Glossary
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Abecedarian
The abecedarian is a poetic form from pre- Biblical times. Each line or stanza starts with the letters of the alphabet in sequence.
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Acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or song or any piece of writing in which (usually) the first letter of each line (or sentence, or paragraph) spells out a word or a message.
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Alexandrine
The alexandrine is a line of six iambic feet; one foot longer than the iambic pentameter.
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Alliteration
Alliteration refers to the use of similar sounds to begin a sequence of words, e.g. spick and span, kith and kin, jump for joy.
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Assonance
Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds in neighbouring words, to create the effect of rhyme within phrases or lines of verse.
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Ballad stanza
A four line stanza with alternating lines of four stresses and three stresses, and abcb rhyme scheme.
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Blank verse
Blank verse is a type of verse with a regular metre (usually iambic pentameter) but no rhyme, hence ‘blank’.
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Caesura
A caesura is a distinct pause or break in the flow of a line of verse, usually towards the middle.
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Consonance
The repetition of consonants, other than those at the beginning of words.
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Couplet
Two successive lines of verse, which often rhyme.
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Dramatic monologue
When the poet writes from the point of view and in the voice of a particular character.
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Elegy
A funeral song or lament, or any poem mourning a dead person or creature, or a way of life that has passed, or any form of mortality.
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Enjambement
A sentence in a poem which runs on from one line to the next without a pause for punctuation.
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Epic
An epic poem is a long narrative poem dealing with the struggles and journeys of heroes, individually or in groups.
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Epigram
A short, witty poem.
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G-L
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Haibun
The haibun is a Japanese literary form characterised by a descriptive and usually personal prose passage, often travel literature, containing or (more often) followed by a haiku which has an elliptical relation to the prose piece.
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Haiku
The haiku is often described as a short non-rhyming poem, usually with a seasonal reference, with seventeen syllables, in three phrases of five, seven and five syllables.
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Iambic
A metrical foot consisting of an iamb, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Examples: today, before, beyond.
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Iambic pentameter
An iambic line of five feet. See 'Iambic'.
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Imagery
Use of a comparison, often between an idea or emotion and a concrete object, to convey the idea or emotion more vividly.
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M-P
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Metaphor
Comparison made by equating one thing with another.
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Metonym
When one noun is used in place of another.
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Metre
The underlying pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line.
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Octave
The opening eight-line section of a sonnet.
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Ode
An ode is a more or less formal address to a person or an embodied thing.
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Onomatopoeia
Refers to the property of a word whose pronunciation sounds like the thing it describes. Examples: buzz, whisper, bang!
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Oxymoron
A contradiction in terms.
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Paradox
Apparent contradiction that suggests a deeper truth.
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Parallelism
Repetition of the same grammatical structure, especially at the beginning of lines.
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Parody
Imitation of a poem, poet or poetic style for comic purposes.
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Pastoral
Originally a love poem about idealised nymphs and shepherds; now refers to poems located in an idealised rural setting.
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Pathetic fallacy
Describing an inanimate object as though it were animate.
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Pentameter
A line of five feet.
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Persona
The narrator or central character of a poem as distinct from the poet.
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Personification
A metaphor where something that is abstract or inanimate is given the characteristics of a living being.
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Prose poem
A prose poem is a short passage of prose usually with some of the heightened effects of verse: assonance, half-rhyme, a distinct rhythmic shape, intensity of imagery or emotional affect, and so on.
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Q-Z
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Refrain
A repeated line or lines, as with the chorus of a song.
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Rhyme
Rhyme is the repetition of a sound at the end of two or more lines in a poem: ‘sleep, weep... creep, asleep’ (William Blake).
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Rhyme: Chain rhyme
Chain rhyme links stanzas in sequence by repeating a rhyme from one stanza in the next.
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Rhyme: Half-rhyme or Slant rhyme
A near-rhyme, where either the final vowel or final consonant is not the same as the one in the word it is rhyming with, as for example 'bag/beg', 'home/hymn', 'home/hone' or 'phone/home'.
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Satire
Satire is the use of humour and irony to ridicule ignorance or bad behaviour.
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Sestet
The last six lines of a sonnet
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Sestina
Verse form originating in Medieval Provence where the final words of six unrhymed stanzas are repeated in a certain fixed order, ending with a tercet which uses three or six of the terminal words.
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Simile
A comparison of one thing with another, using the words 'like' or 'as'.
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Sonnet
The sonnet is a short lyrical and reflective poem of fourteen lines, most often rhymed.
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Stanza
A group of lines within a poem. Generally of a regular length in traditional poetry, stanzas in free verse usually vary in length.
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Stanza gap
The break between stanzas.
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Symbol
Word, sign or image that stands for something other than itself.
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Synecdoche
Figure of speech in which a part of something is used to stand for a whole.
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Tanka
A Japanese syllabic verse form, arranged 5/7/5/7/7.
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Tautology
Pointless repetition.
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Tercet
Stanza of three lines.
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Terminals
Using the end-words of the lines of a poem as the structural basis for a new, different poem.
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Trope
Figure of speech such as a metaphor or personification.
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Verse novel
A verse novel tells a long and complex story with many characters, much as a novel would, through the medium of narrative verse. Notable Australian verse novelists are Alan Wearne, Dorothy Porter, Les Murray, Steven Herrick and John Tranter.
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Villanelle
French verse form, consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, using just two rhymes and some repeated lines.
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