POETRY
FORMAL DEFINITION
A
concentrated kind of writing in
which imagery, figurative language
(simile, metaphor, personification)
rhythm, and often rhyme combine to
create a special emotional effect.
STANZA
A group of lines forming a
unit in a poem.
SPEAKER
The voice of a poem, sometimes
that of the poet, sometimes that of
a fictional person or even a thing.
POINT OF VIEW
The relationship of the
speaker to the poem.
MOOD
The emotional
atmosphere of a poem
TONE
The
attitude taken speaker toward
the subject of a work. The tone
conveys an emotion or several
emotions.
THEME
The
main idea of a poem usually
expressed as a general statement.
SIMILE
A
comparison made using "like"
or " as“.
IMAGERY
The
collection of sense images that
helps the reader of a literary work to
visualize scenes, hear sounds, feel
textures, smell aromas, and taste
foods.
METAPHOR
A
type of figurative language used
to compare or equate seemingly unlike
things.
PERSONIFICATION
A
figure of speech in which an
animal, object, or idea is given human
form or characteristics.
ALLUSION
A
reference in a work of literature
to a well-known character, place, or
situation from another work of
literature, music, art, or from history.
SYMBOLISM
Any
object, person, place, or
experience that means more than
what it is.
RHYME SCHEME
The pattern of rhyme formed by
the end rhyme in a poem.
“Too green the springing April grass, A
Too Blue the silver-speckled sky,
B
For me to linger here, alas,
A
While happy winds go laughing by, B
Wasting the golden hours indoors,
C
Washing windows and scrubbing floors.” C
COUPLET
Two consecutive lines of
poetry that rhyme.
POETIC FORMS
Fixed Form
Free Form
Blank Verse
Narrative Poetry
Lyric Poetry
Refrain
FIXED FORM
Traditional verse with a rhyme
scheme.
Sonnet is an example of a fixed
form.
FREE FORM
No specific rules of
rhyme, meter, or length.
Also called Free Verse
BLANK VERSE
Unrhymed iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter is a pattern of 5
repetitions of unstressed syllables followed
by a stressed syllable.
Think Shakespeare’s plays
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
EXAMPLE
What light thru yonder window breaks, it is
The east, and Juliet is the sun, arise
Fair sun and kill the envious moon who is
Sick and green from envy…
NARRATIVE POETRY
Tells a story
Ballads are narrative
poems
LYRIC POETRY
 Musical quality and contains expressions of the poet’s feelings and
thoughts.
 Very romantic or descriptive
 Elegies, odes, and sonnets are lyric poems.
REFRAIN
A word, phrase, or series
of lines that is repeated.
MAKE THE CONNECTION
 A sonnet could be called a fixed form lyric poem.
 A Shakespearean sonnet could be described as a fixed form, lyric
poem written in rhymed iambic pentameter.
FEATURES OF POETRY
End Rhyme
Internal Rhyme
Consonance
Assonance
Alliteration
Slant Rhyme
END RHYME
Words at the end of lines that rhyme.
Most common form
This is what is used to identify rhyme
scheme.
INTERNAL RHYME
Rhyming words found
within a line of poetry.
SLANT RHYME
 An off-rhyme at the end of poetry lines where only the vowels are
the same
My broken heart,
is heavy and dark
Low strings on a harp
ALLITERATION
The repetition of sounds, most
often consonant sounds, at the
beginnings of words.
ALLITERATION EXAMPLES
Paul’s Pizza Palace
Hollywood Hair
Messy meal
Minerva McGonagal
Poppy Pomfrey
ASSONANCE
Repetition of vowel sounds within words in a line
of poetry.
I fly high in the sky.
CONSONANCE
Repetition of consonants, or a consonant pattern in
close intervals.
Standstill stunts/esteem
Slither/lather
Scald/scold
ONOMATOPOEIA
The
use of a word or phrase that
actually imitates or suggests the sound
of what it describes.

Example: gnash, buzz, click
RHYTHMIC WORD
PATTERNS
 The pattern of accented /
and
unaccented ~
syllables in a word
 //
spondee
Football, mayday, d-day,
heartbreak, Key West,
shortcake
Plop-plop, drop-dead
/~~
dactyl
 Strawberry, carefully, merrily, mannequin, tenderly,
prominent
 /~
trochee
 Happy, hammer, Pittsburgh, nugget, double, dental, dinner,
shatter, market, picket, doctor
~~/
anapest
 Understand, interrupt, comprehend, contradict, get a life, in
the blink of an eye
 ~/
iamb
 Behold, noel, destroy, inject, inscribe, insist, employ,
unwashed, amuse