Exploring Poetry Forms and Techniques

1. Poetry Terms Mrs. Denise Stanley

2. alliteration • Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words • Example: ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers …’

3. assonance • Repetition of vowel sounds

4. consonance • Repetition of consonant sounds at the ends of words

5. rhyme • Repetition of sounds at the ends of words • Example: cat, mat, fat, hat, etc.

6. denotation • Dictionary meaning of a word • Example: ‘house’ and ‘home’ could both be defined as a place to live • ‘Thin’ and ‘skinny’ both mean not overweight

7. connotation • Feelings associated with a word • Example: ‘House’ and ‘home’ are defined as a place to live, but ‘home’ seems more comforting than ‘house.’ • ‘Skinny’ is not as positive sounding as ‘thin.’ ‘Thin’ seems more attractive.

8. metaphor • Makes a direct comparison between unlike objects • Example: “He is a monster.” You are not saying he is like a monster or that he looks like a monster, you are saying he and the monster are one in the same.

9. simile • Comparison of unlike objects using ‘like’ or ‘as.’ • Example: “She is as pretty as a picture.” You are not saying she and the picture are one in the same. • “Clouds like cotton candy floated across the sky.” -- You are not saying the clouds are cotton candy; you are saying they are likecotton candy.

10. onomatopoeia • Use of words to imitate sounds • Example: animal sounds like ‘moo,’ ‘hiss,’ ‘meow,’ etc.

11. personification • Giving something not human, human characteristics • Examples: Arms of a chair; legs of a chair; face of a clock • Further example: “The sun raced across the sky.” (The sun is not human, so it cannot literally race.)

12. stanzas • Groups of lines in a poem, considered as a unit – lines separated by white spaces

13. meter • Regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry

14. Iambic pentameter • Line of poetry that contains five iambs. (An iamb is a metrical foot – or unit of measure – that has one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.)

15. Lines of poetry • 2 lines = couplet • 3 lines = tercet • 4 lines = quatrain • 5 lines = cinquain • 6 lines = sestet • 7 lines = septet • 8 lines = octave

16. free verse • Poetry that does not have a pattern or a rhyme scheme

17. blank verse • Unrhymed poetry in a regular pattern

18. sonnets • Poems with 14 lines with a definite rhyme scheme

19. narrative poetry • Poem that tells a story

20. ballad • Narrative poem that was originally meant to be sung

21. ode • Poem with a single purpose, dealing with a single theme

22. elegy • Poem about death or other solemn theme

23. epic poem • Long, narrative poem

24. concrete poem • Poem written in the shape of its subject

25. lyric poetry • Highly musical verse that expresses observations and/or feelings of a single speaker

26. refrain • The “chorus” of a poem • (Like the “chorus” in a song … song lyrics)

27. tanka • Five-line poem thirty-one syllables long • 1st line: 5 syllables • 2nd line: 7 syllables • 3rd line: 5 syllables • 4th line: 7 syllables • 5th line: 7 syllables