English Poetry Vocab

Alliteration

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Allusion

A brief reference to a real or fictional person, event, place, or work of art.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in a chunk of text.

Ballad

A story/narrative in poetic form.

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, in a chunk of text.

Diction

The author’s specific word choice.

Enjambment

This occurs when one line ends without a pause or any punctuation and continues onto the next line.

Free Verse

Poetry that does not rhyme or have a measurable meter.

Metaphor

A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things without using connecting words, such as “like” or “as”.

Meter

The measured arrangement if sounds/beats in a poem, including the poet’s placement of emphasis and the number of syllables.

Onomatopoeia

A word that sounds like what it means.

Rhythm

The recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry. Depending on how sounds are arranged, the _______ of a poem may be fast or slow, choppy or smooth.

Simile

A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things using connecting words, such as “like” or “as”.

Stanza

A unified group of lines in poetry. This is often marked by spacing between sections in the poem.

Symbol

An object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.

Theme

The central message or dominant message the poet is trying to deliver to the reader.

Tone

The attitude the poem’s narrator (this may or may not be the actual poet) takes towards a subject or character.

Verse

A single line of poetry.