Poetry Vocabulary

A short, unrhymed Japanese poetic form with three lines of five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables.

• Epitaph

• Haiku

• sonnet

• Limerick

A comparison between to unlike things, usually using “like,” “as,” or “than.”

• metaphor

• imagery

• dactyl

• simile

Giving human characteristics to non-human things, such as animals, inanimate objects, or ideas.

• personification

• onomatopoeia

• imagery

• consonance

Language and poetic techniques used to appeal to the reader’s senses (sight, sound, smell, etc.) to create mental pictures and cause emotions in the reader.

• symbolism

• ode

• allusion

• imagery

Two lines of poetry, one after the other, that rhyme and are of the same length and rhythm.

• couplet

• cinquain

• rhyme

• iamb

Repeating the consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words,

• assonance

• consonance

• Alliteration

• denotation

A poetic form that avoids using fixed patterns of meter.

• stanza

• free verse

• irony

• elegy

A poem that tells a story.

• ballad

• epiphany

• sonnet

• narrative poem

A word whose sound is similar to the thing or action it refers to, such as “buzz” or “hiss.”

• alliteration

• simili

• metaphor

• onomatopoeia

A extreme and obvious exaggeration, not meant to be believed or taken literally.

• hyperbole

• irony

• metaphor

• elegy