Literary Terms: Poetry Terms

Alliteration - answer-The repetition of initial consonant sounds in words such as "rough and ready". Example: "Our gang paces the pier like an old myth." Assonance - answer-The repetition of vowel sounds without the repetition of consonants. Example: "My words like silent raindrops fell." Ballad - answer-A poem in verse that tells a story. Blank Verse - answer-An unrhymed form of poetry that normally consists of ten syllables in which every other syllable, beginning with the second, is stressed. Since blank verse is often used in very long poems, it may depart from the strict pattern from time to time. Caesura - answer-A pause or sudden break in a line of poetry. Canto - answer-A main division of a long poem. Consonance - answer-The repetition of consonant sounds. Although it is similar to alliteration, consonance is not limited to the first letters of words. Example: "...and high school girls with clear skin smiles." Couplet - answer-Two lines of verse the same length that usually rhyme. End Ryhme - answer-The rhyming of words that appear at the ends of two or more lines of poetry. (determines rhyme scheme) Enjambment - answer-The running over of a sentence or thought from one line of poetry to another. Foot - answer-The smallest repeated pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poetic line. Iambic - answer-An unstressed followed by a stressed syllable. Example: repeat Trochaic - answer-A stressed followed by an unstressed syllable. Example: older Spondaic - answer-Two stressed syllables. Example: heartbreak Free Verse - answer-Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme. Haiku - answer-A form of Japanese poetry that has three lines; the first line have five syllables, the second has seven syllables, and the third has five syllables. The subject of the Haiku has traditionally been nature.