Poem Forms

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Poetic Forms to know:

Learn these well for future reference:

1. Rhythm: refers to the rise and fall of our voices as we stress some sounds more strongly than others. This means that the pattern of stressed or unstressed syllables is repeated throughout the poem.

2. Meter: a strict rhythmic pattern is called meter. (You can scan the poem)

3. End Rhyme: the pattern of rhyme at the end of a line (ABBA ABCD)

4. Internal Rhyme: rhyme happening within the stanza

5. Alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close together

6. Onomatopoeia: is the use of words with sounds that imitate or suggest their meaning (purr, crash, bang)

7. Free Verse: has no regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, more like regular speech.

8. Metaphor: Directly compares two dissimilar things.

9. Simile: uses a word such as like or as or than to compare two dissimilar things.

10. Personification: gives human qualities to non-human things.

11. Tone: is the poem serious, humorous, mocking or mournful?

12. Theme: What is the poem ultimately talking about?

13. Refrain: the repetition of a line at regular intervals

14. Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds (she sells sea shells)

16. Ballad: song or poem in short stanzas that tells a story

18. Haiku: Japanese poetry- 3 lines - first line - 5 syllables, second line- 7 syllables, third line - 5 syllables- subject: nature.

19. Hyperbole: an exaggeration for effect, saying more than is true

20. Oxymoron: a contradiction in terms- (jumbo shrimp)

21. Personification: giving human qualities to non-human things

22. Stanza: a division of poetry for the number of lines it contains

Couplet: 2-line stanza

Triplet: 3-line stanza

Quatrain: 4 lines

Quintet: 5 lines

Sestet: 6 lines

Septet: 7 lines

Octave: 8 lines

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