ELA 7 · Poetry
Saying more in fewer words
A poem packs a lot into a small space. It uses comparisons that bring a picture with them, sounds that match what the words describe, and a shape on the page that tells you how to read it. For each one, ask the same question: what does it add?
- 1. The words, first
- 2. Similes, metaphors and personification
- 3. Rhyme, rhythm and sound
- 4. Forms of poetry
- 5. What costs marks
The words, first
The idea: Figurative language is the one to start with: it means more than it says.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Figurative language | Words that mean more than they literally say, usually by making a picture or a comparison. |
| Simile | A comparison of two different things using like or as. |
| Metaphor | A comparison that says one thing is another, with no like or as. |
| Personification | Giving human actions or feelings to something that is not human. |
| Speaker | The voice in a poem — not automatically the poet. |
| Stanza | A group of lines set apart: a poem's paragraph. |
| Syllable | One unit of sound in a word: snow has one, Ed·mon·ton three. |
| Rhythm | The pattern of strong and weak syllables. Each strong one is a beat. |
| Rhyme scheme | The pattern of rhyming line endings, marked with letters. Lines that rhyme share a letter. |
| Alliteration | The same first sound in nearby words: slow, soft slide. |
| Onomatopoeia | A word that sounds like what it names: slap, buzz, crunch. |
Similes, metaphors and personification
The idea: Every comparison brings something with it. Ask what the second thing adds to the first.
The plow comes through, a grumbling whale
that swims the streets at night.
By morning, all the driveways wake
to find their mouths shut tight.
A model reading. Literally, a snowplow clears the street overnight and leaves a ridge of packed snow across the end of every driveway. Now the comparisons:
- Metaphor: the plow is a whale, huge and slow, with no like or as. Swims keeps the picture going: the snowy street becomes a sea.
- Personification: driveways do not wake up or have mouths. Here they do, and the plow has shut them.
- What it adds: anyone who has shovelled in an Alberta winter knows that ridge. The poem makes it funny, and a little unfair.
A simile does the same job with like or as: “The gym was as loud as a hockey rink in overtime” means more than noise — it is a crowd on its feet. But “I like skating” compares nothing.
Rhyme, rhythm and sound
The idea: Sound is chosen to match sense. When a line sounds heavy, soft, fast or slow, ask what it is describing.
Rhyme scheme. Give the first end sound the letter A, and each new sound the next letter: whale (A), night (B), wake (C), tight (B) — ABCB. Whale and wake share a vowel sound but not an ending, so they do not rhyme.
| Device | Example | The sound matches |
|---|---|---|
| Alliteration | the slow, soft slide of snow off the roof | the hush of snow moving |
| Onomatopoeia | The screen door slapped shut behind her. | the sharp noise itself |
| Repetition | Drip. Drip. Drip. The icicles were counting down to spring. | water falling one drop at a time |
Naming the device is half an answer. The other half is what it matches.
Forms of poetry
The idea: A form is a set of rules for a poem's shape. Knowing the rules tells you what to count, and what the poet chose to do inside them.
| Form | The rules | Look for |
|---|---|---|
| Haiku | Three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables, often one moment in nature | The small detail that makes the moment |
| Limerick | Five lines rhyming AABBA, bouncy and funny | The joke in the last line |
| Free verse | No regular rhyme or rhythm | Where the lines break |
| Concrete poem | Words set out in the shape of the subject | What the shape adds |
First warm day of March —
the snowman in the schoolyard
is down to one glove
A haiku: first-warm-day-of-March (5), the-snow-man-in-the-school-yard (7), is-down-to-one-glove (5). It never says the snowman melted. It shows what is left and lets you work out the rest.
Grandma braids my hair
the way she braided her sister's
seventy years ago —
too tight,
and I don't say a word.
Free verse. With no rhyme or beat, the line breaks do the work. Too tight sits alone on its line, so you pause on it — and the last line shows the speaker puts up with it, because the braids connect her to something older than a hairstyle.
What costs marks
The idea: Most come from naming a device and stopping there.
- Calling every comparison a metaphor. With like or as, it is a simile.
- Naming a device without saying what it adds.
- Matching words that only look alike in a rhyme scheme: cough and though do not rhyme.
- Assuming the speaker is the poet.