1. Poetry Terms

2. Speaker
the voice that relates the story or ideas of a poem

3. Structured Form
poems whose lines and/or stanzas have a regular repeated pattern

4. Free Verse
poems whose lines and/or stanzas have no regular pattern or rhyme scheme

5. 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)

6. 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

7. Repetition
the repeating of sounds, words, phrases, lines, or stanzas

8. Refrain
a repeated passage

9. Rhyming Words Ex: place/face
words that have identical or very similar final sounds
Ex: place/face
hat/mat

10. 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)

11. 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.

12. Imagery
language that creates a sensory impression within the reader’s mind

13. Figurative Language
the use of words, phrases, symbols, and ideas in such a way as to evoke mental images and sense impressions

14. Alliteration the repetition of sounds at the beginning of words
Ex: The delightfully dainty dinosaurs danced through my dreams. (“d” sound)

15. Assonance the repetition of vowel sounds
Ex: The goat jumped off the boat and started to float.
(“o” sound)

16. Analogy
a comparison between things based on parallels or connections between two ideas.
Ex: sox : feet :: gloves : hands
lion : cage :: book : bookcase