Introduction
Envoi, villanelle, volta: When you start to study poetry, you may begin to feel like you’re reading another language. I’m not just talking about the unusual logic of many poems themselves; I’m talking about the words used to describe about poetic forms, techniques, and devices. And, though you may not memorize every term in a poetry glossary, knowing about a handful of them can be helpful.
Some terms describe a particular form. You may already be familiar with some of those like haiku, sonnet, and limerick. These forms have strict rules about length, regardless of its measure: haikus are seventeen syllables; sonnets are fourteen lines, limericks are five. Other forms you might encounter are villanelles, sestinas, or ghazals. The terms prose poem, elegy, ode, and epic all refer to specific forms of poetry, though their rules are not as strict as those governing sonnets or haikus.
There are terms specific to the structure of a poem, too: stanza, line break, end-stop, enjambment.
Other terms describe the techniques poets use to create emphasis or make meaning in their poems. Later on in this Knowledge Path course, we’ll look more closely at rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration.
Poetry Glossary
apostrophe: a direct address of an inanimate object, abstract qualities, or a person not living or present
Example: “Beware, O Asparagus, you’ve stalked my last meal.”
blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter
dactylic (dactyl): a metrical foot containing three syllables—the first is stressed, while the last two are unstressed
elision: the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry
Example: “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame”
free verse: lines with no prescribed pattern or structure
hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement)
Example: “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
iambic pentameter: a traditional form of rising meter consisting of lines containing five iambic feet (and, thus, ten syllables)
irony: a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony) or what is expected in a particular circumstance or behavior (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a situation known to the audience or other characters (dramatic)
Example: “Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea”
metonymy: a word or phrase that replaces the name of an object or concept for another to which it is related
Example: “We have always remained loyal to the crown” instead of “We have always remained loyal to the monarchy.”
personification: the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities
Example: “Time let me play / and be golden in the mercy of his means”
pun: play on words, or a humorous use of a single word or sound with two or more implied meanings; quibble
Example: “They’re called lessons . . . because they lessen from day to day.”
quatrain: four-line stanza or grouping of four lines of verse
rhyme: correspondence of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse
rising meter: meter containing metrical feet that move from unstressed to stressed syllables
synesthesia: an attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of another
Example: the sound of her voice was sweet
Attribution:
“Poetry Glossary”. Licensed under CC BY SA 4.0 https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/resources-teachers
Summary
You don’t need to commit every term in the poetic glossary to memory, but having an understanding of the most frequently used forms and techniques will enhance your understanding of the poems you read and study. Knowing that haikus, for example, usually explore a subject related to the natural world will help you identify a poet’s choice if she or he deviates from that traditional topic.
The poetry terms in the glossaries you’ve studied speak to the ways we talk about poetic form, literary elements found in poetry, and poetic techniques. Often, a poem that takes a certain form will have that form in its title: for instance, John Keats’ Romantic classic, “Ode to a Nightingale.” Understanding that an ode is a lyric poem that focuses on a particular image, person, place, or idea would help orient you in your reading of Keats’ masterpiece.
If some of the terms in these glossaries are familiar to you, that’s because many of them address aspects of language that crossover into other areas of study. Rhythm and rhyme, for example, are important elements of song-writing. Image and repetition are techniques that writers of fiction and creative nonfiction use, too. Familiarize yourself with these terms. When you encounter one in your reading, jog your memory and revisit the definition.
