Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings

While William Wordsworth is famous for saying that good poetry is the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” he also believed that it was important for a poet to think “long and deeply” and to give careful attention to structural elements like rhyme and meter. Like all art, this means that poetry is concerned with form and emotion. It’s like a monster in a cage, with emotion being the monster and form representing the cage. Sometimes we marvel at the fearsomeness of the monster; other times we are struck at the power of the cage that restrains it. 

This is of course the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy. Some art favors one side over the other, but all great art has elements of both. In poetry, expressive devices include different kinds of imagery, such as metaphor, symbol, and analogy. Formal devices include things that make poetry “musical,” such as meter, rhyme, and the sounds of the words you use. One of the most challenging things in writing poetry is to get the words to conform to a structure and simultaneously express deep emotion. But this is the essence of poetic language and the thing that gives it its power.

The ability to use poetic language, to make your words have both form and expression, is useful even if you never compose a single poem in your life. In fact, all great prose, whether it be a novel, a thank-you note, a birthday wish, or a business letter, can be immeasurably improved by the inclusion of poetic forms and expressive devices. The fact is that people are moved by poetry, whether it comes in the form of a love sonnet or a description of why an employer should consider you for a position in her company. If you can skillfully use poetic devices in your prose, you will find that you will get farther in life.

For this assignment you are to write a letter to, or about, someone you admire. It may be a love letter, or it can be something less romantic and more practical, like a letter of recommendation. Either way you are to use examples of poetic language, both formal and expressive, to describe the traits of this person

Write a letter, using at least six of the poetic devices below, including at least two from each category.

Using brackets [like this] label each of your devices.

For example, my fine friends, this is a fabulous frenzy of fricatives [alliteration]. You will be graded both on your use of the individual devices as well as the quality of the overall letter.

Prepare the letter in a word document.

Edit and revise as appropriate.

Form

Meter

End Rhyme

Sight Rhyme

Alliteration

Assonance

Consonance

Expression

Metaphor

Simile

Symbol

Synecdoche

Metonymy

Analogy

Allegory

Each of the poetic devices must be labeled in brackets

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