Characteristics of Oral Poetry in East Africa

 It takes the form of collective responsibility and activity. ...

 It has ability to involve a long population of the community since it begs for oral delivery.
...
 It also assumes an instant collective/communal response. ...
 It is a performed Poetry that is naturally dramatized.
5 Key Characteristics of Poetry
 Figures of Speech. Figures of speech, or figurative language, are ways of describing or
explaining things in a non-literal or non-traditional way. ...
 Descriptive Imagery. Imagery is something concrete, like a sight, smell or taste. ...
 Punctuation and Format. ...
 Sound and Tone. ...
 Choice of Meter.
Allegory

An allegory is a story, poem, or other written work that can be interpreted to have
a secondary meaning.

Aesop’s Fables are examples of allegories, as they are ostensibly about one thing (such
as “The Ant and the Grasshopper”) but actually have a secondary meaning. Fables are
particularly literal examples of allegories, but there are many others, as well, such as
George Orwell’s Animal Farm or Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Fruit.”

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of a sound or letter at the beginning of multiple words

in a series.

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…” 

- Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven”

Poe uses alliteration with the “wh,” sound at the beginning of multiple words. The
repetition here mimics the sound of the wind (something you might hear on a dreary
night), and also sounds a little soothing—something that’s interrupted in the next couple
of lines by a different sound, just as Poe interrupts his soothing, round vowel sounds
with repetition of the ‘p’ sound in “suddenly there came a tapping, / As of some one
gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door….”

Allusion

An allusion is an indirect reference to something.

“The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them hardest.”
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Lee isn’t speaking of a literal crash—she’s referencing the stock market crash of the late
1920s, which left many people without money. Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird’s narrator,
references the stock market crash in a way that’s appropriate for her context, which
readers can gather from the novel’s setting.

Using this allusion allows Lee to do some quick scene-setting. Not only does it
establish the novel firmly within its setting, but it also shows that Scout herself is
a clear part of that setting—she speaks to the audience in the way that a child of that
era would speak, giving the story a greater sense of realism.

Apostrophe

An apostrophe is a poetic device where the writer addresses a person or thing

that isn’t present with an exclamation.

“O stranger of the future!

O inconceivable being!
whatever the shape of your house,
no matter how strange and colorless the clothes you
may wear,
I bet nobody there likes a wet dog either.
I bet everybody in your pub
even the children, pushes her away.”

- Billy Collins, “To A Stranger Born In Some Distant Country Hundreds Of Years
From Now”
Though we know from the title that Collins is addressing a stranger from the future, in
the final stanza of the poem he addresses that stranger directly. Apostrophe was
particularly common in older forms of poetry, going all the way back to Ancient
Greece—many works of Greek literature begin with an invocation of the Muses,
typically by saying something like, “Sing in me, O Muse.” Because the narrator of
Collins’ poem is calling out to someone in the future, he mimics the language of the past
and situates this poem in a larger context.

Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of vowel or diphthong sounds in one or more words

found close together.

“ Hear the loud alarum bells—

                 Brazen bells!/ What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
       In the startled ear of night
       How they scream out their affright!
        Too much horrified to speak,
         They can only shriek, shriek,
                 Out of tune….”

- Edgar Allen Poe, “The Bells”

When Poe talks about alarm bells, he uses sharp, high-pitch vowels to echo their
sound: notice the repetition of long “e” and “i” sounds, both of which sound a bit like
screams.

Blank Verse

Blank verse refers to poetry written without rhyme, especially if that poetry is
written in iambic pentameter.

“But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,

So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must. …”

- William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Many of Shakespeare’s plays are written in blank verse, including much of “Hamlet.”
Here, the dialog is without rhymes, which makes it sound more realistic, but it still
follows a strict meter—iambic pentameter. This lends it a sense of
grandiosity beyond if Shakespeare had tried to mimic natural speech, and the
deliberate space of stressed and unstressed syllables gives it a satisfying sense of
rhythm.

Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of specific consonant sounds in close proximity.

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” - William Blake, “The Tyger”
Black repeatedly uses multiple sounds in the first stanza of this famous poem. One of
the most prominent is ‘r,’ which shows up in every line of the first stanza, and almost
every line of the poem as a whole. As Blake is writing about the tiger, he’s musing on its
fearsome nature and where it comes from, with the repeated ‘r’ sound mimicking the
tiger’s growl like a small, subtle threat in the poem’s background.

Enjambment
An enjambment is the continuation of a sentence beyond a line break, couplet, or
stanza without an expected pause.

“What happens to a dream deferred?

 
     Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?
 
     Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.
 
     Or does it explode?”

- Langston Hughes, “Harlem”

Hughes plays with multiple methods of ending lines in this poem, including enjambment.
The first two lines of the second stanza and the second-to-last stanza are examples of
enjambment, as the thought continues from one line to the next without any
punctuation. Notice the way these lines feel in comparison to the others, especially the
second example, isolated in its own stanza. The way it’s written mimics the
exhaustion of carrying a heavy load, as you can’t pause for breath the way that
you do with the lines ended with punctuation.

Irony

Irony has a few different meanings. The most common is the use of tone or
exaggeration to convey a meaning opposite to what's being literally said. A second form
of irony is situational irony, in which a situation or event contradicts expectations,
usually in a humorous fashion. A third form is dramatic irony, where the audience of a
play, movie, or other piece of art is aware of something that the characters are not.

Basic irony, where what someone says doesn't match what they mean, might look
something like this:

"Yeah, I love dogs," she said dryly, holding the miniature poodle at arm's length as
hives sprang up along her arms.
Situational irony would include things like a police station getting robbed or a marriage
counselor getting a divorce—we would expect police to be able to resist getting robbed
and a marriage counselor to be able to save their own marriage, so the fact that these
unexpected things occur is darkly funny. 

One of the most famous examples of dramatic irony is in Romeo and Juliet. The
audience knows that Juliet isn't dead when Romeo comes to find her in the tomb, but
obviously can't stop Romeo from killing himself to be with her. Unlike other forms of
irony, dramatic irony often isn't funny—it heightens tension and increases audience
investment, but doesn't necessarily have to make people laugh.

Metaphor

A metaphor is when a writer compares one thing to another.

“An emotional rollercoaster” is a common example of a metaphor—so common, in fact,

that it’s become cliche. Experiencing multiple emotions in a short period of time can feel
a lot like riding a roller coaster, as you have a series of extreme highs and lows.

Meter

Meter refers to the rhythm of a poem or other written work as it’s expressed
through the number and length of the feet in each line.

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief…”

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare famously wrote frequently in iambic pentameter,  a specific type of meter
containing five iambic feet. Iambs are a foot—a unit of rhythm—consisting of one
unstressed and one stressed syllable. In the first line of this passage, you have five
iambs, which produces a sort of heartbeat-esque rhythm.

“But soft / what light / through yon- / -der win- / -dow breaks?”

Meter like this gives readers expectations about how each line will go, which can be
very useful if you want to subvert them, such as how Shakespeare does in Hamlet:

“To be / or not / to be / that is / the ques- / -ion.”

Because we expect iambic pentameter, the rule-breaking here clues us in that
something isn’t right with Hamlet.
 

Ode

An ode is a short lyrical poem, often in praise of something.

“Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
       Of deities or mortals, or of both,
               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”

- John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” covers all the required bases of the ode—it’s short at just
five stanzas, it’s lyrical (the language is clearly elevated above regular speech), and it’s
written in praise of a scene on an imagined Grecian urn, which preserves the beauty of
several scenes for eternity.

Though Keats’ ode here may be in earnest, the deliberate use of language far outside
our normal method of speaking often makes the form ripe for satire. In this case, Keats
is using this language to discuss beauty and truth, two rather lofty themes that work in
tandem with the lofty language.

Pun

A pun is a play on words, using multiple meanings or similar sounds to make a

joke.

"Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. 

"It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail;
"but why do you call it sad?" And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was
speaking...."

- Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Here, Alice clearly misunderstands what the mouse is saying—he says ‘tale,’ referring
to his long and sad story, and she hears ‘tail,’ referring to his literal tail. The result is a
misunderstanding between the two that ends with Alice looking rude and uncaring.
Though it makes Alice look bad, it’s quite entertaining for the reader. The world of
Wonderland is full of strangeness, so it’s not really a surprise that Alice wouldn’t
understand what’s happening. However, in this case it’s a legitimate misunderstanding,
heightening the comedy as Alice’s worldview is once again shaken.

Repetition

Repetition is fairly self-explanatory—it’s the process of repeating certain words

or phrases.

“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.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.”

- Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

Throughout this poem, Thomas repeats the lines, “Do not go gentle into that good
night,” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The two lines don’t appear
together until the final couplet of the poem, cementing their importance in relation to one
another. But before that, the repetition of each line clues you in to their
importance. No matter what else is said, the repetition tells you that it all comes back to
those two lines.

Rhetorical Question

A rhetorical question is a question asked to make a point rather than in

expectation of an answer.

“Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns,
and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as
 much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman?
I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried
out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?”

- Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Sojourner Truth’s question to the Women’s Convention of 1981 in Akron, Ohio isn’t a
question that needs an answer. Of course she’s a woman—she, as well as everybody
else in the audience, knew that perfectly well. However, Sojourner Truth was a black
woman in the time of slavery. Many white women wouldn’t have considered her to be
part of the women’s rights movement despite her gender.

By asking the question, Sojourner Truth is raising the point that she is a woman, and
therefore should be part of the conversation about women’s rights. “Ain’t I a woman?”
isn’t a question of gender, but a question of race—if it’s a conference about women’s
rights, why weren’t black women included? By asking a question about an
undeniable truth, Sojourner Truth was in fact pointing out the hypocrisy of the
conference.

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of syllables at the end of words, often at the end of a line
of poetry, but there are many unique kinds of rhymes.

“It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
   By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
   Than to love and be loved by me.”

- Edgar Allen Poe, “Annabel Lee”

Poe’s poem starts off with a fairly typical ABAB rhyme scheme—the first line rhymes
with the third, the second with the fourth. However, in line five, we get a jarring line that
does not rhyme, which is carried through the rest of the poem. The rhyming sounds
hearken back to classic songs and stories, but is undone by something that doesn’t
sound right, just as the classic love story of the narrator and Annabel Lee is undone by
tragedy.

Rhythm
Rhythm refers to the pattern of long, short, stressed, and unstressed syllables in
writing.

“Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake…”

- William Shakespeare, Macbeth
In this scene from Macbeth, the witches are positioned as being strange and unnatural,
and the rhyme scheme Shakespeare uses is also unnatural. It lends the passage a
sing-song quality that isn’t present in other parts of the play, which is easy to get stuck
in your head. This is important, because their prophecies also get stuck in Macbeth’s
head, leading him to commit his horrible crimes.

Sonnet

A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with a strict rhyme scheme, often written in

iambic pentameter.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How Do I Love Thee”

Sonnets were a standard poetry format for a long time—Shakespeare famously wrote
sonnets, as did poets like Browning. As with blank verse, sonnets are often written in
iambic pentameter, which gives the writing a sense of realism, as it’s not quite as
affected as other rhythms, but also makes it feel purposeful and different from natural
speech.
Because sonnets have a rhyme scheme, they feel removed again from realistic speech.
But that works in form’s favor—the rigid structure encourages unconventional word
use (hence the memorability of “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”) and
marks poems in this style as having a kind of heightened reality. Because blank and
free verse arose later, writing sonnets in modern times gives poems a classic or even
intentionally antiquated feeling, which can work in the poet’s favor.

You
probably don't need to light a candle and bust out your magnifying glass to understand
poetic devices, but nothing's stopping you!