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

Alliteration

Alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. It typically uses consonants.

Alliteration is a technique used by poets that focuses the readers on specific parts of the text and it often creates rhythm to motivate the readers.

Example of Others
Big bridges break bones
- Anonymous

Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture: My culture is a combination of many cultures.

Colour and culture, what are they?
Confusion and controversy caused
Culture, the creator of colour
Often criticized
Creative and courageous
Why is colour criticized?
Instead of controversy
It should be cultivated
- Darci Bellis

Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of consonants within two or more words in sequence, is a popular, literary device that has many different aspects or features. It is often confused with alliteration, which is a type of consonance. Consonance serves many similar functions as alliteration as well as its own special functions. Consonance in poetry provides varied auditory range.

Modern poems use consonance as a slant rhyme where the ending syllables match except for the last line of the poem, or near rhyme. Consonance in slant or near rhyme allows the writer to allow more creative freedom when creating his or her poetry. Consonance in poetry also emphasizes words by forcing the audience to take pause and think deeper into the rhyming words. This is because it disrupts the audience’s expectations of traditional rhyming. Consonance can also provide a deeper meaning and texture to words, this is because when certain words use consonance, especially double consonance, it emphasizes that there might be a closer semantic link between the words and the emotion that is being conveyed within the poem.

Example of Others
I often scribble in the sand
The words I find so hard to say
And hope the wind will come along
And blow them all your way.
-      Unspoken Words, Paul Callus

Rock turtles in blue waters . . .their crawl so slow it’s imperceptible
-      Rock Turtles, Anonymous

Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture (others, inspired by Rupi Kaur): The poem represents a beautiful new born girl, who bring a small moment of happiness until she starts to cry as her Father picks her up and kills her because she is a female.
Thinking thoughts of flora
Waiting for one to bloom

Light spreads in the dark room
Until tears are all that come out first

How unfortunate that it’s the worst …
-      Kym Errity

Metaphor

Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or an action to which it is not literally applicable. A metaphor is a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else.

Metaphors can be used to describe both fixed and abstract ideas, such as emotions, through concrete comparisons that can then be elaborated on by accompanying adjectives. For example, you could build on the previous examples by saying: “happiness is the glowing summer sun”. This is relating to the feelings of joy to the permanent fixtures of the sun.

Example of Others
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
For life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a Barron field
Frozen with snow.
- Langston Huges

Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture: The definition of my name and femininity.

Women I am,
From the earth,
She takes her stand.

I am Eve,
The earth,
I take my stand
- Eve Genders

Imperative Verbs

An imperative verb is a verb used to make an imperative sentence. An imperative sentence is a sentence that gives an order or command.

Authors and poets use imperative verbs and imperative sentences to communicate their point of the text across to the readers. Imperative verbs sound like the author or poet is being bossy and leave no room for questions or discussions.

Example of Others
Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays
with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,
the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.
- Dinosaurs in the Hood, Danez Smith

Example of Mine
Aspect of Deep Culture: The hidden or unseen aspects of culture.

Yet you never go deep enough to uncover
Open that book!
Read in-between the lines
The dark secrets will have you shook.
- Never Judge a Book by its Cover, Jasmine Griffiths