Poetry Lingo and Forms

Like most art forms, there's a certain lingo that we use when talking about poetry.  In visual art, you use words and phrases like 'sketch,' 'stipple,' 'daub,' 'form,' 'contrast,' 'rhythm,' 'horizon line,' and 'hue' to mean things that might have slightly different meanings when talking about art than when talking about music, for instance.  In music, we also have lingo, and words like 'rhythm,' 'measure,' 'tempo,' and 'harmony' get specific meanings that help us talk about, explain, and describe music.

Likewise, poetry gets its own lingo.  Or jargon, if you like that word better.  (English is awesome because we almost always have more than one word for a concept, and each one has slightly different shades or meanings or connotations.  Delightful language to use for poetry!)  Today's post starts out with a glossary of poetry lingo, and then moves on to define common poetic forms.  This is a post you may end up referring back to pretty often -- I'll be sure to link it to the schedule page so you can find it again easily throughout the next three months.

DO NOT feel like you need to memorize all of these!  This is a handy list of definitions for you to refer to.  You probably know some of these already, and some of them will be things you do eventually know, but others are not going to be useful outside of poetry.  I don't expect you to memorize them, but we WILL be using them.

Alliteration -- repeating the same consonant sound, especially at the beginning of multiple words, eg. "while I pondered weak and weary"

Assonance -- repeating the same or similar vowel sounds in multiple words, eg. "rise and find your bicycle"

Connotation -- the emotional, personal associations that a word evokes in your mind, but which go beyond the dictionary's definition, eg. the word "jolly" making you think of Christmas

Couplet -- a pair of lines in a poem that rhyme with each other

Denotation -- the dictionary definition of a word

Enjambment -- a line of poetry in which the sense of the words carries over from the end of one line into the beginning of the next.  This is different from the typical end-stopped lines, where each line has a complete thought.  An example from "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning:

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive.  I call

That piece a wonder, now...

The first line is an end-stopped line, and the second line uses enjambment, since "I call that piece a wonder" is one thought separated by the line break.

Figurative language -- using words to convey a meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words.  See hyperbole, metaphor, simile, and understatement.

Hyperbole -- using exaggeration as a figure of speech, eg. "I have a million problems" or "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse."

Irony -- the contrast between what is being said what is meant, or between what you expect to happen and what actually happens.  There are three kinds:  verbal irony, in which a speaker says the opposite of what they mean; irony of circumstance, in which what actually happens is the opposite of what you expect to happen; and dramatic irony, in which what a character says shows they are ignorant of events or facts that the audience (and/or other characters) know about.

Metaphor -- a figure of speech comparing two seemingly unlike things, but without using a word such as 'like' or 'as' in the comparison.  "My love is a red, red rose" is a metaphor.  ("My love is like a red, red rose" is a simile.)

Meter -- the pattern of rhythmic accents in a poem, like beats in a piece of music

Narrator -- the implied speaker in a fictional work, not always the same as the actual author writing the words

Onomatopoeia  -- using words that imitate the sounds those words describe, eg, 'whizz' and 'pop'

Personification -- saying that a non-living thing has qualities or abilities that belong to living things, eg. "the leaves waved joyfully to the hikers" or "the stone wall stood drowsily in the sunlight, dreaming of winters long gone by"

Rhyme -- matching the final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words (if they don't match exactly, they are called an approximate rhyme)

Rhythm -- recurring accents or stresses in succeeding lines of a poem

Satire -- a literary device that criticizes human misbehavior and makes fun of vice, stupidity, folly, and sin

Simile -- a figure of speech comparing two seemingly unlike things using a word such as 'like' or 'as' in the comparison. "My love is like a red, red rose" is a simile. ("My love is a red, red rose" is a metaphor.)

Tone -- the attitude of the writer toward the subject being written about

Understatement -- a figure of speech in which less is said than is meant; the opposite of exaggeration

Allegory -- a story told using symbolism where parts of the story being told each symbolize or represent something else, such as a moral quality or a concept, or might even represent figures from real life or the Bible

Ballad -- a narrative poem (usually written in four-line stanzas, and often set to music) where a story or event is narrated in a direct way filled with movement

Blank verse -- poetry or prose that is written in iambic pentameter but doesn't rhyme, eg. most of the dialog in Shakespeare's plays

Dramatic monologue -- a poem in which a speaker directly addresses a wordless listener

Elegy -- a form of lyric poetry that laments the dead

Epic -- a long narrative poem that relates a hero's adventures

Epigram -- a short and witty poem that often uses satire to convey a point in a funny way

Free verse -- poetry that does not use regular patterns of rhyme and meter

Iambic pentameter -- a line in poetry (or a play) that is measured in small groups of syllables called feet. It uses the type of foot called the iamb, which consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (as in a-BOVE or ex-ALT). 'Pentameter' means that each line has five of those feet, so the line is ten syllables long, usually.  That sounds something like "daDum daDum daDum daDum daDum." This is the most common form for lines of poetry in English, and has been since Chaucer was writing in the 1300s. 

Lyric poem -- a short poem that expresses great feeling in a small space

Narrative poem -- a poem which tells a story

Ode -- a long poem with multiple stanzas, usually focused on a serious or exalted subject

Open form -- poetry that is free from constraints such as regular line length, consistent rhyming, or metrical patterns

Parody -- a humorous, sometimes mocking imitation of a specific literary form or work

Romance/Romantic -- narrative poetry and fiction in which adventure plays a central part, and which usually describes an idealized version of the world.  Capital 'r' Romance and the Romantic Movement do not necessarily involve two people falling in love.

Soliloquy -- a speech in a play which is not meant to be heard by any other characters in the play (even if they are onstage), and which is meant to present the speaking character's thoughts directly to the audience

Sonnet -- a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter with a specific rhyme pattern.  Shakespearean or English sonnets have the form abab cdcd efef gg, while Petrarchan or Italian sonnets take the form abba abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd

Stanza -- a unit of lines in a poem with a form that gets repeated, like a verse in a song