Poetry Terms
Speaker the voice that relates the story or ideas of a poem
Structured Form poems whose lines and/or stanzas have a regular repeated pattern
Free Verse poems whose lines and/or stanzas have no regular pattern or rhyme scheme
Stanza a group of lines forming a unit, similar to a paragraph Ex: How many stanzas? (2) He threw the ball Up a tree. (1) It could not fall Down to me. (2)
Types of Stanzas couplet – 2 lines per stanza tercet – 3 lines per stanza quatrain – 4 lines per stanza cinquain – 5 lines per stanza sestet – 6 lines per stanza septet – 7 lines per stanza octave – 8 lines per stanza
Repetition the repeating of sounds, words, phrases, lines, or stanzas
Refrain a repeated passage
Rhyming Words Ex: place/face words that have identical or very similar final sounds Ex: place/face hat/mat
Rhyme Scheme the pattern in rhyme which represents identical final sounds in lines or verses Ex: What is the rhyme scheme? (ABAB) He threw the ball (A) Up a tree. (B) It could not fall (A) Down to me. (B)
Internal Rhyme rhyme between a word within the line of poetry and the last word of the same line Ex: At number four, to waltz no more.
Imagery language that creates a sensory impression within the reader’s mind
Figurative Language the use of words, phrases, symbols, and ideas in such a way as to evoke mental images and sense impressions
Alliteration the repetition of sounds at the beginning of words Ex: The delightfully dainty dinosaurs danced through my dreams. (“d” sound)
Assonance the repetition of vowel sounds Ex: The goat jumped off the boat and started to float. (“o” sound)
Analogy a comparison between things based on parallels or connections between two ideas. Ex: sox : feet :: gloves : hands lion : cage :: book : bookcase