Used more than any other printers mark, the comma not only helps clarify grammar in a sentence but serves the spoken reader by providing clues for pace, rhythm, vocal pitch, tone & flow.
Writing: A-l
- allegory
- A narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface. A perfectly subversive storytelling technique to hide meaning from some while revealing it to others.
- ballad
- A folk poem (often sung) telling of a tragic, legendary incident or hero.
- blank verse
- An old English style echoing natural rhythms of speech, not to be confused with free verse, modern American, which has no regular meter.
- connotation
- What is suggested, beyond what is expressed, for instance, the word "sulfurous" used in a poem can imply irritation, heat, tension, damnation.
- denotation
- The dictionary, plain, flat meaning of words.
- dramatic verse
- The poem expresses some universal message through a fictional character rather than the poet's first person.
- hyperbole
- Overstatement, usually funny exaggeration in service of some truth. "There were a zillion people in line for a latte".
- imagery
- Language expressing a clear mental picture or sensory experience.
- inspire
- From Greek "taking in of breath", 19th century poets believed inspiration came from the unconscious mind & imagination.
- irony
- An effective, dry humor technique to imply some sort of discrepancy or incongruity. Allows a performer/writer to communicate more than is said while amusing the audience.
- literature
- A second gear of language for stepping up the intensity & clarifying significant human experience.
- lyric
- Comes from Ancient Greek meaning "song for the lyre", but today means a fairly short poem expressing the feelings or mood of the speaker, as opposed to narrative (story) style or dramatic verse.
Writing: M-Z
- metaphor
- An implied comparison between two unlike things. If you use like, as, than, similar to, or resembles, call it a "simile".
- meter
- The pattern group of syllables in a poem, like long & short and stressed & unstressed.
- narrative poetry
- Refers to a poem that tells a story usually through the first person perspective.
- paradox
- An apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true; its great shock value jolts the listener into awareness of some truth.
- personification
- When you give traits of humans to an animal, object or an idea.
- poetry
- Literature written to be heard aloud, meaning is conveyed through sound as well as print to synthesize human experience. As universal & ancient as language itself, people have always been more successful at doing it than defining it.
- prose
- Non-verse style, like commentary or story, can be a poem without meter or stanza structure.
- prosody
- Notations on the written page used by a spoken word-er for following vocal changes in stress, intonations, volume, pauses, and any other read-aloud techniques that have to happen on cue.
- rhythm
- All life rides on it, heart beats, breathing, walking, talking. It is the wave-like reoccurring motion of life & sound- notice it, perform it, be it.
- symbol
- A visual image, thing, animal or person that stands for something more profound. An icon.
- synecdoche
- [sin-ECK-duh-key] The use of the part for the whole. Like saying a smart person is a "brain".
- Ta-dum, ta-dum, ta-dum.
- One of the worst ways to read poetry aloud.
- verse
- In poetic form, including principles of meter, rhythm, rhyme & stanzas.
