The Candy Smash (17 page)

alliteration

When the same letter or sound occurs at the beginning of words that are next to each other or nearby.

Examples:
heavenly hair
delicate and dainty daffodils
Be careful of cats' claws!

 

assonance

A poetic technique in which the middle sound of a word (usually a vowel) is repeated in words that are next to the word or near it.

Examples:
get special letters
show old jokes
silly little kids

 

cliché

An overused expression that lacks power because it is so familiar.

Examples:
brave as a lion
the quiet before the storm
head over heels in love

 

consonance

The repetition of the same sounds (particularly consonants) within words that are nearby.

Examples:
fancy ruffled cuffs
happily playing pandas
little Italian treats

 

hyperbole

An extremely exaggerated statement.

Examples:
She was so scared, she thought she would die.
I'm starving because I skipped breakfast.
I've got a ton of homework.

 

juxtaposition

The placement of two very different words or ideas side by side to create a strong sense of contrast (but also connection) between the two.

Examples:
My sweet, cuddly puppy has teeth that can tear a shoe to pieces.
He was the most selfish philanthropist I ever met.

 

metaphor

A figure of speech that says that one thing is another different thing as a way to compare the two and note their similarities.

Examples:
My little brother is a fly that keeps buzzing around my head.
The sunrise was a masterpiece of yellow and orange.

 

onomatopoeia

When a word sounds like the object it names or the sound that object makes.

Examples:
meow, knock knock, squirt

 

personification

Giving lifelike characteristics to an inanimate object or an abstract idea; describing an object as if it were alive.

Examples:
The clock on the wall scolded me for being late with its angry tick-tock.
The flowers danced in the breeze.

 

simile

A comparison of one thing with another using "like" or "as."

Examples:
Her shouts were as loud as a trumpeting elephant.
The daffodils were yellow like melted butter.

 

slant rhyme

Two words that share the same final consonant sound or two words that share the same middle vowel sound. They sound almost like rhyming words, but not quite.

Examples:

 

"
Hope" is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

—Emily Dickinson

 

In this example "soul" and "all" create a slant rhyme.

***

by E. E. Cummings

 

because it'

 

Spring
thingS

 

dare to do people

 

(& not
the other way

 

round)because it

 

's A
pril

 

Lives lead their own

 

persons(in
stead

 

of everybodyelse's)but

 

what's wholly
marvellous my

 

Darling

 

is that you &
i are more than you

 

& i(be

 

ca
us

 

e It's we)

 

M
USHROOMS
by Sylvia Plath

 

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

 

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

 

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

 

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

 

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

 

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

 

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

 

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

 

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

 

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

 

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

 

"Mushrooms" from THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath, copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Sylvia Plath. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission. For on-line information about any other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet web site at
www.randomhouse.com
.

 

T
OAD
by Valerie Worth

 

When the flowers
Turned clever, and
Earned wide
Tender red petals
For themselves,

 

When the birds
Learned about feathers,
Spread green tails,
Grew cockades
On their heads,

 

The toad said:
Someone has got
To remember
The mud, and
I'm not proud.

 

B
UG
by Malik

 

I dug a bug from under the rug.
The bug said hi and looked me in the eye.
I hugged my bug.
Bad idea!
Bye-bye bug.

 

F
OG
by Carl Sandburg

 

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

 

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

 

C
OUNTING
R
IBS
by Mrs. Overton

 

your head
too weak to lift I
lay my own alongside
yours and run my hand
across the silky familiar side of you
fingers feeling bone beneath
one      two      three
                    breathe
four      five      six     
                    please
seven      eight      nine
                    breathe

 

counting to keep my
eyes from crying my
heart from breaking
out
of its own ribbed cage

 

breathe      please      breathe

 

G
RANDMA
by Evan Treski

 

a tree(doesn't have)
knees that creak
      but
      Grandma
      does
a tree(wouldn't forget)
my name
      but
      Grandma
      did
a tree(stands tall)
and proud
and good
      and
      Grandma
      is

 

   a tree

 

by E. E. Cummings

 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

P
ONY
G
IRL
by Evan Treski

 

pony girl
flying by
always late
lately in my heart
you laugh your
happy laugh
you smile your
kindly smile
you gallop past
me standing still
dumb     struck

 

T
HE
Q
UARREL
by Eleanor Farjeon

 

I quarreled with my brother,
I don't know what about,
One thing led to another And somehow we fell out.
The start of it was slight,
The end of it was strong,
He said he was right,
I knew he was wrong!

 

We hated one another.
The afternoon turned black.
Then suddenly my brother Thumped me on the back,
And said, "Oh, come along!
We can't go on all night—
I was in the wrong."
So he was in the right.

Always, always, and ever again, thanks to my writers' group: Carol Peacock, Sarah Lamstein, Tracey Fern, and Mary Atkinson. A very special thanks to the teachers and students who have taken part in, contributed to, shaped, and brought life to the poetry residency I teach in elementary schools across the country, in particular my friends at Pine Hill Elementary School, who have been getting all jazzed up about poetry with me for almost a decade. I also want to thank Amy Cicala, fourth grade teacher at Hillside Elementary School, for sitting down with me and having a frank and enlightening discussion about love (and other matters) in the fourth grade, and Michael Kascak, principal at Hillside, who shared with me his school (and life) philosophy: "Be kind and do your work." Thanks again to Ryle Sammut, who contributed Evan's handwriting to the artwork in the book, and to Marisa Ih, who came up with the clever title "The Sweet Truth." A mother's thank-you goes to Mae Davies, who wrote me a poem when she was Evan's age that began, "A vase is just a vase / 'Til you put flowers in it." To the "Permissions Mavens" at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who shepherded me through the process of securing permissions for this book—Katie Huha and Mary Dalton-Hoffman—I can only say that I owe you my sanity and I am forever in awe of your abilities. I also bow down before the talented team at HMH who make books appear out of air: the gifted Cara Llewellyn, rock-steady Christine Krones, and nimble Ann-Marie Pucillo. And if at this point in the unwieldy Acknowledgments paragraph I were able to blow a trumpet, shine a spotlight, drop balloons, and strike up a loud brass band, I would do all that to say thank you, thank you, thank you to my editor Ann Rider.
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart).

"Because it's". Copyright © 1963, 1991 by The Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust, "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in." Copyright 1952, © 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust, from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904–1962 by E.E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

 

"The Quarrel" from SILVER SAND AND SNOW by Eleanor Farjeon. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates, London.

 

"Mushrooms" from THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath, copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Sylvia Plath. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

 

"Fog" from CHICAGO POEMS by Carl Sandburg, copyright 1916 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston and renewed 1944 by Carl Sandburg, reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

 

The poem "TOAD" from ALL THE SMALL POEMS AND FOURTEEN MORE © 1994 by Valerie Worth. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, LLC. All Rights Reserved.