Form & Style Devices

The strictest form of poetry. Must have 14 lines, follow a specific rhyme scheme, and maintain a uniform rhythm and meter.

If the poem does not include all of the above devices, it is NOT a sonnet.

Some famous sonnet writers: Shakespeare, Elizabeth B. Browning.

To My Mother by Edgar Allan Poe

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,

The angels, whispering to one another,

Can find, among their burning terms of love,

None so devotional as that of “Mother,”

Therefore by that dear name I long have called you –

You who are more than mother unto me,

And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you

In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.

My mother – my own mother, who died early,

Was but the mother of myself; but you

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,

And thus are dearer than the mother I knew

By that infinity with which my wife

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

A

A

B

B

C

C

D

D

E

E

C

C

F

F

3 Groups of 4 have a similar

pattern of rhyme.

Rhymed Couplet

Each linehas exactly 10 or 11 syllables.

Poetry that follows no rules. Just about anything goes.

This does not mean that it uses no devices, it just means that thistype of poetry does not follow traditional conventions such aspunctuation, capitalization, rhyme scheme, rhythm and meter, etc.

Fog

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then, moves on.

No RhymeNo RhythmNo Meter

This is free verse.

A poem where the words form a visual image.

from wells far underground

with strength

girthed itself

upon a trunk

upon a branch

upon a sprig

once a leaf

spring by spring

a century ago

from under land

This is a concretepoem in the shape ofan oak tree. You readit from the bottom up,

just like a tree would grow.

Oak

By Dawn Watkins

Addressing someone by name or title within a poem.

Addressing someone means talking directly to them while callingthem by name.Saying “You are my favorite person” does NOT count as an apostrophe. Saying “Mother, you are my favorite person” is anapostrophe.

To Abraham LincolnBy John James Piatt

STERN be the pilot in the dreadful hourWhen a great nation, like a ship at seaWith the wroth breakers whitening at her lee,Feels her last shudder if her helmsmen cower; A godlike manhood be his mighty dower!Such and so gifted, Lincoln, mayst thou be,With thy high wisdom’s low simplicityAnd awful tenderness of voted power.From our hot records then thy name shall standOn Time’s calm ledger out of passionate days—With the pure debt of gratitude begun,And only paid in never-ending praise—One of the many of a mighty Land,Made by God’s providence the Anointed One.

apostrophe

This proves the poet is

talking to

Lincoln

A reference to another piece of literature or to history.

Example: “She hath Dian’s wit” (from Romeo and Juliet).This is an allusion to Roman mythology and the goddess Diana.

The three most common types of allusion refer to mythology, the Bible, and Shakespeare’s writings.

Don Quixote

by Craven Langstroth Betts

Gaunt, rueful knight, on raw-boned, shambling hack,

Thy battered morion, shield and rusty spear,

Job ever down the road in strange career,

Both tears and laughter following on thy track,

Stout Sancho hard behind, whose leathern back

Is curved in clownish sufferance, mutual cheer

The quest beguiling as devoid of fear,

Thou spurrest to rid the world of rogues, alack!

Despite fantastic creed and addled pate,

Of awkward arms and weight of creaking steel,

Nobility is thine – the high estate

That arms knights errant for all human weal;

How rare, La Mancha, grow such souls of late, --

Dear, foiled enthusiast, teach our hearts to feel!

allusion

This poem is anallusion to the classic

novel Don Quixoteby Miguel

de Cervantes.

That’s it for the form and style devices: