Alliteration - the repetition of the same beginning sound, usually a consonant, in a phrase or line of poetry. (tongue twisters)

Example: She sells seashells by the seashore.

Imagery - the author’s use of description and words to create pictures in the reader’s mind.

Poetry - an expression of ideas or feelings in words, usually having a form, rhythm, and rhyme.

Onomatopoeia - a sound device in which a word makes the sound.

Example: Crash, bang, click.

Personification - when human qualities and ideas are given to things.

Example: The wind whispered through the trees.

Simile - the comparison of two things that are not really alike by using the words like or as.

Example: Her smile was like sunshine.

Metaphor - the comparison of two things in which one is said to be another.

Example: The lake was a golden mirror.

Rhyme - two or more lines that end with rhyming words.

Rhyming words - words that end in the same sound.

Repetition - a sound device in which sounds, words, or phrases are repeated to emphasize a point.

Stanza - a group of related lines in a poem.

• Lyric: reflective poetry with regular rhyme scheme and meter which reveals the poet’s thoughts and feelings

• Narrative: nondramatic, objective verse with regular rhyme scheme and meter which relates a story or narrative

• Sonnet: a rigid 14-line verse form, with variable structure and rhyme scheme according to type

  • Shakespearean (English)—three quatrains and concluding couplet i iambic pentameter, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg or abba cddc effe gg. The Spenserian sonnet is a specialized form with linking rhyme abab bcbc cdcd ee

  • Italian (Petrarchan)—an octave and sestet, between which a break in thought occurs. The traditional rhyme scheme is abba abba cde cde (or, the sestet, any variation of c, d, e)

• Ode: elaborate lyric verse which deals seriously with a dignified theme

• Blank Verse: unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter

• Free Verse: unrhymed lines without regular rhythm

• Epic: a long, narrative poem which gives the account of a hero important to a nation or race

• Dramatic Monologue: a lyric poem in which the speaker tells an audience about a dramatic moment in his/her life

• Elegy: a poem of lament or the death of an individual

• Ballad: simple, narrative verse which tells a story to be sung or recited; the folk ballad is anonymously handed down, while the literary ballad has a single author

• Light Verse: a general category of poetry written to entertain, such as lyric poetry, epigrams, and limericks. It can also have a serious side, as in parody or satire

• Haiku: Japanese verse in three lines of 5-7-5 syllables, often depicting a delicate image

• Cinquain: a formula poem that has five lines and a total of 22 syllables, distributed in a specific 2-4-6-8-2 pattern

• Diamante: a formula poem that is shaped like a diamond, and the words describe opposite ideas

• Limerick: humorous nonsense-verse in five anapestic lines rhyming aabba, a-lines being trimeter and b-lines dimeter