Poetry Ruler

DICTION

DICTION

Diction is the words a writer had selected. Highlight those words that “catch” your eye and ear, that ‘leap out’ due to how unique, vibrant, or precise they are.

Note the denotation and connotation of key words. Pay particular attention to the title.

How do the word choice affect the mood or atmosphere of the poem?

CONNOTATION & DENOTATION

CONNOTATION

& DENOTATION

Connotation: An idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

Denotation: The literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.

MOOD & ATMOSPHERE

MOOD & ATMOSPHERE

Mood: The state of mind or feeling the author creates in the poem.

Atmosphere: The emotions and feelings created in the mind of the reader as a result of the events inside the poem.

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Mother to Son - Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

IMAGERY

IMAGERY

Imagery is best defined as the total sensory suggestion of poetry. Note phrases that create images in your mind’s eye or appeal to your other senses (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory).

Is there a dominant image?

OLFACTORY & GUSTATORY

OLFACTORY & GUSTATORY

Olfactory: Relating to the sense of smell.

Gustatory: Concerned with tasting or the sense of taste.

DOMINANT IMAGE

DOMINANT IMAGE

A dominant image is one that stands out from the others, or is reoccuring throughout the poem.

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

The Red Wheelbarrow - William Carlos Williams

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

COMPARISONS

COMPARISONS

Look for ways in which the poet expresses one thing in terms of another, particularly through figures of Speech, such as, metaphor, simile, personification, metonymy, and synecdoche. What is the effect of this comparison?

SYNECDOCHE

SYNECDOCHE

Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa. A synecdoche may also refer to an object by the material it is made from or refer to the contents in a container by the name of the container.

“A head of cattle” (Head if referring to a part of the whole.)

“All eyes on you” (Eyes are a part of the entire body)

“Lend me your ear” (Ears are a part of the entire body and is referencing attention).

“Wheels” (Wheels is used to refer to a vehicle. Ex. “Check out my brand new set of wheels.”)

METONYMY

METONYMY

Metonymy: A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated.

For example, Cloth ia pliable material made usually by weaving, felting, or knitting natural or synthetic fibers and filaments. However, the cloth also refers to Priesthood / Church.

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

You Fit Into Me - Margaret Atwood

you fit into me

like a hook into an eye.

a fish hook

an open eye

ALLUSIONS

Notice any historical or literary references. Why did the poet decide to link that particular person, place, or event to the subject of this poem? What is the effect?

ALLUSIONS

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE #1

Nothing Gold Can Stay - Robert Frost

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

In this poem, Frost’s allusion to Eden strengthens the theme of the fleeting nature of happiness. His mention of Eden shows that humans are often their own downfall.

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE #2

Venus and Adonis - William Shakespeare

Narcissus so himself himself forsook

And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.

The word Narcissus is used as an allusion, taken from the classical mythology where a handsome man falls in love with his own body and keeps looking at himself in the water.

CONTEXT

CONTEXT

Examine the imagined setting of the poem. Is it being described directly, or indirectly? Take note of details that may reveal or relate to the poet’s biography. How might the particular context of this poem have influenced it?

EXAMPLE

A Martian Sends a Postcard Home - Craig Raine

EXAMPLE

then the world is dim and bookish

like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.

It has the properties of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside --

a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film

to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist

or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

with water but nothing to eat.

They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt

and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night, when all the colours die,

they hide in pairs

and read about themselves --

in colour, with their eyelids shut.

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings

and some are treasured for their markings--

they cause the eyes to melt

or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but

sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight

and rests its soft machine on the ground:

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,

that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it

to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet, they wake it up

deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer

openly. Adults go to a punishment room.

SOUND DEVICES

SOUND DEVICES

Rhyme and rhythm are perhaps the most obvious and most powerful sound devices; consider internal rhyme, slant/para rhyme, and rhythm (iambic pentameter, blank verse, etc.)

Onomatopoeia - Onomatopoeia is the usage of word which best demonstrates the sound it makes.

Alliteration - Alliteration happens when the beginning of words start with the same consonant or vowel sounds.

Assonance - The repetition of vowel sounds at the beginning, middle, or end of a word.

Consonance - The repetition of consonant sounds anywhere within a word.

Pay specific attention to the effect of these choices.

PLAN

SLANT/PARARHYME

Slant/Pararhyme: Is a half-rhyme in which there is vowel variation within the same consonant pattern.

"Strange Meeting" (1918) is a poem by Wilfred Owen, a war poet who used pararhyme in his writing. Here is a part of the poem that shows pararhyme:

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

Futility - Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun--

Gently its touch awoke him once,

At home, whispering of fields half-sown.

Always it woke him, even in France,

Until this morning and this snow.

If anything might rouse him now

The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds--

Woke once the clays of a cold star

Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides

Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

--O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth’s sleep at all?

PATTERNS & STRUCTURES

PATTERNS & STRUCTURE

The number of lines, the number of stanzas, rhyme scheme, and layout of the poem as a whole are all distinctive features of poetry. For example, you should be able to identify whether or not a 14-line poem is a sonnet and why the poet may have chosen a particular form. Line and sentence lengths, use of caesura, enjambment vs. end-stopped lines, and punctuation should all be analysed for their effect.

Note: the repetition of words or phrases and location of a shift in the point of view, tone, format and/or content.

CAESURA PAUSE

CAESURA PAUSE

'Sing a song of sixpence, //

a pocket full of rye.

Four and twenty blackbirds, // baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened, // the birds began to sing;

Wasn't that a dainty dish, // to set before the king?'

A stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause.

A caesura is a pause in a line of poetry that is formed by the rhythms of natural speech rather than by metrics. A caesura will usually occur near the middle of a poetic line but can also occur at the beginning or the end of a line.

ENJAMBMENT

ENJAMBMENT

the back wings

of the

hospital where

nothing

will grow lie

cinders

in which shine

the broken

pieces of a green

bottle

The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped. William Carlos Williams’s “Between Walls” is one sentence broken into 10 enjambed lines:

END-STOP

END-STOP

Then say not man’s imperfect, Heav’n in fault;

Say rather, man’s as perfect as he ought:

His knowledge measur’d to his state and place,

His time a moment, and a point his space.

If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, soon or late, or here or there?

The blest today is as completely so,

As who began a thousand years ago.

A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period. A line is considered end-stopped, too, if it contains a complete phrase. Many of Alexander Pope’s couplets are end-stopped, as in this passage from “An Essay on Man: Epistle I”:

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

‘Out, Out—’

BY ROBERT FROST

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard

And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,

Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

And from there those that lifted eyes could count

Five mountain ranges one behind the other

Under the sunset far into Vermont.

And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,

As it ran light, or had to bear a load.

And nothing happened: day was all but done.

Call it a day, I wish they might have said

Since he was old enough to know, big boy

Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart—

He saw all spoiled. ‘Don’t let him cut my hand off—

The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!’

So. But the hand was gone already.

The doctor put him in the dark of ether.

He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.

And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.

No one believed. They listened at his heart.

Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.

No more to build on there. And they, since they

Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

To please the boy by giving him the half hour

That a boy counts so much when saved from work.

His sister stood beside him in her apron

To tell them ‘Supper.’ At the word, the saw,

As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,

Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—

He must have given the hand. However it was,

Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!

The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,

As he swung toward them holding up the hand

Half in appeal, but half as if to keep

The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—

Since he was old enough to know, big boy

Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart—

Notice how Robert Frost utilizes all three in his poem “Out, out--”

Notice how enjambment in the first few lines (description of Vermont country side) moves to frequent caesura and end-stops, mirroring the action and mood of the poem as it turns to tragedy and death.

PERSONA & TONE

PERSONA & TONE

Who is the speaker of the poem and who is this persona addressing? Examine relationships within the poem. Show how the language choices communicate the speaker’s attitude toward the audience, and/or toward the topic or theme.

TONE

TONE

Tone, in written composition, is an attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience. Tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words, or the viewpoint of a writer on a particular subject.

EXAMPLE

Jenny Kiss’d Me - Leigh Hunt

Jenny kiss’d me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in;

Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in!

Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,

Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,

Say I’m growing old, but add,

Jenny kiss’d me.

EXAMPLE

Who is the speaker?

Who is the speaker addressing?

Who is the third party (Jenny)

What is the speaker’s attitude towards the addressee (Time)?

CONTRASTS

CONTRASTS

Examine contrasts within the poem that appear in the form of:

Oxymoron - A two to three word phrase that contains opposite words or ideas.

Paradox - An extended oxymoron. It pits contradictory ideas against one another so that the statement appears to be untrue. However, when the reader evaluates a paradox in context, he or she discovers the paradox to hold a profound truth.

Irony - Is a contradictory statement or situation.

Do you understand the difference? Do you understand why a poet might choose one over the other?

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

Sonnet 130 - Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Can you find the shift in this poem? What is the effect of its placement?

SYMBOLS & ARCHETYPES

SYMBOLS & ARCHETYPES

Do any of the concrete images stand out as a symbol of a more abstract or layered idea?

Is this symbol unique to this poem or poet, or

Is this symbol a more universal symbol or archetype?

ARCHETYPES

a very typical example of a certain person or thing.

an original that has been imitated.

a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology.

ARCHETYPES

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains: round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Consider persona (step 8). Who is the speaker of this poem? How does the use of speaker help to distance the reader from the former “King of Kings”?

Statue as a symbol of oppression. The irony is that no one remembers the oppressor anymore. That even ultimate power decays with time.

AMBIGUITY

AMBIGUITY

In what way are words or ideas open to more than one interpretations? Why might the poet want their reader to question these words and ideas?

Every poem that was written for a mature reader will include some ambiguity.

AMBIGUITY

AMBIGUITY

The quality of being open to more than one interpretation; inexactness.

synonyms: vagueness, obscurity, abstruseness, doubtfulness, uncertainty

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

What type of contrast is being used?

To what effect?

Why are these three words, “odd”? What do “future”, “silence”, and “nothing” have in common? If we break words, or reverse their meaning as soon as we attempt to discuss them, does that suggest that we will never really be able to understand the abstract? That by attempting to explain it, we destroy or change it?

The Three Oddest Words

– Wislawa Szymborska

When I pronounce the word Future,

the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,

I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,

I make something no non-being can hold.

THEMES

THEMES

What is the invited reading of your poem?

What central concerns or ideas about human nature or life are you encouraged to think about after reading the poem?

How do all the above aspects (1-11) contribute to this invited reading?

*ALL classic poems, and songs, will include complex themes.

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

The Man He Killed

– Thomas Hardy

“Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

“But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

“I shot him dead because--

Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was;

That’s clear enough; although

“He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,

Off-hand like--just as I--

Was out of work--had sold his traps--

No other reason why.

“Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You’d treat if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown.”