Onomatopoeia

Definition: a word that describes a sound
Example: buzz, boom, smash
Significance: It makes the poem more interesting.

Personification

Definition: to give something, that is not human, human traits
Example: "Hey diddle, Diddle,
                The cat and the fiddle,
                The cow jumped over the moon;
                The little dog laughed 
                To see such sport,
                And the dish ran away with the spoon."

                  -Mother Goose

Significance: It makes the poem more dramatic and interesting. Personification can also 

give a poem a certain mood.

Imagery

Definition: to describe how something looks, feels,
                sounds, tastes, or smells
Example: "I wandered lonely as a cloud
                That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
                When all at once I saw a crowd,
                A host, of golden daffodils;
                Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
                Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.  
                For oft, when on my couch I lie
                In vacant or in pensive mood,
               They flash upon that inward eye
               Which is the bliss of solitude;
               And then my heart with pleasure fills,
               And dances with the daffodils."
                 -William Wordsworth
Significance: It shows the reader what everything in the poem looks, feels, sounds, tastes or smells by using visual, tactile, auditory, gustatory, or olfactory imagery. 

Simile

Definition: comparing things using like or as
Example:  Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
                Donkey: They stink?
                Shrek: Yes. No!
                Donkey: They make you cry?
                Shrek: No!
                Donkey: You leave them out in the sun, they 

                                                                                    get all brown, start sprouting little 

                                                                                    white hairs.

                                                                     Shrek: No! Layers! Onions have layers!
                                                                     (Shrek, 2001)

Significance: Similes help the reader understand a concept by comparing it to another concept.

Repetition

Definition: to repeat a phrase or word
Example: "Because I do not hope to turn again/Because I do not hope/Because I do not hope to turn..."
                 -T.S. Eliot
Significance: Repetition helps to give a poem rhythm.

Tone

Definition: the attitude the poem implies
Example: "People never believe you." 
                       -Holden Caulfield
Significance: Without a tone, a poem would be boring, flat statements. It gives the poem a sort of personality.

Interpretation

Definition: one's own view of another's figurative work
Example: In the poem "if" by Rudyard Kipling, the line "keep your head" can be interpreted as keeping your sanity.

Significance: The reader of a poem always interprets what they read.

Metaphor and Extended Metaphor

Definition: comparing two things without using like or as; an extended metaphor is a group of metaphors that originate from the same metaphor.
Example: 

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players They have their exits and their entrances"                  -William Shakespeare
Significance: Both of them make a poem more interesting.

Speaker

Definition: the one that is in and telling the poem
Example:" Upon a fuzzy vista – vision blurred –
I tried to focus; nothing ever solid
Came to view, but undeterred, I blinked
An eye to try again. Through the mist
A coloured hue; polychromatic flames
Had flickered at a whim; a rhythm bore
A thrumming too: a naturalistic hymn.
Behold! Were I to find a synonym to
Reproduce or recreate
The apparition of a butterfly,
Evolving through the waning vapour,
Drawing on a sigh from this romantic.
Glory be! The raging sun above
Had fired his furnace, flaming off
The hangers on. Now I saw the flare:
His time has come. He spread a tortoiseshell –
A scene of Mother Nature at her best.
I lay in peace in knowing I was blessed."
                                       -Mark R Slaughter

Significance: A piece of writing has to have characters to make it interesting. So poets have speakers.

Symbol

Definition: an image that is metaphorical rather than literal

Example: "Rose, thou art sick!

               The invisible worm

               That flies in the night,

               In the howling storm,

               Has found out thy bed

               Of crimson joy:

               And his dark secret love

               Does thy life destroy"

                      -William Blake

Significance: Symbols reinforce meaning in the poem. They make the poem better by helping the reader understand what is happening in the poem.

Couplet

Definition: a stanza with two lines
Example:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
                                      -Alexander Pope
Significance: A couplet adds rhythm, and sometimes rhyme, to the poem to give a lasting impression. 

Stanza

Definition: a paragraph in a poem

Example:
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
 Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
 Rage, rage against the dying of the light"

                            -Dylan Thomas

Significance: It adds rhythm to the poem. A stanza divides the poem so it isn't a blob on the paper so the reader doesn't get confused.

Poetry

Definition: It is rhythmical written or spoken art. 

Example: "An old silent pond...

                A frog jumps into the pond,

                splash! Silence again."

                        -by Basho Matsuo (1644-1694)

Significance: Poetry is a unique way of expressing oneself. Not knowing how to express yourself would be a tragedy.