 The art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure for beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts

 Line – a row of words in a poem  Stanza – groups of lines that form a unit  Refrain – a word or a phrase that appears in the same position in many of the stanzas  Couplet – a pair of lines in poetry that are usually rhymed

 Rhyme scheme – a regular of rhyming words  End rhyme – repetition of sounds at the end of lines  Internal rhyme – repetition of sounds within the same line

 Figurative language – a way of saying one thing and meaning another  Imagery – and author’s use of words to create a mental picture in the reader’s mind; appeals to one of the five senses  Simile – comparison of two dissimilar things using “like” or “as”  Metaphor – direct comparison of two dissimilar things for effect; no use of “lie” or “as”

 Onomatopoeia – use of a word whose sound suggests or imitates the intended sound  Assonance – repetition of vowel sounds  Alliteration – repetition of consonant sounds  Allusion – a reference to a religious figure/event, historical figure or classical literary work  Denotation – the dictionary definition of a word

 Connotation – the way a word makes you feel; emotional reaction to a word  Parallelism – use of similar grammatical structures in succeeding lines of verse  Personification – giving something that is not human, person-like qualities  Repetition – repeating of sounds, words, phrases, or structure  Literal – the use of words as their meanings intend

 Epic – a long narrative poem telling about a hero’s deeds Examples: The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, The Epic of Gilgamesh

 Lyric – a short poem that has a song-like quality; reveals the author’s attitude or ideas about a topic Examples: “If” by Rudyard Kipling, “Success is Counted Sweetest” by Emily Dickinson

 Ballad – a simple narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas and adapted for singing Examples: “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Thayer, “Danny Boy” by Frederic Weatherly

 Limerick – five line poem written with a distinct rhythm; lines 1, 2, and 5 contain three beats and rhyme while lines 3 and 4 contain two beats and rhyme Examples: “There was an Old Man with a Beard” by Edward Lear, WWII Liberty limericks

 Concrete – poem in which words are arranged to suggest something about the subject of the poem Examples: “Silence” by Eugen Gomringer, “Star Light” by Stephen Neville

 Free verse – lines of poetry that are written without rules, no regular beat, and no rhyme Examples: “Summer Stars” by Carl Sanburg, “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

 Sonnet (English) – fourteen line poem written in iambic pentameter with the following rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg Examples: Shakespeare’s sonnets #1-157, “Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley