Poetry Vocabulary

1. Poetry Vocabulary Definitions you need to know to help with your writing

2. Poetry Vocabulary • ALLITERATION: The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. • Ex. The snake slithers stealthily.

3. Poetry Vocabulary • ANTONYM: words that are opposite in meaning. • Examples: Ice/Fire Hot/ Cold Up/Down

4. Poetry Vocabulary • Apostrophe-an address to a person absent or dead or to an abstract entity. • Ex. “O Death, where is thy sting”

5. Poetry Vocabulary • ASSONANCE: The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or line of poetry. • Ex. Aardvarks always amble absently.

6. Poetry Vocabulary • BLANK VERSE: A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter. • Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

7. Poetry Vocabulary • CINQUAIN- a short poem consisting of five, usually unrhymed lines containing, respectively, two, four, six, eight, and two syllables.

8. Poetry Vocabulary • CONNOTATION: The personal or emotional associations called up by a word that go beyond itsdictionary meaning. • Ex. Home is associated with “warmth, comfort, security.

9. Poetry Vocabulary • DENOTATION: The dictionary meaning of a word.

10. Poetry Vocabulary • DICTION-poet's distinctive choices in vocabulary.

11. Poetry Vocabulary • ECHO-repetition of key words or ideas for effect.

12. Poetry Vocabulary • FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: A form of language use in which writers and speakers mean something other than the literal meaning of their words. (E.g. hyperbole, metaphor, and simile)

13. Poetry Vocabulary • FORM: the arrangement, manner or method used to convey the content, such as free verse, couplet, limerick, haiku...

14. Poetry Vocabulary • FREE VERSE: Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme.

15. Poetry Vocabulary • Haiku- a major form of Japanese verse, written in 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, and employing highly evocative allusions and comparisons, often on the subject of nature or one of the seasons.

16. Poetry Vocabulary • HOMONYM: Two or more distinct words with the same pronunciation and spelling but with different meanings. • Ex. Row can mean to paddle a boat, a fight, or in a line.

17. Poetry Vocabulary • HOMOPHONE: two or more words with the same pronunciation but with different meanings and spellings. • Whether and weather, pear, pare and pair.

18. Poetry Vocabulary • HYPERBOLE: an exaggeration of the truth. • Ex. My book bag weighs a ton!

19. Poetry Vocabulary • IAMBIC PENTAMETER- a common meter in poetry consisting of an unrhymed line with five feet or accents, each foot containing an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable.

20. Poetry Vocabulary • IMAGE: A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea.

21. Poetry Vocabulary • IMAGERY: Figurative language used to create particular mental images

22. Poetry Vocabulary • METAPHOR: an association of two completely different objects as being the same thing. • “All the world’s a stage”

23. Poetry Vocabulary • METER: The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems.

24. Poetry Vocabulary • ONOMATOPOEIA- use of words resembling the sounds they mean. • Bark, meow, buzz

25. Poetry Vocabulary • OXYMORON- a seeming contradiction in two words put together. • Girly man, jumbo shrimp

26. Poetry Vocabulary • PERSONIFICATION- attribution of human motives or behaviors toimpersonal agencies. • The trees waved to us as we passed.

27. Poetry Vocabulary • RHYME: The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words.

28. Poetry Vocabulary • RHYMING COUPLET-a pair of lines which end-rhyme expressing one clear thought • For never was there a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

29. Poetry Vocabulary • RHYTHM: The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse.

30. Poetry Vocabulary • SETTING: The time and place of a literary work that establishes its context. • Ex. “It was a cold winter day in the town of Ipswich.”

31. Poetry Vocabulary • SIMILE: A figure of speech invoking a comparison between unlike things using "like," "as," or "as though.“ • The girl looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

32. Poetry Vocabulary • STRUCTURE: The design or form of a literary work.

33. Poetry Vocabulary • SYMBOL: An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself. • Ex. Stars, eagle, sun.

34. Poetry Vocabulary • SYNONYM: One of two or more words that have the same or nearly the same meanings. • Ex. Joyful, glad, happy.

35. Poetry Vocabulary • TONE: The implied attitude of a writer (or speaker) toward the subject and characters of a work. • Ex. Gloomy, apathetic, joyful.