1. POETRY TERMS

2. Alliteration – repeating consonants in a line
Assonance – repeating vowels in a line
Allusion – a reference to a fact
Anonymous – author is unknown
Blank verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter
Free verse – no rhyme, no meter
Cadence – rhythm
Cesura – a pause or a break in a line
Connotation– psychological meanings of words
Denotation – dictionary meanings of words

3. End-stopped line - punctuation at the end of a line
Diction – word choice
End-stopped line - punctuation at the end of a line
(also called terminal cesura)
Enjambement – no punctuation at the end of a line
(also called run-on line)
Explicit Persona– a known persona or “I”
(w/ 1st person pronoun)
Implied Persona– an unknown persona or “I”
(no 1st person pronoun)
Initial – occurs at the beginning of a line or a word
Medial – occurs at the middle of a line or a word
Terminal – occurs at the end of a line or a word
Rhythm – the natural rise & fall of sounds; cadence
Meter – patterned & predictable rhythm
Foot – the smallest unit of meter

4. Genre – type or kind of poem
Ballad – narrative, musical, & episodic
Dramatic monologue – 1 speaker & at least 1 listener;
emotional speech w/an “occasion”
Elegy – very sad formal & lofty poem, may be about death
Epic – longest kind of poem: narrative, patriotic, w/epic hero, very lofty
Haiku – Asian origin; syllabic:3 lines w/5,7,5 syllables
Ode - very lofty & formal; on a sublime topic
Sonnet – 14-line poem w/rhyme & iambic pentameter
Petrarchan sonnet— octave & sestet w/ “il tiorno” betw. lines 8 & 9
(Italian sonnet)
rhymes: abbaabba/cdcdcd
abbaabbacdecde
abbaabbaccddee
Shakespearean sonnet—3 quatrains & a concluding couplet
(English sonnet)
rhymes: abab cdcd efef gg
Villanelle—any # of tercets rhyming aba w/a concluding quatrain & a refrain—
Famous ex: Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”

5. Soliloquy – on stage w/only a solitary actor– said to the audience; always truthful
Folk – an oral tradition; from generation to generation; unknown author – anonymous; many contributors helped to compose it
Literary – known author; one author
Couplet – pair of rhymed lines w/the same meter
Triplet – 3 rhymed lines w/ the same meter
Quatrain – 4-line unit
Quintet – 5-line unit
Sestet – 6-line unit
Octave – 8-line

6. Foot—smallest unit of meter
Meter—patterned & predictable rhythm
Kinds of Feet:
iambic foot u /
trochaic foot / u
anapestic foot u u /
dactylic foot / u u
For substitutions only:
pyrrhic foot u u
spondaic foot / /
Substitution—to exchange one kind of foot w/another for metrical variety

7. Metaphor X = Y or a direct comparison of 2 dissimilars
Figures of Speech:
Metaphor X = Y or a direct comparison of 2 dissimilars
Understatement less is more
Simile X = like or as Y or an indirect comparison of 2 unlikes
Hyperbole extreme exaggeration
Irony say one thing, but mean the opposite
Personification non-human = human or inanimate = animate
Oxymoron tiniest paradox / 2 consecutive words
exs: icy hot; jumbo shrimp
Onomatopeia imitate sounds
exs: buzz, pop, smack, bang
Paradox apparent contradiction  TRUTH
Synesthesia crisscrossing 2 or more senses
ex: “blue buzz”

8. Monometer-------a line of a poem w/1 foot
Dimeter a line of a poem w/2 feet
Trimeter a line of a poem w/3 feet
Tetrameter a line of a poem w/4 feet
Pentameter a line of a poem w/5 feet
Hexameter a line of a poem w/6 feet
Heptameter a line of a poem w/7 feet
Octameter a line of a poem w/8 feet
Nonameter a line of a poem w/9 feet
Decameter a line of a poem w/10 feet

9. About Rhyme:
Sound at the end of a word that matches the sound at the end of another word.
Kinds of Rhyme:
Masculine – monosyllabic, perfect, ends on a stressed syllable ( / ) (true/do)
Feminine -- polysyllabic, perfect, ends on an unstressed syllable ( u ) (gentle/mental)
Off (or ½ ) – half-way rhymes & half-way doesn’t–
exs: star/steer; love/move; bag/beg
Eye rhymes to the eye, but not to the ear –
exs: cough/bough; laughter/daughter
Internal rhyme that occurs w/i a line –
ex: “they prance as they dance”
Incidental -- very few rhymes “sprinkled” in; few and
far between in the poem

10. Practice Questions on Meter:
Q: How many syllables are in a line of—?
Anapestic hexameter
Trochaic tetrameter
Iambic nonameter
Spondaic dimeter
Dactylic heptameter
Pyrrhic monometer
Iambic octameter
Q: How many feet are in a line of—?
monometer hexameter decameter
dimeter pentameter heptameter
octameter trimeter
nonameter tetrameter

11. Practice Questions on Rhyme:
Q: What kinds of rhyme are these?:
love/move wander/wonder
attending/unending thunder/blunder
insightful/delightful brightly/nightly
flame/game weigh/sleigh
mine/wine ghost/cost
soul/goal hilarious/nefarious
cough/through sonic/tonic
stare/store cough/bough
hill/hail timber/limber
acquainted/untainted existence/resistance
“Will she be so fair and free?”
“He glares and stares without a care.”
“Before he bought the moon for her, he thought and thought about it.”

12. What’s This Poetry Term?
1. Clue: repeating consonants in a line
2. Clue: reference to a fact from some field knowledge
3. Clue: how the poet feels about his subject
4. Clue: the speaker or “I” of the poem
5. Clue: synonym for an end-stopped line
6. Clue: smallest unit of meter
Clue: cadence; the natural rise & fall of sounds
Clue: word choice
Clue: dictionary definition of a word
Clue: musical, narrative, & episodic w/known author
Clue: lofty, formal, & sad poem; often about death
Clue: psychological/emotional associations w/a word

13. What’s This Poetry Term?
Clue: refers to the beginning of something
Clue: refers to the middle of something
Clue: refers to the end of something
Clue: a pause or a break in a line of a poem
Clue: persona w/a 1st person pronoun expressed
Clue: persona w/o a 1st person pronoun expressed
Clue: musical, narrative, episodic & anonymous poem
Clue: unrhymed iambic pentameter
Clue: poetry that has no rhyme & no meter
Clue: longest kind, narrative, nationalistic, & anonymous
Clue: kind or type of poem
Clue: pair of rhymed lines w/the same meter
Clue: 1 emotional speaker w/at least 1 silent listener

14. What’s This Poetry Term?
Clue: synonym for a run-on line
Clue: 14-line poem w/rhyme & meter
Clue: name this foot-- u /
Clue: name this foot-- / u
Clue: name this foot— u u /
Clue: name this foot— / u u
Clue: name this foot— u u
Clue: name this foot— / /
Clue: exchanging one foot for the dominant foot in a line of a poem
Clue: a line w/1 foot
Clue: a line w/2 feet
Clue: a line w/3 feet
Clue: a line w/4 feet
Clue: a line w/5 feet
Clue: a line w/6 feet