POETRY TERMS
DEFINITIONS AND EXAMPLES
1. Alliteration – repetition of consonant sounds
Example: Happy Heather hopped along.
2. Assonance – repetition of vowel sounds; words begin with different consonants
Example: The blue bird cooed at the moon.
3. End rhyme – words that rhyme at the end of lines
Example: Roses are red Violets are blue Poetry is cool So are you 4. Exact rhyme – Words that share the exact same sound at the end
Examples: Spring / fling Low / dough
5. Half rhyme – words that nearly rhyme; also called slant rhyme or imperfect rhyme
Examples: Eyes / light Years / yours 6. Iambic pentameter – A line of poetry that contains five repeated units of stressed and unstressed syllables; each unit sounds like “da DUM”, so the entire line repeats that pattern five times
Example: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
7. Internal rhyme – Rhyme that occurs inside a line
Example: Megan will hop up on top Always to see the bumble bee
8. Meter – A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables; See iambic pentameter for an example 9. Onomatopoeia – Use of a word whose sound imitates its meaning
Examples: Buzz bang
10. Rhyme scheme – pattern of rhyme in a poem; marked by assigning a letter of the alphabet to each new sound
Example: Roses are red a Violets are blue. b No they’re not. c Violets are purple. d In my head a I get hot. c Because purple d Is not blue. b Do you? b
11. Rhythm – a pattern of beats in poetry; marked in the poem as meter; see iambic pentameter for an example of one type of meter 12. Scansion – identifying and marking the meter (patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables) in a poem
Name ______
Block ______POETRY TERMS
Apply your knowledge
Read “Annabel Lee” on pages 774-775 of the literature book and answer the following questions.
Sound devices Write your answer here: ____ 1. What is the rhyme scheme for the first six lines of the poem? ______
2. In line 18, the words “rise” and “eyes” are work as an example of which type of rhyme? ______3. Write three examples of exact end rhyme from the poem.
EXAMPLE LINE NUMBERS “sea” / “Lee” 1 / 2
4. The phrase “out of a cloud” in line 8 is an example of which sound device? ______5. In line 11, “not half so happy in Heaven” is an example of which sound device? ______
Comprehension
6. At what stage in life did the speaker in the poem fall in love?
______
7. What caused the death of Annabel Lee?
______
8. Why will nothing be able to separate the speaker’s soul from the soul of Annabel Lee?
______
9. What does the speaker do “all the nighttide”?
______
Critical Thinking
10. In what ways does Poe make the events of the story seem distant, like those of a fairy tale?
______
11. How does the last stanza make the sense of sadness in the poem seem immediate and never- ending?
______
Name ______
Block ______POETRY TERMS
Apply your knowledge
Read “Feelings About Words” on pages 776-777 of the literature book and answer the following questions.
Sound devices Write your answer here: ____ 1. What is the rhyme scheme for the first six lines of the poem? ______
2. Write eight examples of exact end rhyme from the poem.
EXAMPLE LINE NUMBERS “clink” / “drink” 1 / 2
Comprehension
3. What types of words does O’Neill describe in the poem? Fill in the following table providing examples of at least five of the types of words she describes.
Type of words Examples Line numbers Words that are slow “Lag, stop and grow” 36
Critical Thinking
4. Why is flick a good example of a word that is quick?
______
5. Name two ways in which goodbye is a word that cries.
______