Poetry Vocabulary Word Bank

Elements of Poetry Includes: Form (i.e. Narrative, free verse, lyrics, sonnets, etc.) Tone Imagery Figurative Language (similes, metaphors, and personification)

Forms of Poetry Narrative poems tell a story. Lyric poems express the speaker’s feelings. An ode is a type of lyric poem that celebrates something. A sonnet is also a lyric poem but follows very strict rules. An elegy mourns the loss of something important to the poet. Free verse has no regular rhythm or rhyme. A catalog poem is free verse that lists the poet’s thoughts or feelings on a subject.

Imagery (a.k.a. “sensory language”) Definition: language that appeals to the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Example: Goopy glops of cold oatmeal. goopy: touch or sight glops: touch or sight cold: touch or taste

Simile (figurative language) Definition: A comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as “like”, “as”, “than”, or “resembles”. Example: “I wandered lonely as a cloud”

Metaphor (figurative language) Definition: A comparison between two unlike things in which one thing is said to be another thing. Example: “Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”

Personification (figure of speech) Definition: A figure of speech in which a nonhuman or nonliving thing or quality is talked about as if it were human or alive. Example: …little brown rivers streaming down the road nibbling at the edges of the tired snow…

Tone Definition: Attitude toward the subject Example: If a poet thinks that a scene is happy and carefree, the details in the lines will reflect that attitude.

Sounds of Poetry Includes: Rhythm Rhyme Repetition Alliteration Onomatopoeia

Alliteration Definition: a repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close together. Example: Sally sells seashells by the seashore. (The “sh” sound in the middle of the two words is also alliteration.)

Onomatopoeia Definition: The use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning. Examples: hiss, buzz, snap, crackle, pop 

Rhythm Definition: A musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables, or by the repetition of certain other sound patterns Example: ﮞ / ﮞ / ﮞ / ﮞ / Day after day, day after day, ﮞ / ﮞ / ﮞ / ﮞ We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

Scanning Definition: Marking a poem’s rhythm for stressed (/) and unstressed (ﮞ) syllables Example: ﮞ ﮞ / ﮞ ﮞ / ﮞ ﮞ / “You are old, Father William,” the young ﮞ / man said,

Rhyme Definition: The repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that are close together Example: Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning.

Internal Rhyme Definition: Rhymes within lines of a poem Examples: Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

End Rhyme Definition: Rhymes at the end of a line Examples: Darkness settles on roofs and walls But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls; The little waves, with their soft, white hands, Efface the footprints in the sands, And the tide rises, the tide falls. Henry Wadworth Longfellow “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”

Repetition Definition: The recurring use of a sound, a word, a phrase, or a line which creates music, appeals to our emotions, and emphasizes important ideas. Examples: Riding, riding, riding Marching, marching, marching Wet wet wet