Poetry Poetry TerminologyTerminology

ALLITERATION 

The repeating of beginning consonant sounds as in “creamy and crunchy.”

Example:

Cats can catch Kleenex.

ASSONANCE 

The repetition of vowel sounds as with the “i” sound in “mile wide.”

 

Example:

Cake makes a great late plate.

BLANK VERSE 

Poetry that has no rhyme, but has iambic pentameter—lines of poetry that have an accent on every second syllable of a word.

 

Example:

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

CONSONANCE 

The repetition of consonant sounds. This is like alliteration except it includes consonant sounds anywhere within the words, not just at the beginning as with the “s” sound in “whispers sense peace.”

 

Example:

Sleepy sailors sail seas.

  74th Streetby Myra Cohn Livingston

Hey, this little kid gets roller skates.She puts them on.She stands up and almostflops over backwards.She sticks out a foot likeshe’s going somewhere andfalls down and smacks her hand. Shegrabs hold of a step to get up andsticks out the other foot andslides about six inches andfalls andskins her knee.

  And then, you know what?

  She brushes off the dirt and theblood and puts somespit on it and thensticks out the other foot

again.

FREE VERSEPoetry without regular patterns of rhyme and rhythm. Some poets use free verse to capture the sounds and rhythms of ordinary speech.

IMAGERY Mental images created by words. Usually these images appeal to the readers’ senses by the use of sensory details to help readers imagine how things look, feel, smell, sound, and taste.

Example:

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World, With wonderful water round you curled, And the wonderful grass upon your breast, World, you are beautifully drest.

(William Brighty Rands)

METAPHOR

 

Treating two things that have some quality in common as if it were something else. Unlike a simile, a metaphor does not contain the word like or as.

 

Examples:

Money becomes a nest egg

A sandwich becomes a submarine.

“If she spoke at all, her voice would be a ghost.”

METER

 

The beat within a verse. The measured pulse of poetry.

 

Example:

How happy some or other some can be. Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.

 

(Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

ONOMATOPOEIA 

The use of words formed or sounding like what they signify.

 

Examples:

buzz, crack, smack, whinny, swish, plop

PERSONIFICATION 

The giving of human qualities to an animal, object, or idea.

 

Example:

The tired stone sleeps soundly.

RHYME 

The effect created by matching sounds at the ends of words.

 

Example:

red, bed, sled, fed, head

SIMILE 

A comparison of two things that have some quality in common. Similes contain the word like or as to convey these comparisons.

 

Examples:

Her heart was as big as a whale.

Her tears flowed like a river.

Happy as a clam.

STANZA A group of lines arranged in a poem in a separate unit.

Example:

Mary had a little lamb. Its fleece was white as snow; And everywhere that Mary went, The lamb was sure to go.

  He followed her to school one day; That was against the rules. It made the children laugh and play To see a lamb at school.

SYMBOL A person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself. Most symbols used in literature are personal symbols; even though a symbol may be widely used, a writer will usually adapt it in some imaginative, personal way so that it can suggest not just one, but many meanings.

Example:

The journey, which can stand for a search for truth, for redemption from evil, or for discovery of the self and freedom is an example of a symbol. The journey of Huck Finn and Jim down the Mississippi River has been interpreted to symbolize all of these concepts and more.

Poetry Poetry TerminologyTerminology