Introduction to Poetry
POETRY TERMINOLOGY
DEFINITIONS: Match each of the following terms to its corresponding definition.
IAMB
METER
Free verse
SPEAKER
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
REFRAIN
COUPLET
STANZA
END RHYME
INVERSION
SCANNING
FREE VERSE
RHYME
BLANK VERSE
INTERNAL RHYME
PARALLELISM
RHYTHM
Poetry that doesn’t have a regular meter or rhyme scheme
Iambic pentameter A line of poetry that contains five iambs
Meter
A generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
Rhyme
The repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that
are close together in a poem; end rhyme occurs at the end of lines, while
internal rhyme occurs in the middle of a line
scanning
Discovering the metrical pattern of a poem
rhythm
Musical quality in language produced by repetition
iamb
A metrical foot (unit of measure) consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable
speaker
The voice that is talking to the reader in a poem
parallelism
The repetition of words, phrases or sentences that have the same grammatical
structure or that state a similar idea
stanza
A group of consecutive lines that form a single unit in a poem
inversion
The reversal of the normal word order of a sentence
blank verse
Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
refrain
A repeated word, phrase, line or group of lines
couplet
Two consecutive lines of poetry that form a unit, often emphasized by rhythm or rhyme