Acrostic. A form in which names or words are spelled out through the first letter of each line.
Allegory. A narrative or visual representation with an underlying meaning, moral message, or political significance.
Alliteration. Close repetition of consonant sounds, especially initial consonant sounds.
Allusion. A reference to a person, event, or literary work outside the poem.
Anaphora. A technique in which successive phrases or lines begin with the same words, often resembling a litany.
Assonance. Close repetition of vowel sounds.
Blank verse. Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Caesura. A deliberate rhetorical, grammatical, or rhythmic pause, break, cut, turn, division, or pivot in poetry.
Chiasmus. A rhetorical device where identical words and phrases repeat in a reversed order.
Consonance. Close repetition of consonant sounds--anywhere within the words.
Couplet. Stanza of 2 lines; often, a pair of rhymed lines.
Decasyllable. Line consisting of 10 syllables.
Elegy. A form of poetry in which the poet or speaker expresses grief, sadness, or loss.
End-Stopped Line. A metrical line containing a complete phrase or sentence, or a line of poetry ending with punctuation; the opposite of enjambment.
Enjambment. Continuation of sense and rhythmic movement from one line to the next; also called a "run-on" line.
Epic. A long, often book-length, narrative in verse form that retells the heroic journey of a single person, or group of persons.
Epigraph. A short verse, note, or quotation that appears at the beginning of a poem or section; usually presents an idea or theme on which the poem elaborates, or contributes background information not reflected in the poem itself.
Foot. Unit of measure in a metrical line of poetry.
Form. The structure of a poem, including its line lengths, line breaks, meter, stanza lengths, and rhyme scheme.
Hyperbole. Exaggeration for emphasis.
Iamb. Foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stress.
Idiom. A short expression that is peculiar to a language, people, or place that conveys a figurative meaning without a literal interpretation of the words used in the phrase.
Incantation. A chant or formulaic use of words invoking or suggesting magic or ritual.
Irony. A rhetorical device involving contradictions of expectation or knowledge and divided into three primary types: verbal, situational, and dramatic.
Line. Basic unit of a poem; measured in feet if metrical.
Literal Meaning. The simplest and most obvious meaning of a word, phrase, or poem based on denotation and not connotation.
Metaphor. A comparison between essentially unlike things, or the application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable.
Meter. The rhythmic measure of a line.
Monostich. A one-line stanza or a single verse of poetry.
Octave. Stanza of 8 lines.
Ode. A lyric addressed to an event, a person, or a thing not present.
Onomatopoeia. The use of language that sounds like the thing or action it describes.
Paradox. A situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but that also contains some measure of truth.
Pentameter. Line consisting of 5 metrical feet. For instance, iambic pentameter equals 10 syllables (5 unstressed, 5 stressed).
Personification. The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.
Pun. A play on words or the humorous use of a single sound or word with two or more implied meanings.
Quatrain. Stanza of 4 lines.
Quintain. Stanza of 5 lines.
Refrain. A repeated line within a poem, similar to the chorus of a song often at the end of a stanza.
Repetition. The poetic technique of repeating the same word or phrase multiple times within a poem or work.
Rhyme. Words that sound alike, especially words that end in the same sound.
Rhythm. The beat and movement of language (rise and fall, repetition and variation, change of pitch, mix of syllables, melody of words).
Septet. Stanza of 7 lines.
Sestet. Stanza of 6 lines.
Simile. A comparison between two essentially unlike things using words “such as,” “like,” and “as.”
Sonnet. A fourteen-line poem traditionally written in iambic pentameter, employing one of several rhyme schemes, and adhering to a tightly structured thematic organization.
Speaker. The voice of the poem, similar to a narrator in fiction.
Stanza. Group of lines making up a single unit; like a paragraph in prose.
Strophe. Often used to mean "stanza"; also a stanza of irregular line lengths.
Syllable. A unit of pronunciation in speech.
Symbol. An object or action that stands for something beyond itself.
Tetrameter. Line consisting of 4 metrical feet.
Tone. A literary device that conveys the author’s attitude toward the subject, speaker, or audience of a poem.
Volta. Point in which the mood/tone of the poem breaks and changes.