poetic terms with thanks to Ms Minaz

Poetry Checklist

Structure:  (number of stanzas, line length, enjambment, run-on lines, tercets, sestets, octaves, couplets)_________________________________

Form: (sonnet/ode/curtal)  ______________________________________________

Diction: (choice of words [notice the connotation of words]) _______________________________________________

Tone: (usually, the diction leads to the tone) (reflective, exuberant, sad) __________

Mood: (this is created by the tone) (one of anxiety, sorrow, reflection)_______________

Imagery: (visual, auditory, gustatory [taste], olfactory [smell], kinesthetic [movement],  tactile [touch] 

Emotion: _____________________________________________________________

Themes: (war, loss, betrayal) ____________________________________________

Style: (scientific, ornate, plain, emotive) ____________________________________

Tension: __________________________________________________________

Rhythm: (determines the mood) ________________________________________

Rhyme: (eye-rhyme, half rhyme, internal rhyme) ___________________________________

Tempo: (pace) (quick, slow, galloping [through the anapaest]) ________________

Impact: (dramatic, understated, impersonal) ______________________________

Texture: (smooth/ coarse) (through the use of pleasant/unpleasant ideas or words) ___

Point of view: (first person/ third person)___________________________________

Persona: (speaker, the unnamed ‘I’) ________________________________________

Figures of speech: (simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole, repetition, alliteration, consonance, assonance, sibilance, onomatopoeia, apostrophe, transferred epithet, paradox, antithesis, oxymoron, euphemism, tautology)_____________________________________________

Symbols: ________________________________________________________

Motifs: __________________________________________________________

Juxtaposition: ____________________________________________________

Voice: (do we hear only one voice? )__________________________________________________________

Literary devices:  (cacophony, euphony, anaphora, epistrophe, parallelism, epizeuxis, asyndeton, polysyndeton, inversion, ellipsis […], elision [th’ expense of spirit], syncope [o’er the hills])

Contrasts and colour: _________________________________________________________