1. Poetic Terms

2. alliteration: the repetition of initial consonant sounds.
Ex: Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
assonance: the repetition of a vowel sound within nonrhyming words.
Ex: “ached from labor in the weekday weather”

3. blank verse: unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter.
ballad: a narrative poem (poem that tells a story) that was originally meant to be sung.
blank verse: unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter.
Ex: “A common slave – you know him well by sight”
cliché: an overused phrase or expression that writers must avoid using.
Ex: “as hungry as a horse” “as sweet as sugar”

4. connotation: the emotional response caused by a word.
consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds within and at the ends of words.
Ex: “Last, but not least”
denotation: the literal dictionary definition of a word.
form: the physical arrangement of words in a poem – length and placement of lines and grouping of lines into stanzas.

5. imagery: words and phrases that re-create vivid sensory experiences.
free verse: poetry that does not contain regular patterns of rhyme and meter.
iambic pentameter: five feet of stressed/unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
/ / / / /
Ex: “The course of true love never did run smooth”
imagery: words and phrases that re-create vivid sensory experiences.

6. meter: the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry.
lyric: originally, a song accompanied by music; in poetry, a short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses his or her innermost thoughts and feelings.
metaphor: makes a comparison between two things by saying one IS the other.
meter: the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry.
onomatopoeia: the process of creating or using words that imitate sounds.
Ex: the buzz of a bee

7. personification: human qualities are given to an object, animal, or idea.
Ex: “The opening of the cave yawned wide.”
rhyme: the sounds of accented vowels and all succeeding sounds are identical.
true rhyme: “day” and “may”
end rhyme: rhyming the last words of lines
off rhyme: “other” and “bother”
internal rhyme: rhyming in a line (Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary/)

8. rhyme scheme: the pattern of end rhyme in a poem; the pattern is charted using the letters of the alphabet, starting with “a.”
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest

9. rhythm: the pattern or beat of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry; used to bring out the musical quality of the poem.
simile: a stated comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as.”
sonnet: a lyric poem of 14 lines, commonly written in iambic pentameter.
speaker: the voice that “talks” to the reader in a poem.
stanza: a group of lines that form a unit of poetry.
theme: the central idea or message in a work of literature.
tone: the attitude a writer takes toward a subject.