Poetry Terms Alliteration The repetition of beginning consonant

Poetry Terms

Alliteration The repetition of beginning consonant sounds in words placed near one another Examples: “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. ” from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Assonance The repetition of vowel sounds in words placed near one another Examples: “Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living things. So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems came. ” – from “Early Moon” by Carl Sandburg

Onomatopoeia The creation of words that imitate natural sounds Examples: Animal Sounds meow moo tweet bark oink Water Sounds plop splash gush sprinkle drizzle Voice Sounds growl grunt grumble giggle murmur “It went zip when it moved and bop when it stopped, And whirr when it stood still. I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will. ” Wind Sounds swish swoosh whizz whisper whoosh – from “The Marvelous Toy” by Tom Paxton

Rhyme Two or more words or phrases that end in the same sounds Examples: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; ” – from “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

Rhythm A regular, repeated pattern of sounds Examples: “Double, Toil and Trouble; Fire Burn and Caldron Bubble” - from Mac. Beth by William Shakespeare “Once upon a midnight dreary, While I pondered, weak and weary; ” - from “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

Line A group of words in a poem Examples: “Poised between going on and back, pulled line Both ways taut like a tightrope-walker, line Fingertips pointing the opposites, line Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball line Or a kid skipping rope, come on, line Running a scattering of steps sidewise, etc… How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases, Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird, He's only flirting, crowd him, Delicate, delicate, delicate—now!” - “The Base Stealer” by Robert Francis

Stanza a group of lines in a poem Examples: “The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark that he barks every time they leave the house. They must switch him on on their way out. The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. I close all the windows in the house and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast but I can still hear him muffled under the music, barking, ” - from “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” by Billy Collins

Voice An author’s style and quality that makes his/her writing unique

Foot a basic unit of poetry meter composed of two or more stressed (/) or unstressed (x) syllables The four (4) most common types of feet in English poetry: • • Iamb – two-syllable feet; one unstressed, one stressed Trochee – two-syllable feet; one stressed, one unstressed Anapest – three-syllable feet; two unstressed, one stressed Dactyl – three-syllable feet; one stressed, two unstressed

Meter Systematically arranged and measured rhythm in poetry; each line of a poem has a certain number of “feet” Examples: Two-syllable feet: • Iambic – “That time / of year / thou mayst / in me / behold” • Trochaic – “Tell me / not in / mournful / numbers” Three-syllable feet: • Anapestic – “And the sound / of a voice / that is still” • Dactylic – “This is the / forest pri/meval, the / murmuring / pines and the / hemlock”