Figurative Language
Poetic Structure
Poetry Terms
Name That Form
Define It
100

“Her love is like a red, red rose.” -Robert Burns

Simile

100

A group of lines in a poem; a poem paragraph.

Stanza

100

Giving living characteristics to non-living things.

Personification

100

Unrhymed poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5.

Haiku

100

Juxtapose

To place things side by side for comparison.

200

“Hope is the thing with feathers.” -Emily Dickinson

Metaphor

200

The ordered pattern of repeating sounds at the end of each line of a poem. 

Rhyme Scheme

200

The repetition of initial consonant sounds in words.

Alliteration

200

14-line poem with a specific pattern of rhyme.

Sonnet

200

Abstruse

Difficult to understand.

300

“Here once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hyperbole

300

A stanza made up of four lines of verse.

Quatrain

300

A person, place, object, action, or event intended to represent something more than its literal meaning.

Symbol

300

Six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet. Also, the first half of the title ____:Like.

Sestina

300

Speculate

To form an opinion without evidence.

400

“Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” -Langston Hughes

Imagery

400

The overall structure of a poem.

Form

400

The voice of the poem.

Speaker

400

A short lyric poem that celebrates or praises a person, place, event, idea, or season.

Ode

400

Theology

The study of religion.

500

Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells Of Despair! How they clang, and clash, and roar! -Edgar Allan Poe

Onomatopoeia

500

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line, creating a rhythm.

Meter

500

Omitting sounds or syllables. Shakespeare never got o’er it.

Elision

500

Poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter.

Free Verse

500

Chronological

In order of events; in sequence.