Parts of a Poem

Speaker/ Narrator

Not necessarily the author. The imaginary voice assumed by name; speaker may be person, animal, abstraction, thing.

Stanza

Couplets-two lines that rhymeEx: "If cars go zoom,exhaust smoke will plume!“

Quatrains-are four line stanzas of any kind, rhymed, metered, or otherwise

Ex: The sense of danger must not disappear:The way is certainly both short and steep, However gradual it looks from here;Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

Stanza cont.

Sestet-a group of six lines of poetry

Ex: I'm truly sorry man's dominionHas broken Nature's social union,An justifies that ill opinion,Which makes thee startleAt me, thy poor, earth-born companion.An fellow mortal!

Octave- an eight line verse/stanza consisting of iambic pentameter.

Ex: When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

Rhyme

End rhyme- a rhyme that occurs at the end of a line

Whose woods these are I think I know,His house is in the village, though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow

Internal rhyme- a rhyme between a word within a line

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky;I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;I change, but I cannot die.

Approximate Rhyme/ Sound Rhyme- A term used for words in a rhyming pattern that have some kind of sound correspondence but are not perfect.

O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear, your true-love coming.

Rhyme Scheme is rhymed words at the ends of lines. Ex:

Roses are redViolets' are blueSugar is sweetAnd so are you.

Rhythm

Meter- rhythmical pattern determined by the # and type of stresses, or beats, in each line

Iamb- an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (1 unit/foot)

Iambic pentameter- a five units of unstressed and stressed syllables (total of 10 syllables)

Blank verse- poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Rhythm cont.

Scansion- Scansion is the analysis of a line of poetry for foot and meter. To "scan" a line of poetry means to analyze it rhythmically.

End-stopped line- line of poetry that has some punctuation at the end.

Run-on line- a line of poetry with no punctuation at the end.