Some Things to Think About

"A poem is a fictional, verbally inventive moral statement in which it is the author, rather than the printer or word processor,
who decides where the lines should end (Terry Eagleton, p 37)."
"Poems are moral statements, then, not because they launch stringent judgments according to some code, but because they deal
in human values, meanings and purposes (Eagleton, p.41)."
"A poem is a statement released into the public world for us to make of it what we may. It is a piece of writing which could by
definition never have just one meaning. Instead, it can mean anything we can plausibly interpret it to mean though a great deal
hangs on that plausibly (Eagleton, p44)."
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Some Figures of Speech
Figures of Speech/tropes "is any language that goes beyond the literal meaning of words in order to furnish new effects or fresh
insights into and idea or a subject" ((Bernardo, p349).
1. Simile - an explicit comparison between two things or objects of different nature but have something in common; a
comparison that uses the words "as" and "like"
Examples: "Float like a flower, sting like a bee." - Muhammad Ali. As fast as a tiger.
2. Metaphor - a direct comparison between two things or objects of different nature that have something in common; it does not
use the connective words "like" and "as."
Examples: Life is a dream. He is a lion in the battlefield.
3. Synecdoche - a figure of speech in which the part stands for the whole.
Examples: Show me your new wheels, Juan. Many eyes watched him go home.
4. Metonymy - the substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant.
Examples: And the knights protected the crown (monarchy) from the Turks.
"The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars." - Pablo Neruda, The Dictators
(top hats, gold braid, and collars: people in power, wealthy men, industrialists, capitalists, church officials)
5. Personification - a figure of speech in which human attributes or qualities are given to animals, objects, and concepts.
Examples: The wind whispered to her. The sky cried.
6. Apostrophe - addressing or communicating to an absent person or personified abstraction (i.e. death, love, fate).
Example:
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so..." - John Donne
7. Hyperbole - using exaggeration for emphasis or heightened effect.
Examples: She is the most beautiful mother in the world. America is so greedy that they want to invade Mars.
8. Litotes - the deliberate use of understatement.
Examples: Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo are small-time thieves. William Shakespeare is not a bad writer.
9. Irony - the use of words that intend to convey the opposite meaning.
Example: Ferdinand Marcos loved his country. As president, he ordered the murder of many Filipinos and stole lots of money,
which he deposited in foreign bank accounts.
10. Onomatopoeia - the use of words that imitate the sound of objects or actions.
Examples: The birds flutter their wings. The guns boom from afar.
11. Oxymoron - the yoking of two contradictory terms.
Examples: thunderous silence, filthy rich, loner's club
12. Paradox - a seemingly contradictory statement that contains a measure of truth.
Examples: "Art is a form of lying to tell the truth." - Pablo Picasso

William Carlos Williams, American poet and doctor

This is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Sources:
Wolosky, Shira. The Art of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Eagleton, Terry. How to Read a Poem. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2007.
Bernardo, Alejandro. Developmental Reading I. Manila: Rex Book Store, 2009.
http://www.mrgunnar.net/ap.cfm?subpage=347181
http://www.english-for-students.com/Figure-of-Speech.html

Tone, mood, and pitch

Intensity and pace
Texture
Syntax, grammar and punctuation
ambiguity
rhyme
imagery