Transcript Pictures with words - Shepherd University

Pictures with words
Poetry techniques
and tools
Figurative Language or
Figures of Speech
• Simile – A comparison of two unlike
things using the words “like” or “as”.
– Exs.
The wind roared like a lion.
• “How dreary to be Somebody,
How public, like a Frog!”
(Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody”)
More Figurativ e Language –
great in poems
• Personification – Giving human qualities to
nonhuman things.
• Ex. - Loo-Wit…”spits her black tobacco any
which way, stretching full length from her
bumpy bed.”
• (Describes the volcano in “Loo-Wit”, by
Wendy Rose.)
Figurative Language
Personification
• Another poetic use of
personification:
• Ex. – “The stars overhead were
dancing heel and toe.” (“The
Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert
Service)
Figurative Language
• Metaphor – Comparing two unlike
things by stating that one is the
other.
• Ex.
He is a a bull in a china shop!
Figurative Languagemore metaphors!
• “The road was a ribbon of moonlight.”
• “When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed
upon cloudy seas.”
• (from “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes)
Figurative Language
Idioms
• Idioms – phrases that have meaning
different from the meaning of their
separate words.
• Ex. – She passed the test by the skin of
her teeth.
• He got off on the wrong foot with the
principal.
Figurative Languagemore idioms
Mike was ahead of his class in
math by a mile. Only in spelling was
he in hot water.
But, he stuck to his guns, and
studied very hard. Finally, he could
see a light at the end of the tunnel.
His spelling problems vanished into
thin air. Now, he can even lend a
hand to others!
Sounds of Poetry,
music to the ear!
• Alliteration – The repetition of initial
consonant sounds.
• Ex. – Peter picked a peck of pickled
peppers.
• Ex. – “The rusty spigot sputters…
spatters, a smattering of drops.”
(From “Onomatopoeia” by Eve Merriam)
Onomatopoeia
• Onomatopoeia – Sound effects
words– they imitate sounds.
• Exs. – The owl screeched.
• Snakes hiss.
•
The squeak of the rusty hinge…
Rhyme
• Rhyme – Repetition of sounds at the
ends of words.
• Exs. - Say…way
• Bold…told
• Sing…ring
Rhyme
“Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out!”
(From “Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout
Would Not Take the Garbage Out” by
Shel Silverstein)
Rhythm
Rhythm – The patterns of beats, or stresses, in
spoken language.
Read, “Martin Luther King” on the next slide.
How many beats, or syllables, are in each line?
Martin Luther King
by Raymond Richard Patterson
“He came upon an age
Beset by grief, by rage-
He taught this suffering Earth
The measure of man’s worth.
His love so deep, so wide,
He could not turn aside.
He showed what man can be
Before death sets him free.
His passion so profound,
He would not turn around.
Did you count 6 beats in each line? That
gives the poem a regular rhythm, like a
drumbeat.
Credits
• The poems in this unit are from the
2000 edition of Prentice Hall
Literature, Timeless Voices, Timeless
Themes, Bronze Level. Upper Saddle
•
River, NJ: Prentice Hall Publishers.