Poetry Language Notes

Simile

Compares two things using “like” or “as”

Metaphor

Compares two things without using “like” or “as”

Personification

Giving human characteristics, emotions, and behavior to animals and inanimate objects

Idiom

A word or phrase that is not meant to be taken literally

Hyperbole

Uses exaggerated comparison or overstatements to emphasis a point or literary

Imagery

The use of vivid descriptions to “paint” a picture in the reader’s mind.

Visual

Auditory

Olfactory

Gustatory

Tactile

Line

A row of words in a poem

Stanza

A group of lines in a poem

Rhyme Scheme

The pattern of end rhymes in a poem

ABAB AABB ABCABC

Stanza Structure

2 lines: Couplet

3 lines: Tercet

4 lines: Quatrain

5 lines: Cinquain

6 lines: Sestet

7 lines: Septet

8 lines: Octave

End-stopped

Lines usually broken with a comma, period, semicolon, or other punctuation

Enjambment

A continuation of a sentence over a line break

Caesura

A strong pause or stop of poetry, but can happen at the beginning or the end

Topic

The general subject of the poem

The 5 Ws and 1 H

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

How?

Why?

Theme

The life lesson that can be learned from the poem

Acrostic

A poem in which words are spelled out through the first letter of each line.

Ballad

A narrative which tells a story

Free verse

A poem that lacks a consistent rhyme scheme, metrical pattern, or musical form

Sonnet

A famous poetic form, which follows a rigid structure of 14 lines with a strict rhyming pattern

Villanelle

A pastoral or lyrical poem of 19(5 tercets and a final quatrain) with only two rhymes repeated throughout

Haiku

A Japanese poem that has 3 lines with a syllable count of 5/7/5

Concrete

A poem written in the shape of the subject which the poem is about

Ode