Poem Vocabulary: Know The Lingo Flashcards
Alliteration
The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.
EX: “From Forth the Fatal Loins of these two Foes;
A pair of star-cross’d Lovers take their Life.
Allusion
A brief reference to a real or fictional person, event, place, or work of art.
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds in a chunk of text.\
EX: “Ivan will trY to LIght the fIre.” (L is supposed to be lower case)
Ballad
A story/narrative in poetic form.
Consonance
The repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, in a chunk of test
EX: A worM naMed Maurice took the garden by storM.
Diction
The author’s specific word choice.
Enjambment
This occurs when one line ends without a pause or any punctuation and continues onto the next line.
EX: If this were a poem,
THIS WOULD BE
AN EXAMPLE OF THE TECHNIQUE
Free Verse
Poetry that does not rhyme or have a measurable meter.
Metaphor
A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things without using connecting words such as “like” or “as.”
EX: Love is a battlefield.
Simile
A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things using connecting words such as “like” or “as.”
EX: Love is like a battlefield.
Meter
The measured arrangement of sounds/beats in a poem, including the poet’s placement of emphasis and the number of syllables per line.
Onomatpoeia
A word that sounds like what it means.
EX: buzz, click, bang, sizzle
Rhythm
The recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry. Depending on how sounds are arranged, the rhythm of a poem may be fast or slow, choppy or smooth.
Stanza
A unified group of lines in poetry. This is often marked by spacing between sections of the poem.
Symbol
An object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.
Theme
The central meaning or dominant message the poet is trying to deliver to the reader.
Tone
The attitude the poem’s narrator (this may or may not be the actual poet) takes towards a subject or character: serious, humorous, sarcastic, ironic, concerned, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective, etc.
Verse
A single line of poetry.
