Poetic Language Review (Mango)

A short literary sketch. A slice of life.

“Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor.”

“Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s.”

A reference to another work, a historical event, or famous person.

Something that represents something else; something concrete that stands for an abstract idea.

“My great-grandmother.”

“Uptown. Logan. Embassy. Palmer. Aragon. Fontana. The Manor.”

An incomplete sentence, used for poetic effect.

Correspondance of the sounds of the ending syllables or words. Often used at the end of lines.

“Today we are Cinderella because our feet fit exactly.”

“... as if the garden itself ate them, or, as if with its old-man memory it put them away ...”

Repetition of a symbol or image in order to develop a theme or idea.

“The baby’s feet had ten tiny toes…”

“With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias.”

"couches that spin dust in the air when you punch them and a hundred T.V.’s that don’t work”

Use of the senses to create mental pictures in the reader's mind.

Repetition a series of phrases or sentences with similar grammatical structure.

The repeated image of women leaning out of windows is an example of...

A comparison between two unlike things without using like or as.

“…windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath.”

“Some rooms uphill.”

“In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting.”

“Eddie Vargas laid his head beneath a hibiscus tree and fell asleep there like Rip Van Winkle.”

“I saw her barefoot baby toenails all painted pale pale pink, like little pink seashells.”

"...I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.”

A comparison of two things using like or as.

“Darius, who doesn’t like school, who is sometimes stupid and mostly a fool…”

“Rachel and Lucy who have the same fat popsicle lips.”

Using the same word, phrase or sentence throughout writing to create a poetic effect.

Giving human qualities or emotions to inanimate objects or nonliving things.

Repetition of the beginning sounds of words for poetic effect.

Breaking the rules of spelling, grammar or punctuation for poetic effect.

“You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there.”

“Baby cats, big cats, skinny cats, sick cats. Cats asleep like little donuts.”

“…clumsy and wild and with limbs flopping all over the place like untied shoes.”