Tone

The poet’s attitude toward the poem’s speaker, reader, and subject matter, as interpreted by the
reader. Often described as a “mood” that pervades the experience of reading the poem, it is
created by the poem’s vocabulary, metrical regularity or irregularity, syntax, use of figurative
language, and rhyme.
The tone in a story indicates a particular feeling. It can be joyful, serious, humorous, sad,
threatening, formal, informal, pessimistic, or optimistic. Your tone in writing will be reflective of
your mood as you are writing.
Tone in writing is conveyed by both the word choice and the narrator of the story.

"Word choice" refers to the words a poet chooses to use. Word choice is extremely important in
poetry, since the poem is such a compact form. Every word counts. Sometimes poets choose
words for the way they sound; sometimes for their connotations.
Abstract Versus Concrete Words
They might tell us more than show us.
"The Bath" might tell us outright how he feels about washing a baby or how the baby feels about
being washed rather than creating images of the baby being washed. The concrete images create
a scene and allow us to come to our own conclusions through the images.
abstract words. They refer to ideas we think with our minds rather than specific, individual
things we can feel with our five senses and that call an exact image into our mind’s eye. Think of
concrete words as something you can actually touch. You cannot touch “love” and “safe” but
you can touch your son in “warm water / Soap all over the smooth of his thighs and stomach.”
Once you finely tune the images into specific, concrete details, the sentiment will come through
naturally.

Imagery is a literary device used in poetry, novels, and other writing that uses vivid description
that appeals to a readers’ senses to create an image or idea in their head. Through language,
imagery does not only paint a picture, but aims to portray the sensational and emotional
experience within text.
Imagery can improve a reader’s experience of the text by immersing them more deeply by
appealing to their senses. Imagery in writing can aim at a reader’s sense of taste, smell, touch,
hearing, or sight through vivid descriptions. Imagery can be created using other literary devices
like similes, metaphors, or onomatopoeia.
Types of Imagery
1. Visual Imagery
Visual imagery is most likely what people think of when they hear the term imagery. It uses
qualities of how something looks visually to best create an image in the reader’s head. These
visual qualities can be shapes, color, light, shadow, or even patterns.
2. Auditory Imagery
Our next type of imagery is auditory imagery. This type of imagery appeals to a reader’s sense of
hearing. Creating an auditory experience through text can be difficult. But it can also be
necessary for a story or plot. For example, the sound of war can be necessary to immerse the
reader into a war novel. This may be used to describe gunfire, explosions, screams, and
helicopters.
3. Gustatory Imagery
Gustatory imagery is a type of imagery that aims at a reader’s sense of taste. This would most
commonly be used to describe food as a character eats it.
4. Olfactory Imagery
Olfactory imagery is used when writers’ want to appeal to a reader’s sense of smell. Olfactory
imagery is a great way to better describe both what a character is experiencing as well as the
world of the novel, poem, or other writing.
The smell of fresh rain, smoke from a fire, or gasoline can be described through olfactory
imagery.
5. Tactile Imagery
To create the sensory experience of touch through text, writers utilize tactile imagery. This type
of imagery can be used to describe how something feels such as texture, temperature, wetness,
dryness, etc.
6. Kinesthetic Imagery
Kinesthetic imagery is used to describe the sensory experience of motion. Speed, slowness,
falling, or even fighting can be written with kinesthetic imagery.
In the world of screenwriting, kinesthetic imagery is perhaps most important in the genre of
action films. How else can you write an epic fight scene other than by using kinesthetic imagery
to paint the picture?
In our breakdown of one of the many epic fight scenes in John Wick, we take a look at how
kinesthetic imagery can tell the story of action on the page. Using words like “slam” and “snap”
create the imagery of the fight scene.
7. Organic Imagery
Last, but not least on our list is organic imagery. Organic imagery appeals to the most primitive
sensations in the human experience such as hunger, fatigue, fear and even emotion.
It can be quite difficult to describe the emotions of a sorrowful character or desperate character.
But organic imagery aims to do just that. When done effectively, organic imagery can be the best
tool to move a reader to tears of either joy or sadness.
Style Style in literature is the literary element that describes the ways that the author uses words
— the author's word choice, sentence structure, figurative language, and sentence arrangement
all work together to establish mood, images, and meaning in the text. Style describes how the
author describes events, objects, and ideas. One easy way to understand literary style is to think
about fashion styles. Clothes can be formal and dressy, informal and casual, preppy, athletic, and
so forth. Literary style is like the clothes that a text puts on. By analogy, the information
underneath is like the person's body, and the specific words, structures, and arrangements that are
used are like the clothes. Just as we can dress one person in several different fashions, we can
dress a single message in several different literary styles:
Original "No sich uh thing!" Tea Cake retorted. (Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching
God. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1978, p. 205.)
Informal "Nothing like that ever happened," Tea Cake replied. Formal "With great fortune, that
happenstance did not become a reality," Tea Cake stated.
Formal "With great fortune, that happenstance did not become a reality," Tea Cake stated.
The style that an author uses influences how we interpret the facts that are presented. Wording
and phrasing can tell us about emotions in the scene, the setting, and characters. If you're still not
convinced, consider the differences between the following sentences: He's passed away. He's
sleeping with the fishes. He died. He's gone to meet his Maker. He kicked the bucket.
What is the Theme of the Poem?
Most of us remember being enraptured by old Disney movies like "Cinderella" and "Aladdin" as
kids. While movies like this may have served as simple entertainment to us as children, there is
no denying that these stories had messages people thought were important for us to learn.
"Cinderella" and "Aladdin" have very similar themes: "Be yourself because it is
enough." Themes are lessons or morals that an author wants the reader to learn from a story.
This is not different in poetry. Poets often have messages they want to communicate to readers.
Theme of a Poem Examples
Themes can vary across poems. First, poems can cover a wide variety of topics: love, nature,
identity, and society are just a few examples. Naturally, a writer may have quite a lot to say
about these topics, which would lead to the development of a theme.
Some examples of themes in poems include:
 Love can tear people apart.
 Sometimes, love needs room to grow over time.
 We must learn to respect differences.
 Being yourself is the best way to make friends.
 Being a good friend is more important than being popular.
 Real change takes time and courage.