POETIC TERMS (1-7)

1. POETIC TERMS (1-7)

2. ASSONANCE Definition: Repetition of vowel sounds “I bomb atomically—Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses can't define how I be droppin' these mockeries.” --Inspectah Deck, Wu Tang Clan’s “Triumph”

3. APOSTROPHE Definition: turning from addressing a general audience to addressing an absent person, an abstract concept, or a personified object/idea (usually beginning with “O” or “Oh”). “Oh hot dam; this is my jam. Keep me partying until the a.m. Y’all don’t understand. Make me throw my hands in the ayer, ay-ayer, ayer, ay-ayer” –Flo Rida “In the Ayer”

4. ANAPEST Definition: two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable “They do what they wanna do, say what they wanna say/Live how they wanna live, play how they wanna play” --MC Hammer “Addam’s Groove”

5. ANTHROPOMORPHISM Definition:Giving a non-human entity a physical, tangible human form.

6. ANACHRONISM Definition: Misplaced in time “Hey Mona Lisa, come home; you know you can’t Rome without Caesar” –Kanye West “Flashing Lights”

7. ANTIMETABOLE Definition: Repetition of words in successive clauses but transposed in grammatical order “The rhythm is the bass and the bass is the treble” --Warren G “Regulate”

8. ALLITERATION Definition: the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words used to reinforce meaning, unify thought, or create a musical effect. “Hip hop hooray…ho…hey…ho…hey…ho…etc.” –Naughty by Nature

9. RAP TIME Now that takes us to ANTHROPOMORPHISM Biggest word you ever heard to show the tiny schism Between the non-human thing and its human description It’s just personification! Who the hell are they kiddin?!? ANACHRONISM’s next Time travel is the best I play croquet with Monet Two Chains and Obewon play chess Then I check my swatch watch to see if it’s time For a ‘80s rap battle with Grendel, Anglo-Saxon style And the final term we have is ANTIMETABOLE Who thought up this term? This concept is worse than Glee Just transpose your words, and the words they will transpose If he knows he’s got a hit, then he’s hit it on the nose Last one- almost done- ALLITERATION- not so fun Diction discrimination ‘cross the nation Picking pecks of prejudiced puns Why would words have to have the same start? Let’s liberate our letters to ameliorate our art. Now you know the terms; now you got this in the bag Strut your stuff on the test; show off your poem swag. When you take that AP test, don’t trip, don’t stress ‘Cause I got ill-est skills to help you pass the test I got these silly rhymes; I got these studyin’ tips Sit up straight and straight up listen now; just read my lips. First up is ASSONANCE: What’s that “ass” word all about? Just the sound of vowels that plough out of your mouth Like bitch pleez, you ain’t got steez You got your pants around your knees Just like Hamlet on his planet of antic plans and frantic pleas Then there’s APOSTROPHES Oh no, you didn’t! OH SNAP! Addressin’ absent people, abstract concepts Like an old demented bat Like “O Brother Where Art Thou?” or even “OMG”! They punctuate the drama like- “O God, you forsake me!” After apostrophes, then there’s ANAPEST It’s not the coolest meter you will see up on the test Two unstressed /one stressed will leave you kind of stressed If you listen long enough, it causes cardiac arrest

10. AGHA SHAHID ALI The Half-Inch Himalayas

11. ALI’s Background • Born in India in 1949; grew up Muslim in Kashmir • Studied at the University of Kashmir and the University of Delhi • Earned a Ph.D. in English from Penn State in 1984 • Earned an M.F.A. from University of Arizona in 1985 • Prolific poet and professor (taught in the M.F.A. Creative Writing program at the University of Massachusetts) • Died December 8th, 2001 of brain cancer

12. “You cannot cross-Examine the dead”

13. KASHMIR • Until the 19th century Kashmir was considered the valley region between the Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range • In 1949 it became a disputed territory, administered between three regions: India, Pakistan, and China

14. A PLACE of beauty and enormous political strife

15. THEMES IN ALI’S Poems • THE PAST (fixation with ancestry and history) • LOSS (of culture, of home, of identity, of stability) • SEPARATION (being away from home; home itself being separated and disjointed) • DISLOCATION (feeling displaced; in cultural limbo: Kashmiri-American) • EXILE (loss of home: feeling like a foreigner no matter where you go)

16. “Postcards from Kashmir” Postcard from Kashmir - Agha Shahid AliKashmir shrinks into my mailbox,my home a neat four by six inches.I always loved neatness. Now I holdthe half-inch Himalayas in my hand.This is home. And this the closestI'll ever be to home. When I return,the colors won't be so brilliant,the Jhelum's waters so clean,so ultramarine. My loveso overexposed.And my memory will be a littleout of focus, it ina giant negative, blackand white, still undeveloped.

17. “Snowmen” This heirloom, his skeleton under my skin, passed from son to grandson, generations of snowmen on my back. They tap every year on my window, their voices hushed to ice. No, they won’t let me out of winter, and I’ve promised myself, even if I’m the last snowman, that I’ll ride into spring on their melting shoulders. My ancestor, a man of Himalayan snow, came to Kashmir from Samarkand, carrying a bag of whale bones: heirlooms from sea funerals. His skeleton carved from glaciers, his breath arctic, he froze women in his embrace. His wife thawed into stony water, her old age a clear evaporation.

18. The GHAZAL • 6th century Pre-Islamic Arabic verse • Poetic expression of the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain • Form: five of more couplets (consistent meter) • Goethe made ghazals popular in 19th century Germany • Agha Shahid Ali broughtghazals to the English language

19. “GHAZAL” And who is the terrorist, who the victim? We’ll know if the country is polled in real time. “Behind a door marked DANGER” are being unwound the prayers my friend had enscrolled in real time. The throat of the rearview and sliding down it the Street of Farewell’s now unrolled in real time. I heard the incessant dissolving of silk— I felt my heart growing so old in real time. Her heart must be ash where her body lies burned. What hope lets your hands rake the cold in real time? Now Friend, the Belovèd has stolen your words— Read slowly: The plot will unfold in real time. I’ll do what I must if I’m bold in real time. A refugee, I’ll be paroled in real time. Cool evidence clawed off like shirts of hell-fire? A former existence untold in real time ... The one you would choose: Were you led then by him? What longing, O Yaar, is controlled in real time? Each syllable sucked under waves of our earth— The funeral love comes to hold in real time! They left him alive so that he could be lonely— The god of small things is not consoled in real time. Please afterwards empty my pockets of keys— It’s hell in the city of gold in real time. God’s angels again are—for Satan!—forlorn. Salvation was bought but sin sold in real time.

20. WORKS CITED • Agha Shahid Ali - Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/127>. • Ali, Agha Shahid. "Poetic Form: Ghazal - Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. <http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5781>.