1. POETRY TERMS

2. Foot  The metrical unit by which a line of poetry is measured. Usually consists of one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables.

3. meter  Number of feet per line.

4. iamb  One unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable

5. penta  five

6. Iambic pentameter  A metrical pattern in poetry which consists of five iambic feet per line.  Example: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

7. Blank verse  Unrhymed iambic pentameter.  It is the English verse form closest to the natural rhythms of English speech.  Shakespeare used blank verse in his plays.

8. Rhyme scheme  The pattern of end rhymes.  Mapped out by applying lower cases letters of the alphabet to each sound ending the lines.

9. Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? a Thou art more lovely and more temperate: b Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a And Summer's lease hath all too short a date b

10. Stanza  A group of lines within a poem.

11. couplet  Two line stanza

12. tercet  Three line stanza

13. quatrain  Four line stanza

14. sestet  Six line stanza

15. octave  Eight line stanza

16. sonnet  Fourteen line stanza

17. villanelle  A fixed form poem consisting of nineteen lines of any length divided into six stanzas: five tercets (three line stanza) and a concluding quatrain. The first and third lines of the initial tercet rhyme; these rhymes are repeated in each subsequent tercet (aba) and in the final two lines of the quatrain (abaa). Line 1 appears in its entiretly as lines 6, 12, and 18, while line 3 reappears as lines 9, 15 and 19.

18. sestina  a type of fixed form poetry consisting of thirty-NINE lines of any length divided into six sestets and a three- line concluding stanza called an ENVOY. The six words at the end of the first sestet’s lines must also appear at the ends of the other five sestets, in varying order. These six words must also appear in the envoy.

19. Picture poem  also known as concrete or graphic poetry, was born in the 1950's. Eugen Gomringer from Switzerland, Öyvind Fahlström of Sweden, and Decio Pignatari from Brazil are all considered to be creators of this modern form of poetry. Picture poems are fun to create! They are images (pictures) created out of words and punctuation marks-drawings made of words.

21. HERE’S A POWER BEYOND OUR OWN TIME IS THE THING NO ONE CAN CHEATEVENTHERICHFIGHT AGAINST ITS POWER TO CHEAT US ALL FROM THE LIFE WE KNOW !

22. Dramatic monologue  A dramatic monologue is a poem in which the speaker is a character who speaks to an imagined audience. There is no length or pattern requirement. It does not have to rhyme, but can if you choose to write it that way.  A dramatic monologue is a poem in which the speaker is a character who speaks to an imagined audience. There is no length or pattern requirement. It does not have to rhyme, but can if you choose to write it that way.

23.  Hazel tells Laverne by Katharyn Machan Aal (b. 1952) last night im cleanin out my howard johnsons ladies room when all of a sudden up pops this frog musta come from the sewer swimmin aroun an tryin ta climb up the sida the bowl so i goes ta flushm down but sohelpmegod he starts talkin bout a golden ball an how i can be a princess me a princess well my mouth drops all the way to the floor an he says kiss me just kiss me once on the nose well i screams ya little green pervert an i hitsm with my mop an has ta flush the toilet down three times me a princess

24. Free verse  A poem with no set rhyme or meter