From Modern American Poetry, Copyright © 2002 by The Great Books Foundation

alliteration 

The repetition of identical or nearly identical sounds at the beginning of consecutive or nearby words. The term is usually applied only to consonants.

Example: from “FOR A YOUNG ARTIST” by Robert Hayden

Carloads of the curious paid
his clever hosts to see the
actual angel? carny freak?
in the barbedwire pen.

A poet looks not only for the perfect word or phrase to convey an image, but also for complementary sounds.

allusion

A reference to a historical or fictional person, place, thing, or event, or to another literary work that suggests a wider frame of reference or greater depth of meaning.

Example: “OUT, OUT?” by Robert Frost

Frost’s title makes reference to a speech on the fleeting nature of life by Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. How do the events of the poem relate to the allusion Frost makes?


apostrophe

A direct address to an object, an abstraction, or an absent or deceased person.

Example: “TO MY DEAD FATHER” by Frank O’Hara

assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds in nearby words.

Example: from “POEM, SLOW TO COME, ON THE DEATH OF CUMMINGS (1894-1962)” by John Logan

Summer blasts the roots of trees and weeds
again, and you are dead
almost a year. I am sorry for my fear,

In this example, the assonance of “trees “ and “weeds “ creates an approximate or slant rhyme.

connotation and denotation

Connotation refers to the ideas and feelings commonly associated with or suggested by a word. Denotation is the dictionary definition of a word.

Example: from “FROM THE MISERY OF DON JOOST” by Wallace Stevens

I have finished my combat with the sun;
And my body, the old animal,
Knows nothing more.

What is the denotation of combat”?  Of  “animal”? What are the connotations?

elegy

A poem composed as a formal and sustained lament on the death of a particular person.

Example: “OH MAX” by Robert Creeley

euphony 

Language that is pleasant and harmonious to the ear.

Example: from “LEGEND” by Hart Crane

As silent as a mirror is believed
Realities plunge in silence by . . . .

hyperbole

A figure of speech that uses exaggeration for emphasis or effect and can also reveal aspects of a character or situation that are not directly stated.

Example: from “JORGE THE CHURCH JANITOR FINALLY QUITS” by MartÌn Espada

No one asks
where I am from,
I must be
from the country of janitors,

What does this exaggeration tell us about the speaker of the poem?


image and imagery

An image is a visual representation of a thought, feeling, or sense impression. Imagery refers to all of these sensory details, both literal and figurative, in a poem or other work of literature.

Example: from “MY GRANDMOTHER’S LOVE LETTERS” by Hart Crane

There are no stars to-night
But those of memory.
Yet how much room for memory there is
In the loose girdle of soft rain.


metaphor

A figure of speech that involves an implied or direct comparison between two unlike things.

Example: from “TO WAKEN AN OLD LADY” by William Carlos Williams

Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.


personification

A figure of speech in which human characteristics are assigned to nonhuman things.

Example: from “RHAPSODY ON A WINDY NIGHT” by T. S. Eliot

Half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered,
The street-lamp muttered,
The street-lamp said, “Regard that woman


refrain

A line, phrase, or group of lines that is repeated in a poem.

Example: “NOTICE WHAT THIS POEM IS NOT DOING” by William Stafford

How does the repetition of the title phrase influence the reading and interpretation of the poem? This refrain is used five times. Is it the timing or the phrase that is important?


rhythm

The pattern of accents or stresses in lines of poetry.

Example: from “ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT” by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

Read these lines aloud and notice the consistency of the rhythm.


satire

A literary work that uses irony, sarcasm, or wit to expose the absurdity of life or human nature.

Example: “AMERICAN GOTHIC” by William Stafford

The title suggests a satirical view of American values. What is Stafford saying about the view through “tiny, grim glasses”?


simile

A comparison between two unlike things using the word like or as.

Example: from “THE SUBVERTED FLOWER” by Robert Frost

Though with every word he spoke
His lips were sucked and blown
And the effort made him choke
Like a tiger at a bone.


slant rhyme

A partial or inexact rhyme, often using assonance or consonance only.

Example: from “MY SON MY EXECUTIONER” by Donald Hall

My son, my executioner,
  I take you in my arms,
Quiet and small and just astir
  And whom my body warms.


style 

The particular characteristics of an author’s writing as achieved through word choice, syntax, kinds of figurative language, form, and theme.


symbol 

A word, phrase, or image that is itself and also stands for something else.

Example: “QUEEN ANNE’S LACE” by William Carlos Williams


theme

A central idea in a literary work.


tone

The attitude or feeling that pervades a given work, as determined by word choice, style, imagery, connotation, sound, and rhythm.

Example: “THREE PRESIDENTS” by Robert Bly

How and why does the tone in this poem change in moving from one president to the next?