THE POET’S

DICTIONARY

of Poetic Devices

WHAT IS POETRY?

Poetry is the kind of thing poets write. –

Robert Frost

Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know. –

Louis Armstrong

POETRY

A literary form that combines the precise

meanings of words with their emotional

associations and musical qualities, such as

rhythm and sounds.

3 MAIN TYPES OF POETRY

LYRIC

A short poem that expresses the thoughts and feelings of a single

speaker

NARRATIVE

A poem that tells a story

DRAMATIC

A poem that presents the speech of one or more speakers in a dramatic

situation

LINES & STANZAS

Line

a series of metrical feet in a poem, usually

printed as one single line

Stanza

groupings of lines

RHYTHM & METER

Rhythm

the pattern or flow of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and

unstressed syllables in a line of poetry; a regular pattern of rhythm is

called meter

emphasis syllable

Meter

The rhythmic patterns built on the arrangement of stressed and

unstressed syllables.

Feet

The division of stressed and unstressed syllables

RHYTHM

the pattern or flow of sound created by the

arrangement of stressed and unstressed

syllables in a line of poetry; a regular pattern

of rhythm is called meter

emphasis syllable

iamb

unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (beneath)

trochee

stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable

(twinkle)

spondee

two stressed syllables (schoolyard)

dactyl

one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables

(beautiful)

anapest

two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable

(comprehend)

SOUND DEVICES

Techniques that create musical effects

RHYME

A sound device commonly associated with poetry,

although many poems do not rhyme.

Exact Rhyme

Words that end in both the same vowel and same consonant

sounds (sun and run)

Slant Rhyme

Words that end in similar but not exact sounds

(prove and love)

End Rhyme

Rhyming words that fall at the ends of two or more lines

(crawls, walls, falls)

Internal Rhyme

Rhyming words placed within a line

(The mouse in the house woke the cat)

RHYME SCHEME

A set pattern of rhyme. The rhyme scheme of a poem is

identified by assigning a different letter of the alphabet to

each rhyme. Rhyme scheme helps shape the structure of a

stanza and clarifies the relationships among the lines.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Repetition

The use of any language element more than once

(Above the town, above the lake, and high above the trees.)

Onomatopoeia

The use of words to imitate sounds

(The bees buzzed, and the brook gurgled.)

Parallelism

the use of similar grammatical constructions to express

ideas that are related or equal in importance

(parallelism is a type of repetition)

Alliteration

The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of

words.

(The snake sneaked past the snail.)

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds followed by different

consonants in two or more stressed syllables

(The green leaves fluttered in the breeze.)

Consonance

The repetition of final consonant sounds in stressed

syllables with different vowel sounds

(The king sang a song.)

DENOTATION &

CONNOTATION

Denotation

The literal definition of a word

Connotation

The emotional associations of a word

(thrifty and penny-pinching)

MEANING & TONE

The connotative meanings of words help convey a poem’s

tone.

Tone

The poet’s emotional attitude toward his or her subject.

(formal, informal, lighthearted, solemn, etc.)

IMAGERY

Descriptive language that creates word pictures.

Through the use of details that appeal to the

senses of sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell,

poets re-create sensory experiences and

emotions in words.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Language that is not meant to be interpreted

literally (see handout)

TYPES OF FIGURATIVE

LANGUAGE

simile

Compares two things using the word “like” or “as”

(Her visit was as unexpected and welcome as a flower in winter.)

metaphor

Compares two things by stating one thing in terms of something else

(Her visit was a flower in winter.)

personification

Gives human qualities or abilities to nonhuman things

(The alarm clock nagged me to get out of bed.)

FORMS OF POETRY

Formal Verse

A type of poetry that follows fixed, established

patterns (e.g. rhyme scheme, meter, line structure,

stanza structure).

Free Verse

A type of poetry that exhibits poetic language but

does not follow fixed patterns.

TYPES OF FORMAL VERSE

Ballad

A songlike narrative poem, usually written in rhymed stanzas of four to six lines

that feature repetition and strong meter

Haiku

An unrhymed three-line lyric poem, usually focused on images from nature, in

which lines 1 and 3 have five syllables and line 2 has seven syllables

English Sonnet

A fourteen-line lyric poem consisting of three quatrains and a couplet, usually

rhymed abab cdcd efef gg

TYPES OF FORMAL VERSE,

CONT.

Ode

A lyric poem on a serious subject, usually written in a precise structure

Concrete Poem

A poem with a shape that suggests its subject; the poet arranges letters,

words, punctuation, and lines to create a picture

TYPES OF FORMAL VERSE,

CONT.

Villanelle

Lyric poem consisting of five 3-line stanzas, and ending with a quatrain

and having only 2 rhymes; it ahs two refrain lines that appear initially in

the first and third lines of the first stanza, they then appear alternately

as the third line of subsequent stanzas and finally as the last two lines

of the poem

TYPES OF FORMAL VERSE,

CONT.

Ballad

Narrative poem that is meant to be sung or recited; form contains a

series of quatrains in which lines of iambic tetrameter alternate with

iambic trimeter; usually follows an A-B-C-B rhyme scheme with

frequent use of repetition and often including a refrain

TYPES OF FORMAL VERSE,

CONT.

Blank Verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter (e.g. Shakespearean plays)

Heroic Couplet

A pair of rhymed lines in iambic pentameter (traditional heroic epic

form)

TYPES OF FORMAL VERSE,

CONT.

Sonnet

A fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed

rhyme scheme; subject is traditionally love

Shakespearean Sonnet

Style of sonnet used by Shakespeare with a rhyme scheme of

A-B-A-B, C-D-C-D, E-F-E-F, G-G

TYPES OF FREE VERSE

Elegy

Poem written in response to the death of a person or group

Epic

Long narrative poem about the deeds of gods or heroes

THREE MAIN TYPES OF

POETRY

Narrative

poem that tells a story

Lyric

poem containing highly musical verse (through alliteration, rhythm, rhyme) that

expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker

Dramatic

poem that uses techniques of drama;