Anaphora: repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of
successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for
rhetorical or poetic effect
Caesura: a pause marking a rhythmic point of division in a melody.
It can be a comma, semicolon, or period.
(tells the reader to pause for a moment)
Alliteration: the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in
two or more neighboring words or syllables (as wild and woolly,
threatening throngs) -- called also head rhyme, initial rhyme
Assonance: internal rhyming of vowel sounds, the purest form of
lyric in poetry.
Connotation: The indirect, suggestive meaning of a word or
phrase which colors the association of the word. Ambiguities,
sarcasm, and irony all turn on connotative meaning
Consonance: correspondence or recurrence of sounds especially
in words; specifically: recurrence or repetition of consonants
especially at the end of stressed syllables without the similar
correspondence of vowels (as in the final sounds of "stroke" and
"luck")
Capitalization: the systematic use of uppercase letters; in poetry,
principally relating to the left hand margin—it can be used for
emphasis
Couplet: Two lines of rhymed verse, sometimes open, sometimes
closed. Closed couplet follows the a/a/b/b type pattern. The open
couplet will not be two successive lines, but still two lines in the
same verse, such as the a/b/b/a type pattern
End Rhyme: Rhyme that occurs at the end (rather than the middle)
of a line of poetry.
Diction: Word choice; the consistent feature of the type and style
of the words that are used.
Enjambment: Spill over of poetry from one line to the beginning of
next line.
End Stop: A line of poetry that, as a result of punctuation (period,
comma, etc.), pauses or stops at the end.
Hyperbole: Extravagant or excessive exaggeration, which
reinforces or inflates a point of view in poetry.
Image/Imagery: A simple picture or a mental representation
.
Macronics: The use of foreign words to enrich the texture of
diction in a poetic line.
Meter: The formal measure of the natural rhythm of language as it
falls into regular patterns of stress or elongation. The arrangements
of syllables into repeated patterns called feet within a line. Meters
are regularized rhythms. Each repeated unit of meter is called a
foot.
Onomatopoeia: A word that embodies the sounds that a thing
makes. Words like “bzzz” or “oink”
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally
denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to
suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in
money)
Myth: a body of allusion and metaphor that helps us to understand
our own origins, our fertility cycles and territorial sagas, and the
sources of our religious practices.
Personification: The humanization of an object. In other words,
giving a non-human thing human-like qualities.
Quatrain: Any stanza unit of four lines; may be rhymed or
unrhymed
Oxymoron: A radical paradox; a conjunction of extreme opposites.
Some basic examples
Punctuation: Standard or traditional marks to indicate grammatical
intervals and conventions in writing (comma, period, semi-colon,
etc.)
Simile: an indirect comparison using like or as. (e.g. as fast as a
cheetah)
Rhythm: The immeasurable music in poetry, above and beyond
mere metrics, that is characterized by cadence, pace, and ongoing
momentum.
Symbolism: the practice of using one item to represent or stand
for another item or concept
Sonnet: a 14 line poem, usually with octet/sestet separation of
eight and six line formations.
Tone: The accumulated effect of style, coloration, and texture.
(Author’s attitude)