Poetry

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Sonnet

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a poem normally of fourteen lines in any of several fixed verse and rhyme schemes, typically in rhymed iambic pentameter: sonnets characteristically express a single theme or idea

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Pentameter

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a line of verse containing five metrical feet or measures

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Tetrameter

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a line of verse containing four metrical feet or measures

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Trimeter

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a line of verse containing three metrical feet

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Iamb

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a metrical foot consisting, in Greek and Latin verse, of one short syllable followed by one long one, or, as in English verse, of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented one (Ex.: “Tŏ stríve, tŏ séek, tŏ fínd, ănd nót tŏ yíeld”)

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Trochee

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a metrical foot consisting, in Greek and Latin verse, of one long syllable followed by one short one, or, as in English verse, of one accented syllable followed by one unaccented one (Ex.: “Pétĕr, | Pétĕr, | púmpkĭn | éatĕr”)

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Dactyl

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a metrical foot consisting, in Greek and Latin verse, of one long syllable followed by two short ones, or, as in English verse, of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented ones (Ex.: “táke hĕr ŭp | téndĕrl”)

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Anapest

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a metrical foot consisting of two short syllables followed by one long syllable or of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable (as unaware)

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Spondee

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A metrical foot consisting of two long or stressed syllables.

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Foot

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a group of syllables serving as a unit of meter in verse; esp., such a unit having a specified placement of the stressed syllable or syllables

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Extended Metaphor

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A extended metaphor is a metaphor that is developed for several lines and sometimes throughout an entire poem.

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Simile

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a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose.”

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Assonance

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resemblance of sounds. Also called vowel rhyme. Rhyme in which the same vowel sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of the rhyming words, as in penitent and reticence.

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Alliteration

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the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter, as in apt alliteration's artful aid.

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Ode

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a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion.

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Homage

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something done or given in acknowledgment or consideration of the worth of another

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Elegy

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a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, esp. a funeral song or a lament for the dead.
A poem written in elegiac meter.

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Ballad

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a simple narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas and adapted for singing.

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Pantoum

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a Malay verse form consisting of an indefinite number of quatrains with the second and fourth lines of each quatrain repeated as the first and third lines of the following one.

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Sestina

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a poem of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza, but in different order, the envoy using the six words again, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end.

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Syllabics

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of, pertaining to, or consisting of a syllable or syllables.
2. pronounced with careful distinction of syllables.
3. of, pertaining to, or noting poetry based on a specific number of syllables, as distinguished from poetry depending on stresses or quantities.
4. (of chanting) having each syllable sung to one note only.

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Villanelle

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a short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number, followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes.

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Apostrophe

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figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and was able to reply.

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Personification

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the attribution of human characteristics to things, abstract ideas, etc, as for literary or artistic effect

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Synesthesia

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an attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of another

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Hyperbole

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exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement)

Example: "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

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Understatement

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to state or represent less strongly or strikingly than the facts would bear out; set forth in restrained, moderate, or weak terms: The casualty lists understate the extent of the disaster.

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Metonymy

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a closely related term substituted for an object or idea

Example: "We have always remained loyal to the crown."

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Synecdoche

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a part substituted for the whole

Example: "Friends, Romans, countrymen: lend me your ears"

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Paradox

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situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering

Example: "In order to preserve peace, we must prepare for war."

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Oxymoron

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a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other

Example: bittersweet

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Allusion

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a reference to the person, event, or work outside the poem or literary piece

Example: "Shining, it was Adam and maiden"