Poetry Vocabulary Terms

The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of two or more nearby words. 

• assonance
• consonance
• alliteration
• meter

The repetition of vowel sounds in words, such as in stone and slow.

• assonance
• consonance
• alliteration
• rhythm

The repetition of consonant sounds either within or at the ends of words, as in the phrase wide muddy field.

• assonance
• consonance
• alliteration
• rhyme

The unique way something is written - not what is said but how it's said  (word choice, sentence structures, and use of imagery).

• form
• distinctive style
• meter
• imagery

Creative comparisons that are not literally true.

• Poetry
• Imagery
• Free verse
• Figurative language

Refers to the way a poem is laid out on the page. Poetry is divided into lines and stanzas.

• Meter
• Form
• Stanza
• Rhythm

Poems that have no recognizable patterns or rules. Their lines do not rhyme in any regular way and might not even be similar lengths.

• Traditional
• Free Verse
• Non-rhyme poetry
• Prose

Language that helps a reader recreate, in his or her own mind, what the writer is describing. Poets use this to give their poems meaning and to tap into different emotions. 

• Rhythm
• Rhyme scheme
• Imagery
• Sound devices

A regular  pattern of rhythm (created by arranging words to form patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables).

• meter
• rhythm
• rhyme scheme
• sound devices

The use of words whose sounds echo their meanings (buzz, gargle, hiss, thump).

• simile
• onomatopoeia
• alliteration
• personification