Glossary

A-F

1. Abecedarian

   The abecedarian is a poetic form from pre- Biblical times. Each line or stanza starts with the letters of the alphabet in sequence.

2. 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.

3. Alexandrine

   The alexandrine is a line of six iambic feet; one foot longer than the iambic pentameter.

4. 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.

5. Assonance

   Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds in neighbouring words, to create the effect of rhyme within phrases or lines of verse.

1. Ballad stanza

   A four line stanza with alternating lines of four stresses and three stresses, and abcb rhyme scheme.

2. Blank verse

   Blank verse is a type of verse with a regular metre (usually iambic pentameter) but no rhyme, hence ‘blank’.

1. Caesura

   A caesura is a distinct pause or break in the flow of a line of verse, usually towards the middle.

2. Consonance

   The repetition of consonants, other than those at the beginning of words.

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4. Couplet

   Two successive lines of verse, which often rhyme.

1. Dramatic monologue

   When the poet writes from the point of view and in the voice of a particular character.

1. 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.

2. Enjambement

   A sentence in a poem which runs on from one line to the next without a pause for punctuation.

3. Epic

   An epic poem is a long narrative poem dealing with the struggles and journeys of heroes, individually or in groups.

4. Epigram

   A short, witty poem.

1. Foot

   The basic unit of metre; in poetry written in English, usually consists of one stressed syllable and a number of unstressed syllables.

2. Free verse

   Free verse does without obvious rhyme and a regular metre, and is the dominant verse form of the 20th century.

G-L

1. 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.

2. 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.

1. Iambic

   A metrical foot consisting of an iamb, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Examples: today, before, beyond.

2. Iambic pentameter

   An iambic line of five feet. See 'Iambic'.

3. Imagery

   Use of a comparison, often between an idea or emotion and a concrete object, to convey the idea or emotion more vividly.

1. Lyric

   In its Greek orgins, a poem sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now more generally refers to a short poem which expresses feelings and thoughts rather than being dramatic or satirical.

M-P

1. Metaphor

   Comparison made by equating one thing with another.

2. Metonym

   When one noun is used in place of another.

3. Metre

   The underlying pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line.

1. Octave

   The opening eight-line section of a sonnet.

2. Ode

   An ode is a more or less formal address to a person or an embodied thing.

3. Onomatopoeia

   Refers to the property of a word whose pronunciation sounds like the thing it describes. Examples: buzz, whisper, bang!

4. Oxymoron

   A contradiction in terms.

1. Paradox

   Apparent contradiction that suggests a deeper truth.

2. Parallelism

   Repetition of the same grammatical structure, especially at the beginning of lines.

3. Parody

   Imitation of a poem, poet or poetic style for comic purposes.

4. Pastoral

   Originally a love poem about idealised nymphs and shepherds; now refers to poems located in an idealised rural setting.

5. Pathetic fallacy

   Describing an inanimate object as though it were animate.

6. Pentameter

   A line of five feet.

7. Persona

   The narrator or central character of a poem as distinct from the poet.

8. Personification

   A metaphor where something that is abstract or inanimate is given the characteristics of a living being.

9. 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.

Q-Z

1. Quatrain

   A four-line stanza, usually with rhymes.

1. Refrain

   A repeated line or lines, as with the chorus of a song.

2. 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).

3. Rhyme: Chain rhyme

   Chain rhyme links stanzas in sequence by repeating a rhyme from one stanza in the next.

4. 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'.

1. Satire

   Satire is the use of humour and irony to ridicule ignorance or bad behaviour.

2. Sestet

   The last six lines of a sonnet

3. 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.

4. Simile

   A comparison of one thing with another, using the words 'like' or 'as'.

5. Sonnet

   The sonnet is a short lyrical and reflective poem of fourteen lines, most often rhymed.

6. Stanza

   A group of lines within a poem. Generally of a regular length in traditional poetry, stanzas in free verse usually vary in length.

7. Stanza gap

   The break between stanzas.

8. Symbol

   Word, sign or image that stands for something other than itself.

9. Synecdoche

   Figure of speech in which a part of something is used to stand for a whole.

1. Tanka

   A Japanese syllabic verse form, arranged 5/7/5/7/7.

2. Tautology

   Pointless repetition.

3. Tercet

   Stanza of three lines.

4. Terminals

   Using the end-words of the lines of a poem as the structural basis for a new, different poem.

5. Trope

   Figure of speech such as a metaphor or personification.

1. 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.
   

2. Villanelle

   French verse form, consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, using just two rhymes and some repeated lines.