assonance
A poetic technique in which the middle sound of a word (usually a vowel) is repeated in words that are next to the word or near it.
Examples:
get special letters
show old jokes
silly little kids
cliché
An overused expression that lacks power because it is so familiar.
Examples:
brave as a lion
the quiet before the storm
head over heels in love
consonance
The repetition of the same sounds (particularly consonants) within words that are nearby.
Examples:
fancy ruffled cuffs
happily playing pandas
little Italian treats
hyperbole
An extremely exaggerated statement.
Examples:
She was so scared, she thought she would die.
I'm starving because I skipped breakfast.
I've got a ton of homework.
juxtaposition
The placement of two very different words or ideas side by side to create a strong sense of contrast (but also connection) between the two.
Examples:
My sweet, cuddly puppy has teeth that can tear a shoe to pieces.
He was the most selfish philanthropist I ever met.
metaphor
A figure of speech that says that one thing is another different thing as a way to compare the two and note their similarities.
Examples:
My little brother is a fly that keeps buzzing around my head.
The sunrise was a masterpiece of yellow and orange.
onomatopoeia
When a word sounds like the object it names or the sound that object makes.
Examples: meow, knock knock, squirt
personification
Giving lifelike characteristics to an inanimate object or an abstract idea; describing an object as if it were alive.
Examples:
The clock on the wall scolded me for being late with its angry tick-tock.
The flowers danced in the breeze.
simile
A comparison of one thing with another using "like" or "as."
Examples:
Her shouts were as loud as a trumpeting elephant.
The daffodils were yellow like melted butter.
slant rhyme
Two words that share the same final consonant sound or two words that share the same middle vowel sound. They sound almost like rhyming words, but not quite.
Examples:
"Hope" is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
—Emily Dickinson
In this example "soul" and "all" create a slant rhyme.
***
Poems
by E. E. Cummings
because it'
Spring
thingS
dare to do people
(& not
the other way
's A
pril
Lives lead their own
persons(in
stead
of everybodyelse's)but
what's wholly
marvellous my
Darling
is that you &
i are more than you
& i(be
ca
us
e It's we)
MUSHROOMS
by Sylvia Plath
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.
"Mushrooms" from THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath, copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Sylvia Plath. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission. For on-line information about any other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet web site at www.randomhouse.com.
TOAD
by Valerie Worth
When the flowers
Turned clever, and
Earned wide
Tender red petals
For themselves,
When the birds
Learned about feathers,
Spread green tails,
Grew cockades
On their heads,
The toad said:
Someone has got
To remember
The mud, and
I'm not proud.
BUG
by Malik
I dug a bug from under the rug.
The bug said hi and looked me in the eye.
I hugged my bug.
Bad idea!
Bye-bye bug.
FOG
by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
COUNTING RIBS
by Mrs. Overton
your head
too weak to lift I
lay my own alongside
yours and run my hand
across the silky familiar side of you
fingers feeling bone beneath
one two three
breathe
four five six
please
seven eight nine
breathe
counting to keep my
eyes from crying my
heart from breaking
out
of its own ribbed cage
breathe please breathe
GRANDMA
by Evan Treski
a tree(doesn't have)
knees that creak
but
Grandma
does
a tree(wouldn't forget)
my name
but
Grandma
did
a tree(stands tall)
and proud
and good
and
Grandma
is
a tree
by E. E. Cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life
;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
PONY GIRL
by Evan Treski
pony girl
flying by
always late
lately in my heart
you laugh your
happy laugh
you smile your
kindly smile
you gallop past
me standing still
dumb struck
THE QUARREL
by Eleanor Farjeon
I quarreled with my brother,
I don't know what about,
One thing led to another And somehow we fell out.
The start of it was slight,
The end of it was strong,
He said he was right,
I knew he was wrong!
We hated one another.
The afternoon turned black.
Then suddenly my brother Thumped me on the back,
And said, "Oh, come along!
We can't go on all night—
I was in the wrong."
So he was in the right.
Acknowledgments
Always, always, and ever again, thanks to my writers' group: Carol Peacock, Sarah Lamstein, Tracey Fern, and Mary Atkinson. A very special thanks to the teachers and students who have taken part in, contributed to, shaped, and brought life to the poetry residency I teach in elementary schools across the country, in particular my friends at Pine Hill Elementary School, who have been getting all jazzed up about poetry with me for almost a decade. I also want to thank Amy Cicala, fourth grade teacher at Hillside Elementary School, for sitting down with me and having a frank and enlightening discussion about love (and other matters) in the fourth grade, and Michael Kascak, principal at Hillside, who shared with me his school (and life) philosophy: "Be kind and do your work." Thanks again to Ryle Sammut, who contributed Evan's handwriting to the artwork in the book, and to Marisa Ih, who came up with the clever title "The Sweet Truth." A mother's thank-you goes to Mae Davies, who wrote me a poem when she was Evan's age that began, "A vase is just a vase / 'Til you put flowers in it." To the "Permissions Mavens" at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who shepherded me through the process of securing permissions for this book—Katie Huha and Mary Dalton-Hoffman—I can only say that I owe you my sanity and I am forever in awe of your abilities. I also bow down before the talented team at HMH who make books appear out of air: the gifted Cara Llewellyn, rock-steady Christine Krones, and nimble Ann-Marie Pucillo. And if at this point in the unwieldy Acknowledgments paragraph I were able to blow a trumpet, shine a spotlight, drop balloons, and strike up a loud brass band, I would do all that to say thank you, thank you, thank you to my editor Ann Rider. i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart).
Permissions Credits
"Because it's". Copyright © 1963, 1991 by The Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust, "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in." Copyright 1952, © 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust, from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904–1962 by E.E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
"The Quarrel" from SILVER SAND AND SNOW by Eleanor Farjeon. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates, London.
"Mushrooms" from THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath, copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Sylvia Plath. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.
"Fog" from CHICAGO POEMS by Carl Sandburg, copyright 1916 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston and renewed 1944 by Carl Sandburg, reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
The poem "TOAD" from ALL THE SMALL POEMS AND FOURTEEN MORE © 1994 by Valerie Worth. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Imagine if every family in your school read The Lemonade War.
Together.
At home.
At the same time.
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About the Author
JACQUELINE DAVIES is the talented, award-winning writer of several novels and picture books. She lives in Needham, Massachusetts, with her family. Visit her website at www.jacquelinedavies.net.