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Poetry Conventions Folio

by Year 10 Language and Literature, Good Shepherd Lutheran College

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Year 10 #LangnLit
Poetry Conventions Folio
Pathetic Fallacy
Pathetic Fallacy is a literary device, or poetry technique, that attributes human qualities or emotions to inanimate nature. It is sometimes confused with personification, however, pathetic fallacy is only used to give human qualities or emotion to nature.

Pathetic fallacy is employed by poets to give the nature or intensity of emotions they wish to express in a deeper way. This is because it is easier for readers to relate to emotions they may not have experienced when they observe it in their natural surroundings. It brings what is unfamiliar to what is familiar in a clear and creative way.

Example of Others
The night has been unruly. Where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death,
- Macbeth, Shakespeare

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills.
- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth


Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture: Father is a quintessential Kiwi from Taranaki and Mother is a quintessential Aussie from Gladstone, QLD. At times confused about my cultural identity.

Loyalty, to whom, to what?
As a dark cloud torn asunder by lightning
Loyalty, to whom, to what? 
Ellipses
Ellipses is the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.

Poets usually use ellipses for a pause, hesitation or an unfinished thought. They can also use it to emphasise a point and bring a voice into play.

Examples of Ellipses:
To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.
- Dream Variations, Langston Hughes

To say I'm without fear--
It wouldn't be true ….
I'm afraid of sickness, humiliation.
Like anyone, I have my dreams.
But I've learned to hide them,
To protect myself
From fulfillment: all happiness
Attracts the Fates' anger.
They are sisters, savages --
In the end they have
No emotion but envy.
- Confessions, Louise Gluck

Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture: The complexity of emotions that we are given permission in our society to express.

To say life is full of only happiness
Would only be a lie …
There are all types of feelings in life
Excitement and sadness are there too.
You even have your moments of snappiness ...
- Faith Watson
Oxymoron 

Oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

Oxymorons are used for a variety of reasons, this phrase qualifies as an oxymoron because the words “same” and “difference” have completely opposite meanings. Therefore, bringing them together into one phrase produces a verbally puzzling yet engaging effect. 

Example of Others
“Day and night, hour after hour, all the time , at work, at play, alone in company, my top priority has always to find her a husband.” Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare

Being alone together with an awfully good looking man with a cool passion for bitter sweet chocolate was sadly crash landing into an awkward defining silence.” Bitter Sweet Boy, Sophia Rateovosian

Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture: My personality is both extrovert and introvert, there are two sides to me that often appear to be in contradictory terms.

Introvert and Extrovert I am, 
Type A and Type B I am, 
What you see is not what you get.
- Brooke Sherwood
Enjambment
 
Enjambment is a line ending in a poem, in which the sense/purpose of the sentence continues, with no punctuation, into the following line. Also called a run-on line.
 
Enjambment lines are used by poets while creating a poem. They are used to allow an idea to continue beyond the limits of a single line, often to reinforce certain ideas within the lines. It can also be used to surprise a reader, by setting up one idea in the first line and changing that idea in the following lines.
 
Example of Others
the back wings 
of the 
hospital where
nothing
will grow; lie 
cinders
in which shine 
the broken
pieces of a green 
bottle
-      Between Walls, William Carlos                                            
 
Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture: My love of dancing and the freedom this gives me to physically explore, connecting my mind and body.
 
I sway to the side like
a weeping willow in
the wind; I twist and 
turn like the howling 
seas in a treacherous storm
I vault into the air like a 
Masai warrior 
I dance,
I dance into the night sky
-      Dancing in the Light, Kaitlyn Abram
Simile

A simile is a figure of speech using 'like' or 'as' to 
compare two similar things.

Poets use simile to spark the imagination of readers and help the reader make connections between what the poet is expressing and more familiar ideas.

Example of Others
Life is like a flower
When you don't know that hour
You stood so bold and tall
Then within a blink you fall
And all your hope was gone.
- Roshana Phillips

Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture: I am witty and funny, a characteristic that my family and friends appreciate about me.

Humourous and witty
Like a monkey in a tree
Is what I seem to be,  
A monkey in a tree.
- Michael Baxter
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