Poetry Terms

Prosody

The study of verse forms, sounds, and patterns in poetry.

Psalm

A song sung to the accompaniment of a plucked instrument

Quatrain

A stanza of four lines, the most common form in English poetry.

Refrain

A regular, nearly exact repeat of a phrase or line, often at the end of a stanza.

Repetend

An irregular repeat of a word, phrase, or line in a poem.

Rhyme Scheme

The pattern of repeating sound that occurs in a poem, most often in the words that end lines in a stanza; represented by letters of the alphabet, assigned as each new rhyme appears.

Rhythm

The accommodation of the poet’s individual voice in it’s natural scope to the

constraints and relaxations of the accentual-syllabic line.

Sensory Details

These are usually developed by carefully evoking the five senses of sight,

hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

Sestina

This poetic form requires that six end words be repeated in a set pattern across six stanzas and that all six words be used--again, in pattern--in a three-line final stanza called envoi.

Sibilance

A particular form of consonance employing S or Sh sounds.