Key Terms and Concepts in Poetry

Apostrophe

A direct address to an abstraction (such as TIME), a thing (the WIND), an animal, or an imaginary or absent person.

Verse

A piece of writing that is metered and rhythmic.

Couplet

A two-line, rhyming stanza.

Lament

A poem expressing sorrow.

Rhyme

The repetition of the same (or similar) vowel or consonant sounds of constructions.

Enjambment

When one line of poetry ends without a pause and must continue on to the next line to complete its meaning.

Paradox

A statement that seems contradictory but is actually not.

Elegy

A contemplative poem, on death and mortality, often written for someone who has died.

Sarcasm

The use of irony to mock or convey contempt.

Allusion

A reference to another work of literature, or to art, history, or current events.

Sonnet

A poetic form of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words.

Oxymoron

A paradox made up of two seemingly contradictory words (deafening silence, cruel kindness).

Imagery

A description of how something looks, feels, tastes, smells, sounds.

Ode

A form of poetry used to address a single object or condition.

Onomatopoeia

The formation of a word from a sound associated with what it is named (sizzle).

Meter

The organization of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Speaker

In poetry, the person that is expressing a point-of-view in the poem.

Alliteration

The repetition of identical consonant sounds in successive or closely associated syllables (potential power play).

Consonance

An instance in which identical consonant sounds in nearby words follow different vowel sounds.

Anaphora

Repetition of an initial word or words to add emphasis.

Rhythm

In poetry, the patterned recurrence, within a certain range of regularity, of specific language features, usually features of sound.

Stanza

Lines in a poem that the poet has chosen to group together.

Sestina

Six stanzas of six lines each.