Poetry Techniques

Acrostic

A poem where vertical letters form a word.

Alliteration

Repetition of initial consonant sounds: 'Peter Piper Picked.'

Assonance

Repetition of identical vowel sounds: 'A four foot box, a foot every year.'

Ballad

A narrative poem, often sung, in four-line verse with dialogue.

Blank Verse

Poetry in non-rhyming, ten-syllable lines.

Caesura

A stop or pause in a line of poetry, usually by punctuation.

Couplet

A two-line stanza.

Diction

The choice of words or language used.

Dramatic Monologue

A poem where an imagined speaker addresses the reader.

Elegy

A slow, thoughtful poem for the deceased.

End Stopped Lines

A line of poetry with a pause or stop at the end.

Enjambment

Running over of sense from one line to the next without punctuation.

Epigraph

A quotation from another text included in a poem.

Form

How a poem is structured.

Free Verse

Poetry with irregular lines and often no rhyme.

Hyperbole

Exaggeration to emphasize a point.

Imagery

Language appealing to the senses, creating vivid mental pictures.

Lyric

An emotional, rhyming poem about a specific event.

Metaphor

An image where one thing is directly identified as another.

Ode

A formal poem celebrating a person, place, object, or idea.

Onomatopoeia

Words mimicking the sounds they describe.

Parody

A comic imitation of another writer's work.

Personification

Attributing human qualities to non-human objects.

Pun

A play on words with two meanings, usually for comedy.

Quatrain

A four-line stanza.

Rap

A song form using poetic devices, notably language play within a strict rhythm.

Refrain

A recurring line or phrase, especially at the end of a verse.

Repetition

Repeating a sound, word, or phrase for effect.

Rhyme

Words with matching sounds, usually at line ends.

Rhythm

The movement of syllables within a line or verse.

Sestet

A six-line stanza.

Simile

A comparison using ‘like’ or ‘as’.

Sonnet

A fourteen-line poem, in iambic pentameter, traditionally about love.

Stanza

A group of lines of verse.

Symbol

Something representing something else on a deeper level.

Theme

The subject, concerns, or ideas in literature.

Tone

The feeling, mood, or attitude of a piece of writing.

Triplet

A three-lined stanza.

Voice

The speaker in a poem (poet’s own or a character).

Volta

A turning point in a poem’s thought or argument.