Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Poetic Devices

Which of the following is an example of a hyperbole in the poem?

• "Pizza crusts and withered greens, / Soggy beans and tangerines" (17-18)

• "Peanut butter, caked and dry, / Curdled milk and crusts of pie" (27-28)

• "At last the garbage reached so high / That finally it touched the sky" (33-34)

• "That I cannot right now relate / Because the hour is much too late" (44-45)

Which of the following is another example of hyperbole in the poem?

• "And though her daddy would scream and shout / She simply would not take the garbage out" (5-6)

• "With bacon rinds and chicken bones, / Drippy ends of ice cream cones" (13-14)

• "And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said, / "OK, I'll take the garbage out!" (37-38)

• "The garbage reached across the state, / From New York to the Golden Gate" (40-41)

What is the effect of the following hyperbole in the poem?

"The garbage rolled on down the hall

It raised the roof, it broke the wall" (21-22).

• to identify the many different types of garbage

• to demonstrate that the garbage is extremely smelly

• to demonstrate that the garbage is massive and destructive

• to identify the reactions of Sarah's other family members to the garbage

Which of the following lines from the poem does NOT contain alliteration?

• "Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel" (15)

• "Crusts of black burned buttered toast" (19)

• "Globs of gooey bubble gum" (24)

• "Rubbery blubbery macaroni" (26)

Which of the following pairs of words from the poem is NOT an example of alliteration?

• "cottage cheese" (10)

• "Gloppy glumps" (16)

• "cookie crumbs" (23)

• "Moldy melons" (29)

Which of these lines contains another example of internal rhyme?

• "Coffee grounds, potato peelings" (8)

• "Chunks of sour cottage cheese" (10)

• "Drippy ends of ice cream cones" (14)

• "Soggy beans and tangerines" (18)

The poem is almost entirely made up of pairs of consecutive lines that rhyme at the ends, which are called _________.

• twinsies

• pairs

• couplets

• doubles

How many of the following 8 lines contain end rhyme?

"OK, I'll take the garbage out!"

But then of course it was too late...

The garbage had reached across the state,

From New York to the Golden Gate.

And there, in the garbage she did hate,

Poor Sarah met an awful fate,

That I cannot right now relate

Because the hour is much too late." (38-45)

• 2

• 4

• 7

• 8

Which term(s) can be applied to the TITLE of the poem---"Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out"?

*You may select more than one answer.

• hyperbole

• rhyme

• alliteration

• idiom

Why might author Shel Silverstein have chosen to structure the poem with 47 lines all in a row INSTEAD of breaking the lines into separate stanzas (like paragraphs in an essay)? Choose the BEST answer.

• Because there is an odd number of total lines in the poem, it would be difficult to determine where to divide the poem into separate sections.

• The structure reflects the subject of the poem. The lines are piled on top of each other to represent the huge pile of garbage that eventually overwhelms Sarah in the poem.