Transcript Poetry - Allentown School District

POETRY
8th Grade English Language Arts
Allentown School District
Poetry conveys ideas, thoughts, and
feelings through manipulating how
words sound together.
Writers use meter, rhyme, literary
devices and figurative language to
compose poems.
METER
 The rhythm of the writing
 It includes the stressed and unstressed
syllables
 Think of it like the tap dance, drumbeat or
heartbeat of the poem
RHYME
•
Repetition of the sounds of words
•
End rhyme – repetition at the end of a line
From The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Internal rhyme – repetition of sounds in the middle of
a line or lines
From The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the
floor.
ENJAMBMENT
•
•
When a line ends in the middle of a thought or
sentence
Helps with meter/rhythm
From Chicago by Carol Sandburg
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of
women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger
From A Poem For My Librarian, Mrs. Long by Nikki Giovonni
And happily skipped back to grandmother’s house
Where I would sit on the front porch
In a gray glider and dream of a world
Far away
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
AND
LITERARY DEVICES
WHY DO POETS USE FIGURATIVE
LANGUAGE AND LITERARY DEVICES?
 To add beauty
 To add complexity
 To describe
 To help the reader connect
 To create images in the reader’s mind
 To help the reader experience something
 To make the writing come alive
 To have fun with language
SIMILE AND METAPHOR
•
BOTH point out similarities
•
Similes: compare two different things using clue
words, such as like or as
•
Metaphors: compare two different things without
using clue words
SIMILE OR METAPHOR?
“words like Blades” (simile)
“Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders”
(metaphor)
“That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent”
(simile)
ALLITERATION, ASSONANCE
AND ONOMATOPOEIA
 Alliteration: the repetition of a sound a the beginning
of words
 Assonance: the repetition of a vowel sound
 Onomatopoeia: the use of a word that imitates what it
describes
ALLITERATION? ASSONANCE?
ONOMATOPOEIA?
“olive, oily fish”
(assonance)
“a sickly silence fell”
(alliteration)
“for you the bugle trills”
(onomatopoeia)
“I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground”
(assonance)
“tapping at my chamber door”
(onomatopoeia)
PERSONIFICATION
Giving inanimate objects human qualities
from Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent
from Ode To A Tomato by Pablo Neruda
the tomato
invades
the kitchen
IMAGERY
The use of words and phrases that appeal to our senses of
sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste
from Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
From The Wandering Aengus by W.B. Yeats
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
SYMBOLISM
An object, person, place or experience that stands
for something more than what it is.
From O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman
Oh Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we
sought is won
SO WHAT DO I WRITE ABOUT?
 Poetry reflects any and all parts of the human experience
 Every day life (animals, food, nature, paying bills)
 Historical events (Paul Revere’s ride, Abraham Lincoln’s death)
 Fictional events (a baseball game, being haunted by a mysterious
creature)
 People important to the writer (a librarian, Anne Frank, your mother)
 Ideas (the end of the world, love, honor)
 Experiences (death, falling in love, playing football)
 Anything else someone can think of and experience!
 Write what you know!