Poetry Terms

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Poetry Terms
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Form The external pattern or shape of a poem

• Verse
• The language of poetry using meter
• Stanza
• A group of lines whose metrical pattern (and
  usually rhyme scheme as well) is repeated
  throughout a poem

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• Blank verse
• A poem written in unrhymed iambic (? / )
  pentameter (five foot line)
• Free verse
• Non-metrical (measured by feet) poetry written in
  lines, using natural speech patterns to regulate
  rhythm.
• from Mirror I am silver and exact. I have
  no preconceptions.
• Whatever I see I swallow immediately
• Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

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• Couplet
• Two successive lines of poetry, usually in the
  same meter, linked by rhyme
• from Bereft
• Where had I heard this wind before
• Change like this to a deeper roar?
• Quatrain
• A four line stanza
• Sestet
• A six line stanza
• Octet
• An eight line stanza

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SonnetA fourteen line poem, usually in iambic
pentameter

• Italian Sonnet
• This form is divided into an octet (abbaabba) and
  a sestet (cdecde/cdccdc/cdecde)
• The octet presents a problem, asks a question,
  makes a reflection or a statement
• The sestet resolves the problem, answers the
  question, provides comfort or realizes the vision

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• English Sonnet (Shakespearean)
• This form is usually divided into three quatrains
  and a couplet (abab cdcd efef gg).
• -The Spenserian sonnet is a combination of
  English and Italian closer to English with a
  linking rhyme between each quatrain (abab bcbc
  cdcd ee)

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Meter - The measurable repetition of accented and
unaccented syllables in poetry

• Scansion the process of measuring verse
  marking accented and unaccented syllables,
  dividing lines into feet, and identifying
  metrical pattern (form)

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• Foot
• The basic unit used in the scansion and
  measurement of verse. A foot usually contains
  one accented syllable (stress) and one or two
  unaccented syllable(s)

• Stressed Syllable /
• Unstressed Syllable ?
• Iamb (? / )
• Trochee (/ ? )
• Spondee (/ /)
• Anapest ( ? ? / )
• Dactyl ( / ? ? )
• Tetrameter
• A metrical line with four feet
• Pentameter
• A metrical line with five feet
• Hexameter
• A metrical line with six feet

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Rhyme - The repetition of accented vowel sounds
and all succeeding sounds in important or
importantly positioned words

• Internal Rhyme
• A rhyme in which all of the rhyming words are
  within the same line of poetry
• The Clouds
• I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
• -Shelley
• End Rhyme
• A rhyme where the rhyming words are at the ends
  of lines.
• The Eagle
• He clasps the crag with crooked hands
• Close to the sun in lonely lands,
• Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
• -Tennyson

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• Exact rhyme (perfect rhyme)
• Rhyming words where the accented vowel sound and
  following sounds are identical
• Apartment House
• A filing-cabinet of human lives
• Where people swarm like bees in tunneled hives,
• Each to his own cell in the towered comb,
• Identical and cramped we call it home.
• -Gerald Raftery

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• Eye rhyme
• The endings of rhyming words are spelled the
  same, but pronounced differently
• love and prove or daughter and
  laughter
• Identical rhyme
• The consonant sound before the vowel in rhyming
  words is also pronounced the same
• bare and bear or right and
  rite
• Imperfect rhyme
• The endings of the rhyming words sound similar,
  but are not exact
• Lightly and frightfully or
  yellow and willow

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• Poetry Analysis Requires Effort ?
• Remember to SWEAT!
• Always Consider
• S ounds Form and Rhyme
• W ords Literary devices
• E motions The feeling being conveyed
• A nalysis Message or meaning
• T hemes Central meaning or universal truths
  

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DawnPaul Lawrence Dunbar

• An angel, robed in spotless white,
• Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night.
• Night woke to blush the sprite was gone.
• Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.