Alliteration – the repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together in a poem.
Allusion – a reference to a statement, person, place, even, or thing that is known from literature, history, religion, myth, politics, sports, science, pop culture, etc.
Aside – words spoken by a character in a play (or poem) to the audience or to another character that are not supposed to be overheard be the others on the stage in the scene
Assonance – the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds, especially in words that are close together.
Ballad – a story told in the form of a poem with a lilt or beat that makes it easy to recite from memory. They are often about people in different circumstances.
Blank verse – poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
Couplet – Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
Dialect – a way of speaking peculiar to a geographic region, social group, or a whole community (distinguished by vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar)
Diction – word choice
End-stopped lines – lines of poetry that use punctuation to signal a pause at the end of the line.
Enjambment – lines of poetry that run together because there is no punctuation to make the reader pause between lines
Free verse – poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme
Iamb – a metrical foot or unit of poetry containing an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable
Iambic pentameter – a line of poetry containing five iambs
Idiom – an expression peculiar to a certain language that cannot be understood by a mere
literal definition of its individual words.
Imagery – language that appeals to the senses
Internal rhyme – rhymes in the middle of a line
Lyric poem – a poem that does not tell a story but aims only at expressing a speaker’s emotions or thoughts
Metaphor – a figure of speech which makes a comparison between two unlike things in which one thing becomes the other without the use of words such as like, as, than, or resembles.

o Implied metaphors are suggested and not openly stated. o Extended metaphors are developed throughout the poem. o Mixed metaphors are the inconsistent mixture of two or more metaphors. o Dead metaphors are so common that they are no longer noticed as a figure of speech.
Meter – a generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
Monologue – a long speech usually made to one or more characters.
Off-rhyme
– words that do not have an exact rhyme but only repeat some of the sounds
Onomatopoeia
– the use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning
Parody – the imitation of a work of literature, art, or music for amusement or instruction
Personification – to attribute human qualities to a nonhuman thing or to an abstract idea
Pun
– a play on the multiple meanings of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning
Quatrain
– a four line unit of poetry
Refrain – a repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines
Rhyme
– the repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that are close together in a poem
Rhyme scheme –
Rhythm – the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language
Scansion – the marking of a poem for its stressed and unstressed syllables
Shakespearean Sonnet
– a sonnet with three four-line units followed by a concluding couplet. The most common rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
Simile – a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things using explicit words such as like, as, resembles, or than.
Sonnet – a fourteen line poem usually written in iambic pentameter that has one of several rhyme schemes.
Stanza – a group of consecutive lines in a poem that form a single unit.
Tone – the attitude a writer takes towards the audience, subject, or a character.
Cinquain –
Haiku –
Limerick –