How poems are built

English · Reading Comprehension · ages 11-14

Name ______________________ Date ____________

Read this line: 'The sausages sizzled on the grill.' Which word copies a real sound?
- sausages
- sizzled
- grill
A stanza ends with these words: light, bright, day, play. What is the stanza's rhyme scheme?
- ABAB
- ABBA
- AABB
A poet builds a stanza out of a single couplet. How many lines does the stanza have?
Answer: ______________
In the line 'The soft snow silently settled,' which sound device is being used?
- Alliteration
- Onomatopoeia
- Enjambment
A poet groups her lines into stanzas of 3 lines each. What is each stanza called?
- Tercet
- Couplet
- Quatrain
A stanza has the rhyme scheme ABCCB. How many different end sounds does the stanza use?
Answer: ______________
A sentence in a poem runs past the end of a line with no pause, continuing straight into the next line. What effect does this create?
- It slows the reader down with a hard stop
- It speeds up the pace and pulls the reader forward
- It has no effect on pace
Read this line from a poem: 'The gate swung open, slowly, in the wind.' Where is the caesura?
- At the very end of the line
- At the start of the line
- In the middle of the line, at the pauses around 'slowly'
A poet wants a line to feel slow and heavy, with weight on one important word. Which technique should she use?
- Enjambment, to spill the sentence over the line break
- A caesura, to force a pause in the middle of the line
- Alliteration, to repeat a starting sound
Which pair of lines uses enjambment?
- 'The rain fell soft all day. / The streets shone grey and still.'
- 'The bell rang out at noon. / We ran inside for lunch.'
- 'She held the letter close and / never said a word.'

Answer key

For grown-ups. Fold this page away before handing over the rest.

How poems are built W1-mt_aClzPBiS9k-s1

sizzled · Sizzled imitates the hissing sound of the food, so it is onomatopoeia.
AABB · Matching end sounds get matching letters: light and bright are A, day and play are B, giving AABB.
2 · A couplet is a 2-line stanza.
Alliteration · The repeated s sound at the start of several words is alliteration.
Tercet · A 3-line stanza is a tercet.
3 · Only the letters A, B, and C appear, so there are 3 different end sounds.
It speeds up the pace and pulls the reader forward · This is enjambment. Because there's no punctuation or pause, the reader's eye keeps moving into the next line.
In the middle of the line, at the pauses around 'slowly' · The commas around slowly force pauses in the middle of the line, and a mid-line pause is a caesura.
A caesura, to force a pause in the middle of the line · A mid-line pause slows the reader and stresses nearby words, which is the caesura's job.
'She held the letter close and / never said a word.' · Only the pair about the letter lets the sentence run past the line break with no pause, which is enjambment.