Poetry Vocabulary
What is poetry? Poetry is one of the three major types of literature, the others being prose and drama.
What makes up poetry? Most poems make use of highly concise, musical, and emotionally charged language. Many also make use of imagery, figurative language, and special devices of sound such as rhyme. Rhyme Time Lime
What are the major types of poetry? Major types of poetry include lyric poetry, narrative poetry, and concrete poetry.
What is figurative language? Figurative language is writing or speech that is not meant to be taken literally. The many types of figurative language are known to as figures of speech. Common figures of speech include metaphor, personification, and simile. Writers use figurative language to state ideas in vivid and imaginative ways.
What is a metaphor? A metaphor is a figure of speech in which something is described as though it were something else. Metaphors point out a similarity between two unlike things. The teenage boy's stomach was a bottomless pit.
What is a simile? A simile is a figure of speech that uses like or as to make a direct comparison between two unlike ideas. Compares two different things using like or as. Example: Her cheeks were as red as rose bushes.
What is personification? Personification gives a non-living thing human characteristics. Example: The sun peeked out from behind the mountains.
What is alliteration? Repeating the same first consonant sound in words. Example: She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
What is assonance? The repetition of similar vowel sounds within a sentence. Example: "that dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea" (William Butler Yeats).
What is consonance? The repetition of consonant patterns, usually at the ends of words. Example: think, blink, blank,
What is onomatopoeia? Words which imitate a sound. Example: Crack of the Bat, Boom of the Thunder
What is hyperbole? A figure of speech that uses exaggeration for an effect; exaggerated speech. Example: I walked 1000 miles to get here! All my books weigh a ton!
What is rhyme? The same sound within words—last syllable. Example: Dr. Seuss—The Cat in the Hat, “I am Sam, Sam I am.” “One fish, two fish. Red fish, blue fish.”
What is rhythm? The beat of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.
What is meter? The meter of a poem is its rhythmical pattern determined by the number of stresses, or beats in each line. Example: my fath er was the first to hear
What is rhyme scheme? The pattern of rhyming words at the ends of lines. Example: In the kingdom by the sea We always felt so free.
What does stress mean? The accented parts of a line. The emphasis given to certain syllables. Example: “Hear the mellow wedding bells, Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!” (from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells”)
What is an external rhyme (end rhyme)? Rhymes at the ends of lines. Examples: “One, two, buckle my shoe, Three, four, shut the door.”
What is an internal rhyme? Rhyming words within lines. Emphasizes the flowing nature of a poem. Example: “With a knick-knack, paddy-whack, give the dog a bone.”
What is imagery? Words or phrases that appeal to your senses. That describe how the subjects look, sound, feel, taste, and smell. Imagery helps you to experience the poem fully. Example: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same. ~Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”
What is a refrain? A refrain is a regularly repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song.
What is a couplet? A couplet is two consecutive lines of verse with end rhymes. Often, a couplet functions as a stanza.
What is free verse? Free verse is poetry not written in a regular, rhythmical pattern, or meter. The poet has the freedom to write lines of any length with any number of stresses or beats.
What is a narrative poem? A narrative poem is a story told in verse. They have the elements of short stories, such as characters, plot, and conflict.
What is a stanza? A stanza is a formal division of lines in a poem and is considered as a unit. Often times the stanzas are separated by stanzas within the poem. Each stanza has a single main idea.
What is a concrete poem? A concrete poem is one with a shape that suggests is subject. The letters, punctuation, and lines are arranged to create an image/picture on the page. http://oregonstate.edu/instruction/anth/smith/salmon.jpe
What is a haiku? A haiku is a three-line Japanese verse form. The first and third lines have five syllables. The second line has seven syllables. Haikus use images to create a single, vivid picture, generally of a scene from nature. Example: Walking in the snow You can see the small footprints Of small animals.
What is a limerick? A limerick is a humorous, rhyming, five-line poem with a specific meter and rhyme scheme. Most limericks have three strong stresses in lines 1, 2, and 5 and two strong stresses in lines 3 and 4. Example: There once was a man from the city Who met what he thought was a kitty. He gave it a pat And said nice, little cat. They buried his clothes. What a pity!
What is a lyric poem? A lyric poem is a highly musical verse that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker. It creates a single, unified impression.
What is a ballad? A ballad is a songlike poem that tells a story, often one dealing with adventure and romance. They are normally written in four- to six-line stanzas and have regular rhythms and rhyme schemes. A ballad often features a refrain—a regularly repeated line or group of lines.
Main Source Definitions from the Prentice Hall Literature Book, Bronze Level.