Poetry terms

Literary terms useful for talking about poetry

Meter the pattern of measured sound-units occurring more or less regularly in lines of verse. (ex. “My Papa’s Waltz” the whiskey on your breath / could make a small boy dizzy—iambic trimeter)

Rhyme the identity of sound between syllables or paired groups of syllables, usually at the end of verse lines. (ex. “We Real Cool,” We sing sin. We / thin gin.)

End-rhyme the last words of two lines rhyme (most common) (ex. “Theme for English B,” But we are, that’s true! / As I learn from you)

Internal rhyme rhyming words occur in the middle of lines (ex. “We Real Cool,” We sing sin. We / thin gin.)

Slant rhyme an imperfect rhyme: ex. “The soul selects her own society:

I’ve known her – from an ample nation –

Choose one –

Then – close the valves of her attention –

Like stone —

Enjambment the running over of the sense and grammatical structure from one verse line or couplet to the next without a punctuated pause. (ex. “We Real Cool,” We real cool. We / left school)

End-stopped line when the end of a verse line coincides with the completion of a sentence, clause, or other independent unit of syntax. (ex. “St. Roach,” But that we know you not at all.)

Speaker -the person that is talking in the poem (ex. in the waiting room Elizabeth Bishop’s “I” is the speaker)

Narrative- tells a story (ex. “My papas waltz,” “Theme for English B,” “We real cool,” “In the waiting room”)

Free verse- a poem that doesn’t have a specific meter or rhyme pattern (everything we read except “My Papa’s Waltz”)

Line – a line in a poem (ex. “My Papa’s Waltz,” The whiskey on your breath)

Stanza—like a paragraph in a poem

Anaphora – when a number of lines begin with the same word. ex. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

       I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

       I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

       I looked upon the Nile and raised pyramids above it.

       I heard the singing of the Mississippi . . .

Refrain- a phrase or verse reoccurring regularly in a poem or song. (ex. “Hanging Fire,” momma’s in the bedroom with the door closed)

Figurative Language –terms which do not have the literal meaning they state. (ex, “A Display of Mackerel,”—the rainbowed school / and it’s acres of brilliant classrooms)

Metaphor—comparison between essentially unlike things without using words OR application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable. (ex. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,”—My soul is deep)

Simile—comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as “like”or “as” (or “as though”). (ex, “In the Waiting Room”—“necks / wound round and round with wire / like the necks of light bulbs.”)