Basic Poetic Devices, Poetry Unit

Tomorrow (Tuesday, August 21), we will begin a discussion on the poetry analysis paper. The final project for this unit will consist of a short (2 page) paper comparing and contrasting two poems, and a creative piece (a complete song, a set of haiku, a sonnet, two songs without music, three free-verse poems). We will discuss the assignment more thoroughly in class, but the entire project will be five pages long. A rough draft will be due Friday (essay outline and solid ideas for each poem), and the final product will be due on Monday. We will begin About a Boy at that time.

Here is the list of basic poetic devices from the board today. We will begin writing on our poetry soon, so please look over the list for any terms you do not already know.

Simile- comparing two things using "like" or "as"

Metaphor- comparing two things without using "like" or "as"

Personification- a type of metaphor, in which a non-human thing is given human characteristics

Analogy- an extended comparison

Assonance- rhyming or repetition amongst vowel sounds

Alliteration- rhyming or repetition amongst consonant sounds

Onomatopoeia- words that sound like the sound being described

Poetic Meter

Iambic- unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

Trochaic- stressed followed by unstressed

Anapestic- two unstressed followed by one stressed

Dactylic- stressed followed by two unstressed