poetry terms

• Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of words placed near each other, usually on thesame or adjacent lines
• Example: fast and furious

• Repeated vowel sounds in words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines.These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed, rather than in vowel sounds that are unaccented.
• Example: He’s a bruisin’ loser

• Repeated consonant sounds at the ending of words placed near each other, usually on thesame or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented, or stressed, rather than in vowel–2–sounds that are unaccented. This produces a pleasing kind of near-rhyme.
• Example: boats into the past

• A discordant series of harsh, unpleasant sounds helps to convey disorder. This is often furtheredby the combined effect of the meaning and the difficulty of pronunciation.
• Example: My stick fingers click with a snicker

• A series of musically pleasant sounds, conveying a sense of harmony and beauty to the language.
• Example: Than Oars divide the Ocean,

• Words that sound like their meanings
• Example: boom, buzz, crackle

• A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one is the other or does the actionof the other.
• Example: He’s a zero.

• A direct comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as.”
• Example: He’s as dumb as an ox.

• Words that have a meaninig similar to each other
• Example: Joy, Glad

• Words that do no have a meaning similar to each other
• Example: Black and White

• Words that sound the same but have different meanings
• Example: to,too, two

Describing things being straight to the point

• Language that conveys meaning beyond the literal meaning of the word
• Example: personification, simile, metaphor

• The purposeful re-use of words and phrases for an effect. Sometimes, especially with longer phrases that contain a different key word each time, this is called parallelism.
• Example: I was glad; so very, very glad.

• This is the one device most commonly associated with poetry by the general public. Words that have different beginning sounds but whose endings sound alike, including the final vowel sound and everything following it, are said to rhyme.
• Example: time, slime, mime
• Double rhymes include the final two syllables. Example: revival, arrival, survival
• Triple rhymes include the final three syllables. Example: greenery, machinery, scenery

• A variation which has been used effectively is called slant rhyme, or half rhyme. If only the final consonant sounds of the words are the same, but the initial consonants and the vowel sounds are different, then the rhyme is called a slant rhyme or half rhyme. When this appears in the middle of lines rather than at the end, it is called consonance.
• Example: soul, oil, foul; taut, sat, knit

• Another variation which is occasionally used is called near rhyme. If the final vowel sounds are the–3–same, but the final consonant sounds are slightly different, then the rhyme is called a near rhyme.
• Example: fine, rhyme; poem, goin’

• Less effective but sometimes used are sight rhymes. Words which are spelled the same (as if they rhymed), but are pronounced differently are called sight rhymes or eye rhymes.
• Example: enough, cough, through, bough

• Although the general public is seldom directly conscious of it, nearly everyone responds on some level to the organization of speech rhythms (verbal stresses) into a regular pattern of accented syllables separated by unaccented syllables. Rhythm helps to distinguish poetry from prose.
• Example: i THOUGHT i SAW a PUSsyCAT.

Such patterns are sometimes referred to as meter. Meter is the organization of voice patterns, in terms of both the arrangement of stresses and their frequency of repetition per line of verse.

Poetry is organized by the division of each line into “feet,” metric units which each consist of a particular arrangement of strong and weak stresses. The most common metric unit is the iambic, in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one (as in the words reverse and compose).

• Scansion is the conscious measure of the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
• Stressed syllables are labeled with an accent mark: / Unstressed syllables are labeled with a dash: –
• Metrical feet may be two or three syllables in length, and are divided by slashes: | There are five basic rhythms.

• – /
• Example: invite

• / -
• Example: deadline

• - - /
• Example: to the beach

• / - -
• Example: frequently

• / /
• Example: true blue

• Longer phrases that contain a different key words each time
• Example:

One feet

Two feet

Three feet

Four feet

Fiver feet

Six feet

Seven feet

Eight feet

A brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythologicalsituation or character.

• A word or phrase that can mean more than one thing, even in its context. Poets often search outsuch words to add richness to their work. Often, one meaning seems quite readily apparent, butother, deeper and darker meanings, await those who contemplate the poem.
• Example: Robert Frost’s ‘The Subverted Flower’

• A comparison, usually something unfamiliar with something familiar.
• Example: The plumbing took a maze of turns where even water got lost.

• Speaking directly to a real or imagined listener or inanimate object; addressing that person orthing by name.
• Example: O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done…

The pattern established by the arrangement of rhymes in a stanza or poem, generallydescribed by using letters of the alphabet to denote the recurrence of rhyming lines, such as theababbcc of the Rhyme Royal stanza form.

Popular rhyme scheme of abab in quatrains

The abba scheme.

• Represantation of an abstract or spiritual meaning. Sometimes it can be a single word or phrase, such as the name of a character or place.
• Ex: Avatar Forest (Amazon Rainforest)

• Any figure of speech that was once clever and original but through overuse has become out date. If other people say it two or three times more, it becomes too timeworn.
• Ex: busy as a bee

• Emotional, psychological or social overtunes of a word; its implication and association apart from its literal meaning.
• Ex: In the East the wilderness has no evil connotation

• Closley arranged things with striking diffeent characteristics.
• Ex: He was dark, sinister, and cruel. She was radiant, pleasant, and kind.

a Japanese form of poetry consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and fivesyllables. The elusive flavor of the form, however, lies more in its touch and tone than in itssyllabic structure. Deeply imbedded in Japanese culture and strongly influenced by ZenBuddhism, haiku are very brief descriptions of nature that convey some implicit insight oressence of a moment.

Japanese poetry type of five lines, the first and the third composed of 5 syllables and the rest is 7 syllables

a light or humorous form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which lines one, twoand five are of three feet and lines three and four are of two feet, with a rhyme scheme ofaabba. Named for a town in Ireland of that name, the limerick was popularized by EdwardLear in his Book of Nonsense published in 1846, and is generally considered the only fixedform of English origin.

3 line and 2 line verses are alternated, beginning with a 3 line verse resembling a haiku and indicating a season. a second peot composes the folling verse linking it by one of several methods with the first. The next verse ( of 3 lines), composed by the first poet or by another, links with the second but not with the first.

A division of a peom created by arranging the lines into a unit, often repeated in the same patteren of meter and rhyme throughout the entire peom; a unit of poetic lines (a paragraph within the poem). The stanza within the poems are seperated by blank lines.

A stanza that is made up of loines of the same length.

A stanza that is made up of lines of different lengths.

A loose grouping of lines and paragraphs of verse.

• It is a poem consisting of seven lines. The first line has one subject/noun. Line two is two adjectives describing line one. Line three is three words ending in ing about line one. Line four is two nouns about line one and two nouns about line seven. Line five is three words ending in ing about line seven. Line six is two words adjectives describing line seven. Line seven is one subject/noun.
• Ex:
• Boys
• Emotional Ignorant
• Eating Sleeping Playing
• Active Competitive, Exaggerative Defensive
• Talking Painting Arguing
• Dramatic Sarcastic
• Girls

• Acrostic poems are simple poems in which each the first letter of each line forms a word or phrase (vertically). An acrostic poem can describe the subject or even tell a brief story about it.
• Ex:
• Apple
• Pie
• Please
• Let's
• Eat

• It's a poem that consist of four lines with a rhyme scheme of aabb.
• Ex:
• I have a friend named Bobbi
• She has one hobby
• But she’s awful with stairs
• So everyone stops to stare

• A poem that consist of 14 lines with 10 syllables each. The rhyme scheme is abab and it has to be about love, relationships, and intimisy.
• Ex:
• Life is great when it is sunny outside
• But some days the sun does not show at all
• Which makes me wonder if it is tired
• Because with out the sun we can’t play ball
• etc.

• It consists of a varying number of four-line stanzas with lines rhyming alternately; the second and fourth lines of each stanza repeated to form the first and third lines of the succeeding stanza, with the first and third lines of the first stanza forming the second and fourth of the last stanza, but in reverse order, so that the opening and closing lines ofthe poem are identical.
• Ex: Poetry Book. Long

• Usually in iambic pentameter (10 Lines) but may also be tetrameter. The rhyme scheme progresses as aabbccdd etc.
• Ex: Poetry Book. Pretty Long.

• Has 19 lines. 5 stanzas each with 3 lines, the last stanza has 4 lines. The first line of the first stanza is used as the last line of the 2nd and 4th stanzas. The third line of the first stanza is used as the last line of the 3rd and 5th stanzas. These two lines are used as the last and second-to-last lines of the 5th stanza. The rhyme scheme is aba.
• Ex: Poetry Book. Long

• It has 39 lines. It has 6 stanzas with 6 lines each. Followed by an envoi of 3 lines. All of them unrhymed. Same 6 ending words must occur in the end of every stanza but in a patterened changing order. The patteren is called lexical repetition.
• Ex: Poetry Book. Long

• The use of vivid language to generate ideas and/or evoke mental images
• Ex: Smoke mysteriously puffed out from the clown’s ears.