You Can Write Poetry - Jeff Mock [55]
feminine rhyme: rhyme occurring in words of two or more syllables in which the concluding syllables are unstressed: reason (REASon) and season (SEASon). Also see masculine rhyme.
figure of speech: a type of rhetoric used to achieve special effects. See metaphor, metonymy, overstatement, paradox, simile, synaesthesia, synecdoche and understatement.
foot: a unit of meter consisting of a set number of stressed and/or unstressed syllables. See meter.
form: a pattern of meter, line length, poem length and rhyme scheme. Some common forms are the ballad, sonnet and villanelle.
free verse: non-metrical poetry. Rather than using meter, free verse makes use of natural cadences for its rhythm. Meter may be used in free verse, but the rhythms of free verse are not predominantly metrical.
general term: a word signifying a broad class of persons, things or actions. Contrast with specific term.
hexameter: a line of poetry consisting of six feet. See meter.
iamb: a metrical foot consisting of two syllables—an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (ta-DUM). The iamb is the most common metrical foot in English poetry.
imagery: a word or phrase that presents sensory detail for the reader to experience. Images appeal to one or more of the five senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste.
internal rhyme: rhyme occurring in the middle of one or more lines.
line break: the end of a line of poetry. See end-stopped line and enjambed line.
masculine rhyme: rhyme occurring in single-syllable words, as in can and pan, or in the stressed, concluding syllables of words, as in align (aLIGN) and refine (reFINE). Also see feminine rhyme.
metaphor: a figure of speech that implicitly equates one thing with another, with the first thing assuming the characteristics of the second. "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines" (from Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare) contains a metaphor equating the sun with "the eye of heaven."
meter: the recurrence of a rhythmic pattern in which stressed and unstressed syllables are repeated. The basic rhythmic unit is the foot. The common feet are the iamb, trochee, spondee, pyrrhic, anapest and dactyl. The common metric lines are dimeter (two feet), trimeter (three feet), tetrameter (four feet), pentameter (five feet) and hexameter (six feet).
metonymy: a figure of speech in which the name of one thing is substituted for that of another. Metonymy occurs when "the White House" is used to refer to the President and "the crown" to refer to a king or queen.
mixed metaphor: a metaphor in which the elements are incongruous, as in "He boiled with joy and she bubbled with anger." The incongruity here is that the verbs and their respective emotions don't coincide: Metaphorically, joy bubbles and anger boils.
octave: the first eight lines of an Italian sonnet. The octave develops the situation of the poem, which is then resolved in the sestet.
onomatopoeia: the use of words that imitate sounds and suggest their meaning, such as buzz, crack, hiss, murmur, sizzle, snap and whirr.
overstatement: a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or humor. Contrast with understatement.
paradox: a figure of speech in which a statement seems contradictory, but is nonetheless true. When Juliet, in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, bids goodnight to Romeo by saying, "Parting is such sweet sorrow," she employs paradox. Their parting is sorrowful, but it's also sweet because they look forward to their next meeting.
pentameter: a line of poetry consisting of five feet. See meter.
persona: the term persona, from the Latin, means "mask." A persona is a character created to speak a first-person poem; it is an I who can be distinguished from the author. Also see dramatic monologue.
pyrrhic: a metrical foot consisting of two syllables, both unstressed (ta-ta).
quatrain: a stanza of four lines. Quatrains may be unrhymed or they may accommodate a number of rhyme schemes, the most common of which are abab,