Poetry Vocab

Alliteration

Repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

Assonance:

Repetition of vowel sounds within words to create internal rhyming

Consonance:

Repetition of consonant sounds within or at the end of words

Onomatopoeia

Words that imitate the natural sounds of a thing, such as "buzz" or "hiss".

Metaphor:

A direct comparison between two unrelated things, stating one is the other.

Simile:

A comparison between two things using "like" or "as"

Personification:

Attributing human qualities to inanimate objects or abstract concepts

Hyperbole:

An intentional, extreme exaggeration used for emphasis.

Repetition:

Using the same word or phrase multiple times to emphasize an idea.

Imagery:

Descriptive language that appeals to the five senses

Rhyme Scheme:

the ordered pattern of rhymes at the end of lines in a poem

Allusion

a brief, indirect reference to a person, place, event, or literary work outside the poem, assuming shared knowledge between the poet and reader

Idiom

a fixed, figurative expression whose meaning cannot be understood from the literal definition of its individual words

Ex- “break a leg”

Mood

the emotional atmosphere or "vibe" a poet creates, designed to evoke specific feelings in the reader, such as melancholy, joy, or apprehension

Theme

the central, underlying message, idea, or deeper meaning an author conveys, moving beyond the literal subject matter to explore universal human experiences

Tone

the poet’s or speaker’s attitude toward the subject, reader, or themselves, functioning as the poem's emotional "mood"

Point of View

the perspective or "lens" through which the poem’s speaker narrates, feels, and observes the subject matter

Line

a single row of words that acts as a structural unit, often broken based on rhythm, meaning, or meter rather than just sentence structure

Stanza

a grouped set of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation, acting as a "paragraph" to organize ideas, tone, or rhythm

Meter

the basic rhythmic structure of a verse, defined by a consistent pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

Haiku

a traditional form of Japanese poetry consisting of three un-rhymed lines with a 5, 7, 5 syllable structure

Sonnet

a 14-line poem traditionally written in iambic pentameter with a strict rhyme scheme and a specific structure, often exploring themes of love, time, or mortality