Couplets
A pair of rhyming lines in a poem often set off from the rest of the poem. Shakespeare’s sonnets all end in couplets.
Free Verse
Poetry with no set meter (rhythm) or rhyme scheme.
Sonnet
A fourteen-line poem written iambic pentameter. Different kinds of sonnets have different rhyme schemes.
Figurative Language
Language that does not mean exactly what it says. For example, you can call someone who is very angry “steaming.”
End rhyme
Rhyming words that are at the ends of their respective lines—what we typically think of as normal rhyme.
Meter
The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in the lines of a poem.
Iambic pentameter
Ten-syllable lines in which every other syllable is stressed. For example: “With eyes like stars upon the brave night air.”
Prose
Writing organized into sentences and paragraphs. In other words, normal writing—not poetry.
Lyric
A type of poetry that expresses the poet’s emotions. It often tells some sort of brief story, engaging the reading in the experience.
Internal rhyme
A rhyme that occurs within one line such as “He’s King of the Swing.”
Stanza
A section of poetry separated from the sections before and after it; a verse “paragraph.”
Elegy
A poem mourning the dead.