Poetry Vocabulary and Examples

Front

line break - The place where one line ends and another begins.

Back

As nighttime rustles at my knee,  ( Line breaks here)

I stand in silent gravity

Front

stanza - a chunk of lines that go together in a poem

Back

As nighttime rustles at my knee,  ( Stanza 1)

I stand in silent gravity

                                           

And quietly continue chores  (Stanza 2)

of feeding leaves and sealing pores.  

Front

white space- the blank space in poems usually between stanzas

Back

As nighttime rustles at my knee,

I stand in silent gravity

                                           (This empty space is called a white space.)

And quietly continue chores

of feeding leaves and sealing pores.            

Front

rhyme- the pattern of repeating ending sound in words

Back

As nighttime rustles at my knee,

I stand in silent gravity

knee and gravity are rhyming words

Front

rhythm- The beat or pace of a poem

Back

“Tiger Tiger, burning bright, In the forests of the night."

has a beat similar to a song

Front

imagery- the use of descriptive details to help the reader imagine something in a poem

Back

I am a baby porcupette.

My fur is soft; my eyes are jet.

But I can deal with any threat:

I raise my quills

                      and pirouette.       

Front

alliteration - the repetition of beginning consonant sounds usually found in  poetry or songs

Back

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Front

assonance- The repetition of vowel sounds in non rhyming words

Back

The boat rowed slowly down the river.

The long o sound creates assonance.

Front

repetition - when the poet repeats a word or a line to create an effect  or capture the reader’s attention in the poem

Back

“I creep up from the cold pond,

the ice pond, the winter pond.

I creep up from the chill pond, 

to breathe the warming air.”

Front

onomatopoeia - A word that is formed based on the sound it makes

Back

Crash, Pow, Swish