Standard Poetry Terms

A narrative poem in short stanzas, especially one that tells a popular story.

• Freeform

• Ballad

• Recitment

• Show-off

A poem mourning the dead.

• Goodbye

• Funeral

• Elegy

• Sendoff

Deliberate omission of unstressed syllables, typically in order to maintain rhythm- e.g. "o'er" for "over".

• Exercise

• Excommute

• Elision

• Enjambment

The lack of a pause between two lines of a poem.

• Run-on

• Enjambment

• Continuation

• Stanza

Verse that follows no particular form, meter or rhyme scheme.

• Blank Verse

• Free Verse

• Freeflow

• Loose Poem

Seventeen syllable poems, generally split into three lines of five, seven and five syllables, often with a theme related to nature.

• Haiku

• Documentary

A rhyme where two words have similar consonant sounds but different vowel sounds e.g. "bell" and "bill". Also called a slant rhyme or imperfect rhyme.

• Half-Rhyme

• Ephinephrine

• perfect rhyme

• Similar-Sound

A rhyme within the words of a line

• Feedback loop

• Internal Rhyme

• Parasite Rhyme

• Reoccurring Rhyme

A dignified, lyric poem expressing praise or some other elevated notion.

• Endorsement

• Glaze

• Appraisal

• Ode

A four line stanza.

• Paragraph

• Quatrain

• Line

• Line Scheme