Poetry Flashcards
Poem
Poet chooses
Arranges words to create a strong feeling through meaning, sound, and rhythm.
Lines
Rows of words
Does not always follow rules
Stanzas
Groups of lines set apart by spaces
Fits overall structure of a poem
Break lines and stanzas in unusual places to get the reader’s attention
Create a certain effect
Rhyme
Rhyme scheme
Same ending sound
Rhythm
“Beat”
Stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry
Meter
Recurring pattern
Repetition
Repeating of words or lines in poetry
Unify a poem
Reinforce the meaning or theme
Alliteration
Repetition
Initial consonant sound
Simile
Comparison
Uses like or as
Metaphor
Comparison
Does not use like or as
Personification
Human qualities to a nonliving thing
Symbolism
Thing to stand for something else
Allusion
Reference to another work
Point of view
Position to outlook from which the speaker tells a story or observes something
Speaker
The narrator of a story
Voice of the poem
May be the voice of the poet or another person or character
Theme
Central idea that a poem explores
Tone
Mood the poem creates
Playful, angry, melancholy
Change as the speaker’s reflection on a topic moves in a different direction
Lyric poem
A short poem like a song
Ode
Two or more stanzas
Haiku
Very short poem
Three lines usually about nature
Sonnet
Fourteen lines
First eight lines develop one idea
Last six lines question that idea
Ballad
Stanzas of two or four lines and a refrain that repeats tells a story
Free verse
A poem that does not follow any rules of rhythm or rhyme
Denotations
Dictionary definitions of words
