Figurative language

Question

So I have a extra practice sheet thats not for a grade about identifying figurative language. I was able to do about 3/4 of it, but I still need help identifying a few that I can’t figure out or I’m not sure about

1. ”The death of the poet was kept from his poems”
2. “full in the mouth and falling/like fruit”
3. ”Once when I was teaching ‘Dover Beach’ / to a class of freshmen”
4. ”and you’re the freshly minted, unashamed/ Adam in this garden”
5. “Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes/ Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.”
6. “That was a stroke of luck”
7. “pout and push, luxury of/self-love, and savoring murmur”

thank you for your help, this is my attempt at studying for an exam.

Answer 1

So a lot of figurative language is simply noticing where there is hyperbole and metaphor.

1. This is from an Auden poem, elegizing Yeats. The meaning here is that the poems would mourn the poet who wrote them, so much so that the truth of his death must be kept from them. Poems are being personified here.
2. From "The Word Plum" by Helen Chasin. The mouth is being compared to fruit, at once luscious but also 'falling', so there is something sensual that is being unfulfilled, disappointed even.
3. This one is... an interesting choice. It comes from "Sea of Faith" by John Brehm, which actually has many good and ironic examples of figurative language which are funny. The only thing I would point out here is that "Once when" is a trope, as in "Once upon a time." It's a classic introduction, and in this poem serves as another moment of irony.
4. Here "minted" compares the body to a piece of metal, which, combined with the invocation of Adam suggests a newness, naiveté. The verb acts as the metaphor. The poem itself, "Eden" by Emily Grosholz, is about motherhood, and about omnipotence and true powerlessness.
5. So this is a more archaic poetic technique: personifying abstract concepts like Love and Beauty. Emily Dickinson does it a lot; here it's Keats. The personification extending between Love and Beauty here suggests that they dote on each other, i.e. that they usually go together. Personifying them, and then making them 'interact' shows their relationship to one another.
6. This one's hard. When we use common phrases, we tend to forget their metaphorical meaning. Here the combination of two unlike things like "stroke", as in a blow, and "luck" create a hyperbole: as in to be struck dumb by luck creates the impression of being stunned.
7. Again from "The Word Plum", this poem is all about the mouth, how the word "plum" feels in the mouth, much like a plum would feel in the mouth. There is something about "pout and push" which is almost like the act of chewing. The alliteration of this plosive consonant also makes itself felt at the beginning of the mouth. But to call it a "savoring murmur" hyperbolically compares the word to a taste.

I know this is past when you need it, but I hope this makes some sense!