Poetry Terms: Simile ♥

DEFINITION
A figure of speech which is used to compare two unlike things by comparing words such as like, as, or more than.

EXAMPLE

Your teeth are like stars;
they come out at night.
They come back at dawn
when they're ready to bite.
 

SIGNIFICANCE

Simile is different from metaphor and it has its own positive sides. Metaphor is a bit more interesting because sometimes we need to guess what's the author trying to compare. However, by using simile, comparison can be easily recognized by the audience and it makes the poem easier to be understood.

Poetry Terms: Extended Metaphor ♥

DEFINITION 
A poem with several lines that use metaphor.

EXAMPLE

Charlie is a bomb.
He is waiting to explode.
The bomb is full of anger;
he has a short fuse.
He may go off at any time.
 

SIGNIFICANCE

If you have lots of lines in a poem that use metaphor, the audience might get really excited to read the poem because they will have to interpret what do the lines mean and it's nice to have people to think about what you write. By comparing many times in a poem, the audience will find the poem a bit "abstract" and they will want to read more.

Poetry Terms: Metaphor ♥

DEFINITION 
Compare two things without using connecting words.

EXAMPLE

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

SIGNIFICANCE

It's important to compare things in a poem because if a poem only focuses on one thing it will be boring. When you compare things, you can compare something small to something significant and abstract. You can also compare big things to small things that are more connected and close to people so they can understand what you mean easily. Metaphor doensn't use connecting words and it's a pretty good choice because it makes it a little bit more complicated to guess what the author means. That will give us different answers and interpretations which will be really interesting.

Poetry Terms: Stanza ♥

DEFINITION
An arrangement of a specific number of lines forming a division of a poem. A stanza can have a fixed length, meter and rhyme scheme but not necessarily so.

EXAMPLE

I don't expect you soon to love me,

Nor are my own feelings clear.

Passion is the ornate entrance

To a world we crave and fear.

We cannot know where this will take us, 

Nor whether we will ride for long,

But pleasure is the overture

That flows into the larger song.

So come with me with open mind

And heart, and we the time will prove

With laughter and with joy unfettered,

And, perhaps, someday with love.

*DIFFERENT COLORS REPRESENT DIFFERENT STANZAS

SIGNIFICANCE

Stanzas don't necessarily be included in a poem, but they are pretty important if you're writing a long poem. If you're writing a ten-thousand-lined poems without a break, the audience will get tired just by looking at it. By having a break and divide the poem into sections, the audience will be more attracted to the poem. Also, each stanza has each new idea so it'll be easier to jump into a new idea if there's a division in between. It's just simply nice to have a break in something which is super long.

Poetry Terms: Imagery ♥

DEFINITION

Languages that are used so that the audience can imagine or picture the scene in their minds to make it easier to understand

Synonym: Descriptive Language

EXAMPLE

Elegance
A ballet dancer is a swan
Without the beak or feathers
A ballet dancer is the seasons
Without a change in weather
A ballet dancer is a portrait
With a difference to this art
The picture captures feeling
The dancer embraces heart

      -Mary O. Fumento, 1981

SIGNIFICANCE

Imagery is extremely important to poetry. It helps you to picture the scenes and experiences all of the five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. The more you can feel what the poem is trying to give you, the more you can understand it. Every person will have a different image in their minds for the same poem because people think in their own ways and none of them are exactly the same. Therefore, imagery can bring a very interesting and diverse collection of interpretations.