Technical Terms
- Language that appeals to the senses
- What is imagery?
- A humorous five-line poem that has a regular meter and rhyme scheme
- What is a limerick?
- A comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as like, as, than or resembles
- What is a simile?
- An imaginative comparison between two unlike things in which one is said to be another
- What is a metaphor?
- A figure of speech in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human
- What is personification?
- Poetry without a regular meter or a rhyme scheme
- What is free verse?
- The overall emotion created by a work of literature
- What is mood?
- The use of words with sounds that echo their sense like “bang”
- What is onomatopoeia?
- A kind of rhythmic compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery designed to appeal to emotion and imagination
- What is poetry?
- Regular pattern of rhythm
- What is meter?
- The pattern of end rhymes
- What is rhyme scheme?
- A songlike poem that expresses a speaker’s feelings
- What is a lyric poem?
- A poem that tells a story
- What is a narrative poem?
- The two types of narrative poems
- What are epic and ballad?
- A group of words repeated at intervals in a poem, song or speech
- What is refrain?
- The repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words close together in a poem
- What is rhyme?
- Rhyme found at the end of the lines
- What is end rhyme?
- A rhyme within lines
- What is an internal rhyme?
- A rhyme that sound similar, but not exactly the same
- What is a near rhyme?
- A rhyme formed with words that are spelled similarly but not exactly the same
- What is a visual rhyme?
- A musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables or by the repetition of certain other sound patterns
- What is rhythm?
- The voice talking in the poem
- What is a speaker?
- In a poem, a group of consecutive lines that forms a single unit
- What is a stanza?
- A person, a place, a thing or an event that has its own meaning and stands for something beyond itself as well
- What is a symbol?
- The attitude that a writer takes toward the audience, a subject or a character
- What is tone?
- The repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close together
- What is alliteration?
- l;ajdfl;d
- What is a haiku?
Authors
- A trademark of this author’s style was that he did not use standard punctuation. He also quit capitalizing early in his writing career.
- E.E. Cummings
- Although this author is often known for his dark tone in his writing, he actually was well known for his love poems.
- Edgar Allan Poe
- This poet loved music as well as poetry. Once he was writing a blues tune and practicing singing it while walking to work when someone asked him if he was ill because he thought the poet was groaning.
- Langston Hughes
- This poet was elected as the class poet in elementary school before he wrote his first poem.
- Langston Hughes
- Many of this author’s poems are homages to some of the great jazz performers including Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong.
- Langston Hughes
- This author was born in Joplin, Missouri.
- Langston Hughes
- This poet began writing poetry in college. He stated that after he read some ancient classical poetry, “an unknown and unknowable bird started singing.”
- E.E. Cummings
- During WWI, this author was an ambulance driver in France.
- E.E. Cummings
- After a period of imprisonment for a crime he didn’t commit, this author discovered his passion for freedom and personal growth.
- E.E. Cummings
- Who wrote, “Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings;mostpeople are snobs…”
- E.E. Cummings
- This poet’s writing focuses on the desert’s beauty and the wonder of the southwest region of the United States.
- Pat Mora
- This poet wrote “Annabel Lee” about his young wife, Virginia, who died of tuberculosis.
- Edgar Allan Poe
- This British poet, novelist, biographer and essayist was frequently called the most popular writer of this time.
- Alfred Noyes
- Author of “The Highwayman”
- Alfred Noyes
- This poet lived from 1880 to 1958. He was one of the few poets of his time able to earn a living by writing poems.
- Alfred Noyes
- Alive from 1880-1958, this poet wrote with a more traditional style than that common to the era in which television and space travel were introduced.
- Alfred Noyes
- Born in St. Louis, Missouri, this contemporary poet’s given name is Marguerite Johnson.
- Maya Angelou
- This contemporary poet has begun careers as a singer, dancer, actor, playwright, magazine editor, civil rights activist and novelist.
- Maya Angelou
- This author’s works portray themes of courage, perseverance and acceptance of self.
- Maya Angelou
- This poet speaks French, Spanish, Italian and West African Fanti in addition to English.
- Maya Angelou
- This poet is one of the few female members of the Director’s Guild.
- Maya Angelou
- An ancestor of this poet gave is name to Nashville, Tennessee.
- Ogden Nash
- What was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s pen name?
- Lewis Carroll
- This poet was well known for Alice in Wonderland in addition to many nonsense poems.
- Lewis Carroll
- It was said that this author had “a very uncommon share of genius” by one of his teachers.
- Lewis Carroll
- From 1855 to 1881, this poet was a member of the faculty of mathematics at Oxford.
- Lewis Carroll
- This poet is known to have published Euclid and his Modern Rivals as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, his real name.
- Lewis Carroll
- Best known for his poetry in the world of Children’s Literature, this author was also a cartoonist, composer, lyricist and folksinger.
- Shel Silverstein
- This beloved author of children’s literature died in 1999 at the age of 66 from a heart attack.
- Shel Silverstein
- El Paso is the border city to which this current poet’s grandparents came during the Mexican Revolution.
- Pat Mora
- The New York Times described this poet’s works as “proudly bilingual.”
- Pat Mora
- This poet’s birth parents were touring actors who died before he was three years old.
- Edgar Allan Poe
Other Questions
- In the tongue twister, “Peter Piper Picked a Pack of Pickled Peppers,” the repetition of the letter “p” is called this
- What is alliteration?
- “The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor” from The Highwayman is an example of this figure of speech
- What is a metaphor?
- The first line of Gold by Pat Mora, “When Sun paints the desert with its gold,” is an example of this figure of speech
- What is personification?
- The underlined word in the line from Jabberwocky that says, “Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,” demonstrates this
- What is onomatopoeia?
- Mama is a Sunrise by Evelyn Tooley Hunt is an example of this kind of rhyme scheme
- What is free verse?
Mama is a Sunrise
Evelyn Tooley Hunt
When she comes slip-footing through the door,
she kindles us
like lump coal lighted,
and we wake up glowing.
She puts a spark even in Papa’s eyes
and turns out all our darkness.
When she comes sweet-talking in the room,
she warms us
like grits and gravy,
and we rise up shining.
Even at nighttime Mama is a sunrise
that promises tomorrow and tomorrow.