DICTION

An author's choice of words

Example:

We just wanna party

Party just for you

We just want the money

Money just for you

I know you wanna party

Party just for me

Girl, you got me dancin' (yeah, girl, you got me dancin')

Dance and shake the frame

Notes:

The word "diction" on its own just means that the author is using words (which, duh; of course they are). To avoid sounding like a dufus, make sure you put an adjective before the word "diction" to tell me what kinds of words they are choosing.

e.g. "aggressive diction" or "remorseful diction"

Here his use of simplistic, lighthearted diction suggests that he's here to have a good time and is not looking for anything too serious or complicated.

Diction

TONE

How the speaker feels about what they're talking about; the speaker's attitude

Example:

We just wanna party

Party just for you

We just want the money

Money just for you

I know you wanna party

Party just for me

Girl, you got me dancin' (yeah, girl, you got me dancin') Dance and shake the frame

Notes:

Remember that tone is how the speaker feels, not how the audience feels (which would be mood).

Often tone and diction go hand-in-hand; if they are using aggressive diction, it might be to convey their enraged tone.

This also means that, like diction, "tone" can't stand alone, and requires an adjective to specify how the speaker feels.

The simplistic, lighthearted diction in the above passage creates a carefree tone; he "just [wants to] party" and is not trying to get involved in anything too serious or complicated.

Tone

TONE SHIFT

When the tone changes within a poem

Example:

We just wanna party

Party just for you

We just want the money

Money just for you I know you wanna party

Party just for me

Girl, you got me dancin' (yeah, girl, you got me dancin') Dance and shake the frame

This is America

Don't catch you slippin' up

Look what I'm whippin' up

Notes:

Abruptly, here he switches from a lighthearted tone to a critical one. His diction changes from carefree to almost threatening as he warns people not to get caught "slippin' up," implying that not only is everyone making shameful mistakes, but that at any moment, theirs could be exposed.

In the context of the song, this tone shift embodies the core social paradox he aims to highlight - that these two realities, one that subsists entirely on parties, money, girls, and fun, and another that berates people blindly and relentlessly, coexist because we compulsively gravitate toward the former as a distraction from our inability to cope with the latter.

There are many different types of possible shifts within poetry; tone shift is only one. Some others include shifts in:

Time

Structure/Form

Perspective
Setting
Style

Tone Shift

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Non-literal language

Types:

Simile
Hyperbole
Allusion
Onomatopoeia
Personification
Imagery
Symbolism
Metaphor

Notes:

"Figurative" means "not literal," so when we talk about figurative language, we are referring to any language that is not literally describing something exactly as the words say it is.

The above acronym (SHAOPISM) can help you remember different types of figurative language.

(Credit to Susana, my 2a YPP for coming up with that one two years ago! Thanks, Susana!)

Figurative Languge

SIMILE

A comparison between two very different things using "like" or "as"

Examples:

"Watchin' haters hate me,
Wanna play me like a piano"

"I'm hot like a parked car"

"Yeah, they starin' at me jealous cause I do shows bigger
But your looks don't help like an old gold digger"

Simile

HYPERBOLE

An extreme exaggeration

Example:

My father owned half the MoMA

And did it with no diploma

Notes:

Obviously his father didn't actually, literally own half of the MoMA, but he "has said in interviews that his father, Donald Glover Sr., was a postal worker, and had no diploma. Despite this, he was able to self-educate, and knew half of the paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains nearly 3,000 paintings and 30,000 works of art" (Genius).

His use of hyperbole conveys the ever-present possibility for success, even if the odds seem unfavorable.

Hyperbole

ALLUSION

An indirect reference to something specific and famous

Examples:

"Girl, why is you lyin'

Girl, why you Mufasa?"
"We were so Jay-Z, Beyonce"
"We can kick it like it's FIFA, homie"
"But no love for the son of a commuter who was a radio head
And okay at them computers at the post office"
"That 'A' on my chest like adultery"
"My clique should be cancelled: Freaks and Geeks"

Notes:

Allusion is another one kids tend to find challenging. Just remember that the reference has to be to something specific and famous.

Basically an allusion requires you to have some cultural background knowledge to understand it. So, in the above examples:

His pun on "lyin'" wouldn't make any sense if you didn't know that Mufasa is a character in The Lion King and that he was alluding to him.
Because Jay-Z and Beyonce are often admired for their relationship, he uses allusion to compare himself and his girlfriend to them to convey the strength of their relationship.
FIFA is an international soccer league, which is why he alludes to it in his pun about "kick[ing] it."
An indie rock band named Radiohead released an album called "OK Computer," which is what he is alluding to here. He talks about getting "no love," which he frequently links with feeling ostracized as one of the few black nerds he knew growing up. Similar to when he describes being "the only black kid at the Sufjan concert" (an allusion to folk artist Sufjan Stevens), this is probably him expressing again that his music tastes weren't really winning him any friends back in the day.
Believe it or not, this one is an allusion to a literary classic, The Scarlet Letter, in which a woman is punished for cheating on her husband by being forced to wear an "A" for adultery at all times. He then drifts into another allusion, this one to the retro cartoon Alvin and the Chipmunks. Again, if you didn't know these works, the line wouldn't make any sense, which is one of the defining characteristics of allusion.
Freaks and Geeks is the name of a cult-classic TV show about a group of friends in the 90s that was ultimately cancelled. Again, his allusion is for the sake of cleverness in his pun about his own clique being "cancelled."

Alluson

ONOMATOPOEIA

Words that mimic sound effects

Examples:

"Brrrr! Money counter
Brrrr! AK
Brrrr! Cell phone
Brrrr! 'Hello?'"
"Ain't nobody sicker in my Fisker, (vroom-vroom)"

Notes:

Any of your "pop", "bang", "snap", "boom" types of words fall under onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia

PERSONIFICATION

Ascribing human-like actions to non-human things

Example:

My fear is dead

Ambition drove the hearse

Notes:

Obviously his ambition did not literally drive any type of vehicle, but by saying it "drove the hearse" for his fear, he is personifying his ambition as having been responsible for overpowering, and ultimately killing his sense of fear.

Personification

IMAGERY

An appeal to one of the five senses

Examples:

"Dudes' breath stank,
All they do is trash talk"
"We’re still wearing our orange camp t-shirts. We still smell like pineneedles."
"And your face is there and gone and there and gone, as we pass underneath the orange lamps that line the sides of the highway."

Notes:

"It puts a picture in the reader's head" will not longer suffice as a definition for imagery. Imagery is language that is meant to appeal to your sense of sight, taste, smell, touch, or hearing.

The first two examples above appeal to a sense of smell; the second is an example of visual imagery. Note that for visual imagery, the description has to be detailed and vivid.

He creates the image of her disappearing face in the dim orange light to emphasize his sense of suspense and uncertainty as he waits for her response to a question that has left him feeling vulnerable.

Imagery

SYMBOLISM

The use of an object to represent a larger idea

Example:

Furniture custom, you shop at IKEA

Show Maserati, you whipping a Kia

Notes:

His custom furniture and his Maserati are symbols of his wealth given how expensive and exclusive they are, while the IKEA furniture and the Kia are the common, everyday versions of those items.

He draws a comparison between these symbols to emphasize how rich he is compared to everyone else.

Symbolism

METAPHOR

A comparison between two different things that does not use "like" or "as", and is often indirect

Examples:

"Yeah, you got some silverware, but really, are you eatin', though?"
"Still in the game, but he moves with a cheat code"
"Heathen,

It's a struggle just to keep breathing -

Existential asthmatic"

Notes:

A metaphor is not always going to be phrased directly (e.g. "his eyes are the sun"). Direct metaphors, also called explicit metaphors, are the easiest, but not the only type.

Implicit metaphors are actually more common, but we aren't used to recognizing them as metaphors. The above examples are all implicit metaphors - they convey a figurative meaning by comparing two things, but they only explicitly mention the figurative meaning (the literal, straightforward one is only in the subtext).

Having silverware might look like you're about to have a meal, but without the food, you've got nothing. Metaphorically, he's saying that you might have a lot of things that look like success or happiness (money, cars, houses, etc.), but they don't necessarily mean that you are actually successful or happy.
Cheat codes in a video game give you advantages over other players. Here, the metaphorical "game" is the industry; he's saying, figuratively, that he's so unstoppable that it's almost unfair to other artists.
Asthma makes it difficult to physically breathe. "Existential" means having to do with our existence - "Why are we here?", "What is the meaning of life?" - stuff like that. An "existential asthmatic" would not literally be struggling to breathe, but would be figuratively overwhelmed with trying to make sense of it all, which can feel like choking.

Metaphor

REPETITION

Saying the same phrase or idea multiple times

Example:

He owe 'em money but his bank account is zero

So my momma made us sleep with Phillips heads Under the pillow, like that would do somethin'

But she’s got six kids, she’s gotta do somethin'

Notes:

Repetition is a red flag; if you see something repeated, always stop to figure out why they said it more than once. Sometimes it's just for emphasis, but sometimes it can distort the meaning.

Here, his first use of "do somethin'" sounds almost pathetic; this is a weak attempt at self-defense that's laughable.

However, when he describes how his mom had to "do somethin'", he's not laughing anymore; he's portraying how desperate she is to protect herself and her six children. It's not an act of foolishness; it's an act of courage, love, and resourcefulness.

By repeating the same words, he draws a direct connection between how useless their efforts would be and how desperate they had to be to actually resort to relying on those efforts, which adds emotional complexity to the situation.

Repetition