Poetry Terms
Poetry Terms
Adjective
A word that describes a person, place, or
thing
Alliteration
The repetition of
beginning sounds in neighboring words.
Allusion
A reference to a work, person or event in
a poem
As the cave's roof collapsed, he was swallowed up in the dust like Jonah, and only his frantic scrabbling behind a wall of rock indicated that there was anyone still alive".
"Christy didn't like to spend money. She was no Scrooge, but she seldom purchased anything except the bare
Assonance
The repetition or a
pattern of the
same vowel
sounds.
Consonance
The repetition of
consonant sounds inside or at the end of neighboring
words.
Connotation
The meaning suggested beyond a word’s
exact definition
Cancer
is a disease, but it emotionally can
mean
fear
,
terror
,
death or chaos
Denotation
The
exact
meaning of the word
(The dictionary definition)
a.
Cancer:
Any of various malignant
neoplasms characterized by the
Diction
The Poet’s word
Foot
Is a unit of meter
which denotes the combination of stressed and
Foot
Iambic: an
unstressed followed by a stressed syllable
Foot
Iambic Pentameter:
Is ten syllables of iambic meter
Ĭn sóoth,/Ĭ knów/nŏt whý/Ĭ ám/sŏ sád.
Shakespeare wrote his plays in Iambic
Hyperbole
A figure of speech
which is a deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis
When my mom finds out that I flunked my
Imagery
Using words that
appeal to our six senses; the use of pictures, figures of speech, and
description to evoke ideas, feelings,
Internal Rhyme
Rhyming words occur within the same
line of poetry.
My songs can make you cry, take you by
surprise at the same time
Can make you dry your eyes with the same
Irony
The use of words to suggest the opposite of the
literal meaning.
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
Metaphor
A direct comparison between unlike
things whose purpose is to show
something in a different way.
My vegetable love should grow
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
Meter
A rhythm accomplished by using a
Meter
Stress: the emphasis or prominence given to
a particular syllable
Unstress: the short or indistinct sound of a
particular syllable
Great streets of silence led away To neighborhoods of pause;
Here was no notice — no dissent — No universe — no laws.
Narrator
The person that
Onomatopoeia
A figure of speech in which the sound of a word imitates its
meaning.
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Oxymoron
A combination of
contradictory or opposite words.
Paradox
A statement which at first seems
contradictory but which actually has a
deeper meaning
I was so much older then; I’m younger
than that now
Personification
A figure of speech in which non-human or inanimate objects are given human qualities.
Hey diddle, Diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the
moon;
The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran away
Ballad
Ballad: is a poem, which tells a story and usually rhymes every other line
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
Blank Verse
Blank Verse: form of poetry with ten syllables
per line and using no rhyme
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun
Concrete
Epic
A very long poem, which tells the tale of
Free Verse
Is poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme
Winter Poem Nikki Giovanni
once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
Idyll
A short poem that describes simple times in
romantic ways
Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an agèd wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
Haiku
A three-line poem
usually about a moment in nature with a specific
syllable structure
1st: 5 syllables
2nd: 7 syllables
3rd: 5 syllables
The lightning flashes!
And slashing through the darkness,
Narrative Poem
A long poem, which tells a story
The Raven Edgar Allen Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore -- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a
tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door --
Sonnet
A 14-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, with a structured rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Shakespeare's Sonnet 116,
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
Repetition/Refrain
Repetition: the
repeating of a word or phrase within a poem
Refrain: group of
lines that is repeated throughout the poem: similar to a chorus in a song.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"
'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is, and nothing more,"
Presently my heart grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"
Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you" -- here I opened wide the door;
Rhyme:
words that sound alike
or similar
Exact Rhyme
: Cat, Hat, Flat ,Mat
End Rhyme: rhyming words that appear at the ends of two or more lines of poetry.
Slant Rhyme: words that sound close but not exact:
Mirror Steer
Rhythm
Is the ordered or free
occurrence of sound in poetry.
Simile
Two things are compared by using
the words “like” or “as.”
The Moon was like a slivered fingernail
Stanza:
Two or more lines of poetry that form one of the divisions of a poem.Couplet: two-line stanza
Sextet: six-line stanza
Triplet: three-line stanza
Septet: seven-line stanza
Quatrain: four-line stanza
Octave: eight-line stanza
Symbol
When a word,
phrase, or image
“stands for” an idea or theme.
Darth Vader
symbolizes evil
Symbol
White
symbolizes
Theme
Expresses the unity
of human experience, and through poems we see that we are more alike than different.
Themes express a
Theme
Some common themes are love, hate, anger, hunger, fears and
compassion.
One theme in To Kill
a Mockingbird is that it is wrong to persecute the
Tone
A particular style or manner, a desired mood
I met a traveler from an antique land. (Shelley, "Ozymandias" ) This line immediately generates a story-telling atmosphere, just as it
is with the phrase, "Once upon a time." Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. (Yeats, "The Second Coming"
