Poetry Unit Vocabulary

1. A lliteration is the repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words.

(Alliteration is the genus, whereas, assonance and consonance are the species. So an example would be alliteration and then more specifically and exactly consonance or assonance. "Lady lounges lazily" is both alliteration and consonance.)

Example: “And sings a solitary song that whistles in the wind.”

2. A ssonance is the repetition of vowel sounds but not consonant sounds as in consonance.

Example: fleet feet sweep by sleeping geeks

3. C onsonance is the repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, as in assonance.

Example: lady lounges lazily, dark deep dread crept in

4. I magery is vivid, descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.

Example: A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees,/Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

5. M etaphor is the comparison of two unlike things. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in "a sea of troubles" or "All the world's a stage" (Shakespeare).

Example: All the world’s a stage. It is a sea of troubles.

6. O nomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it represents. also imitative harmony

Example: splash, wow, gush, kerplunk

7. P ersonification is giving human qualities to animals or objects.

Example: a smiling moon, a jovial sun

8. S imile is the comparison of two unlike things using like or as.

Example: He eats like a pig. Vines like golden prisons. Because Everybody Wants to Know Author Unknown

Prose is a starting pitcher with a game plan. He pitches to each batter differently each time up. His game is full of little dramas: impending catastrophe, escape, tension building, subsiding, building again.

Poetry is a one-inning reliever-- a fireballer, a screwballer, a pitcher with a slider that batters flick their bats at as it breaks a foot outside in the dirt.

Prose is a boxer: jabbing, moving, slipping, stinging, wearing his opponent down. Poetry is a knockout punch; the big left hook that is carried on all the highlight films.

Prose is a song; poetry is a guitar lick every kid can yow-yow with his mouth.

Prose is the Mona Lisa; poetry is the smile.