         US          S            US
And   does-n't   know   where   to    find    them

Examples: (from the text Literature, Reading, Reacting, Writing; 4th Edition; by Kirszner & Mandell)

1.  "My love is like a red, red rose"- this line compares love to a red rose.  While love is a concept, a rose is a tangible object.  The author attempts describe love by drawing into mind the physical qualities of a rose.

2.  "My love is like a melody"- this line compares the concept of love with the qualities of a melody.  The purpose of this is to encourage the reader to recall how a melody may make them feel and compare that with the feelings of love.

3.  " In which I have lived like a foot"- the speaker is comparing their life with the qualities of a foot.  A foot is often negected and unsightly, but it is also the work-horse of the body.  Therefore, the speaker suggests that their life is unpleasant.

An example would be  the poem When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes.  The poem demonstrates the use of rhythmetic pattern  about every other word of the line.  For example some of the words were eyes, cries, hope, scope, etc.

Synecdoche: (Rosanne Rougemont)
Using a part of something to demonstrate or stand for the whole, or using the whole to demonstrate or stand for a part.

Examples:

• The poem Negro uses references of I somewheat as a part instead of a whole population. (Hughes, p. 581)
• "First fight. Then fiddle." Here fiddle is possibly rejoice or having happiness or peace. (Brooks, p. 723)

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Villanelle:(Angel Murphy)
Def: A term used to describe a particular section of poetry. A villanelle has nineteen lines beginning with five tercets. A tercet has three lines that are about the same length and have a set rhyme scheme. A villanelle ends with a quatrain, which is like a tercet except it has four lines instead of three. The tercets and quatrain produce a villanelle.

Three examples of Villanelle's from our text are:

    Pg. 727, Theodore Roethke's The Waking.
    The poem contains the five tercets and ends with the required quatrain. These lines are
    approximately the same length and have a rhyming pattern.

    Pg. 531, Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.
    Thomas' poem also has the five tercets and ends with a quatrain. The lines also rhyme and are
    about the same length.

    Pg. 728, William Meredith's In Memory of Donald A. Stauffer.
    This poem has the five tercets and, again, also ends with a quatrain. The poem's lines rhyme and
    share a common length.

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Xavier - a type of wolf that loves computers.
 

Xavier surfing the net.

The ANTI-Xavier.