Lyric
Category of peom that dwells more on the characters’ feelings than the plot
Made to utter, personal experience
e.g. “Infant sorrow”, William Blake
Narrative
Story-telling
Often narrative poetry is developed into myths
e.g. epic poetry (Beowulf), romance (King Arthur, Faerie Queene)
Speaker
The character narrating the poem, the one uttering the poem on the page
Created by the poet but not the poet (even when the poem is completely autobiographical)
Persona
Distinct from the speaker although a persona is the speaker of a poem
A persona speaks as someone else, as a character distinct from the poet
Sometimes has to be inferred from what is known about the poet
e.g. Sir Walter Ralegh using the persona of a young lady in “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”
Outer form
Various aspects having to do with meter, rhyme, stanza-form and rhythm
e.g. sonnet, sestina, villanelle
Inner structure
Dynamic shape based on the emotional curve of the poem
Patterns within a poem
e.g. sentences, persons (subject, at the centre of the sentences), agency (who is doing something), imagery
Prosody
Overarching term for formal structures and aural quality i.e. rhythm, rhymes and sound play in poems
Free verse
Poem in which the lines have an irregular number of beats so no regular rhythm
Lines are of different widths
The poem does not rhyme in any regular way
e.g. “Mock Orange”, Louise Glück
Rising rhythm
Rhythm leading to a stress
Foot consisting of one or more unstressed syllables leading up to a stressed syllable
e.g. iamb, anapest
Falling rhythm
Rhythm evolving from a stress
Foot beginning with a stressed syllable, then followed by one or more unstressed syllables
e.g. trochee, dactyl
Poetic feet
Beats or stresses in a line
E.g. trochee, iamb, spondee, anapest
Iambic pentameter
A specific line rhythm and width
Pentameter indicates 5 beats or feet per line
Iambic signifies that there is a two syllable ryhthm in which the first syllable is stressed and the second is unstressed
Rhyme
Repetition of similar sounds
Often at the end of lines (although there could be internal rhymes)
e.g. …wept / …leapt
Rhyme patterns
The scheme in which the rhymed lines of a poem occur
Usually indicated by lowercase letters
e.g. aabb, abab
Couplet
a 2-line stanza or group of 2 lines within a single stanza, clearly defined (by a content tensions, a break, or the rhyming scheme)
e.g. the final 2 lines of a Shakespearean sonnet
Tercet
a 3-line stanza or group of 3 lines within a single stanza, clearly defined (by content tension, a break, or the rhyming scheme)
e.g. vilanelle
Quatrain
a 4-line stanza or group of 4 lines within a single stanza, clearly defined (by content tension, a break, or the rhyming scheme
e.g. the final stanza of a vilanelle, or the first 12 lines of a Shakespearean sonnet (3 quatrains)
Shakespearean sonnet
A 14-line pentameter poem
Consists of 3 quatrains, alternately rhymed abab cdcd efef, followed by a couplet gg
Sestina
A poem form
Pentameter poem
Consists in 6 stanzas of 6 lines each, plus a final tercet
The final word of each line is the same through each stanza
The last end-word in each stanza becomes the first end-word of the next stanza
e.g. “Sestina” by Elizabeth Bishop
Villanelle
Poem form
Pentameter poem
5 stanzas of tercet, all rhyming aba, plus a quatrain rhyming abaa
The first and third line of the first stanza are found alternately at the end of each stanza and they both close the final quatrain
e.g. “One Art”, by Elizabeth Bishop
Parts of speech
Linguistic category of words e.g. noun, verb, adjective, adverb
Noun
A word that names a person, place, thing, idea and gives it an essence
e.g. Sandra, school, summer, freedom
Verb
A word that usually conveys either an action (e.g. to bear) or a state (e.g. to be)
Subject
The person, place, or thing in charge of the verb (“executing” or “being” the verb)
Predicate
The main verb of a sentence, the verb telling what the grammatical subject is or does, was or did, will be or will do
Adjective
A word that tells something about a noun
It modifies a noun by limiting or describing it
e.g. early (bird), false (alarm), red (purse)
Adverb
A word that characterizes (limits or describes) a verb
e.g. quietly, firmly
Speech act
Manner of expression (more than context)
Manner in which something is said, rather than what is said
The way a speaker may engage in a poem
e.g. apology, oath, narration
Rhetorical device
Technique used by the poet or speaker to convey a certain meaning
e.g. simile, synecdoche, analogy
Metaphor
A comparison without “like” or “as”
e.g. “My love is a rose”
Simile
A comparison with “like” or “as”
e.g. “She is as beautiful as a rose”
Synecdoche
Using a part for the whole
e.g. Saying “Check out my wheels!” to mean “Check out my (entire) car!”
Metonymy
Using a whole to refer to another whole or a related thing
e.g. Saying “What do they do in Hollywood?” to mean “What do they do in the film industry?”
Lyric subgenres
Kinds of peoms that lyric poems return to most frequently
Poets can revisit or revise the genre
e.g. ballad, elegy (poem morning a death), epithalamion (a poem celebrating a wedding, a wedding song), aubade (poem about dawn, generally spoken by someone addressing their lover)
Content genres
Tradition of content in poetry
It sets up expectations and establishes a “ghostly presence” of poems that have come before
Content relationship between the poems
They can take many forms (e.g. sonnets or free verse) but the content remains similar
e.g. aubade (poem about dawn), elegy (poem morning a death) flower poem (poem praising flowers)
Imagery
Pattern of images
An image is a mental picture that makes concrete what is abstract
Refers to the senses
e.g. a metaphor
Backstory/Antecedent scenario
The backstory is the speaker’s previous experience (extrapolated from the poem
e.g. Sonnet 30, William Shakespeare: we know the speaker made friends, they died and he mourned them because in the poem he is mourning his friends again
The antecedent scenaario is rather the real life context, background or situation in which the poem was written
e.g. a commissioned poem
Alliteration
Words sharing consonant sounds e.g. Jazz June
Assonance
Words sharing vowel sounds e.g. weight, stay
Discourse
Way of speaking , kinds of word, or ideas, associated with a certain vocabulary
e.g. legal discourse or feminist discourse
Testimony
Deeply personal experience of the speaker
Flipside of typicality
Typicality
Stripping of some personal details in poems to make them easier to relate
Flipside of testimony
Tone
Feeling behind words
Evokes mood
Conveys the speaker’s attitude to what he/she is saying
e.g. sentimental, critical, ironic
Regional poem
Dedicated effort to make a poem from a specific place
Often tied to history and social identity
Can give a humanity to a specific place
Attempt to give a story to a place and make it artful
e.g. “On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City”, Sherman Alexie, speaking of America as his ancestors’ and his lands and viewing the American as foreigners
Enjambment
No pause at then of a line, meant to be read one after the other e.g. “…they go round and / around…”
Literal
Words that do not deviate from their defined meaning
Figurative
Words or expressions that exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of words
Usage of words in which the literal meaning of them is not true or does not make sense
e.g. the apple of my eye
Phoneme
Sound play, sounds giving unity or pattern to a poem
e.g. sibilance “stars and sky”