Poetic Forms & Terms [1]
[2]
Alliteration [3]
The repetition of the same initial letter, sound, or group of sounds in a series of words, as in the Gerard Manley Hopkins line “[king-]dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon...”
- How One Winter Came in the Lake Region [4] by Wilfred Campbell [5]
- The Windhover [6] by Gerard Manley Hopkins [7]
- The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd [8] by Sir Walter Ralegh [9]
See more [3]
Allusion [10]
A brief reference to a person, character, place, literary work, or historical event, such as when Allen Ginsberg imagines he sees the poet Walt Whitman in a grocery store or when P.K. Page writes a poem that incorporates language and images from a poem by Wallace Stevens.
- A Supermarket in California [11] by Allen Ginsberg [12]
- On Shakespeare. 1630 [13] by John Milton [14]
- The Blue Guitar [15] by P.K. Page [16]
See more [10]
Assonance [17]
A vowel rhyme created through the relatively close juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds, but with different end consonants in a line or passage, as in the sequence “So twice five miles” in “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
- From Chapter I [18] by Christian Bök [19]
- Kubla Khan [20] by Samuel Taylor Coleridge [21]
See more [17]
Ballad [22]
A song that tells a story, often using simple, folksy language. The art of writing ballads began in medieval France, though the English ballad follows its own form: quatrains that alternate between four-stress (“So we’ll * go no * more a * ro-ving”) and three-stress lines (“So late * in-to * the night”).
- Amor Mundi [23] by Christina Rossetti [24]
See more [22]
Blank verse [25]
Iambic pentameter that doesn’t follow a fixed rhyme scheme.
- Blank Sonnet [26] by George Elliott Clarke [27]
- The Princess: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal [28] by Alfred, Lord Tennyson [29]
- The Snow-Storm [30] by Ralph Waldo Emerson [31]
See more [25]
Common measure [32]
Four-line stanzas (quatrains) that rhyme abab, alternating between between four-stress and three-stress iambic lines. See ballad, a form written in common measure.
- Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun [33] by Emily Brontë [34]
- To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time [35] by Robert Herrick [36]
- You charmed me not with that fair face [37] by John Dryden [38]
See more [32]
Consonance [39]
The repetition of a consonant sound, such as the repetition of the “t” sound in “tucked string tells” or the “c” sound in “cloudless climes.”
- She Walks in Beauty [40] by Lord Byron [41]
- As Kingfishers Catch Fire [42] by Gerard Manley Hopkins [7]
- Kubla Kahn [20] by Samuel Taylor Coleridge [21]
See more [39]
Couplet [43]
Two consecutive lines of a poem, usually of the same length, that rhyme.
- “Alone” [44] by Edgar Allan Poe [45]
- To an Athlete Dying Young [46] by A.E. Housman [47]
- The Author to Her Book [48] by Anne Bradstreet [49]
See more [43]
Elegy [50]
A poem of mourning for a person or event.
- A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General [51] by Jonathan Swift [52]
- The Charge of the Light Brigade [53] by Alfred, Lord Tennyson [29]
- To an Athlete Dying Young [46] by A.E. Housman [47]
See more [50]
Free verse [54]
A poem that does not follow a consistent meter or rhyme scheme in its structure.
- At the Centre [55] by Afua Cooper [56]
- Beat! Beat! Drums! [57] by Walt Whitman [58]
- Piling Blood [59] by Al Purdy [60]
See more [54]
Imagery [61]
The use of vivid visual images.
- A Breakfast for Barbarians [62] by Gwendolyn McEwen [63]
- Lagoons, Hanlan’s Point [64] by Raymond Souster [65]
- War [66] by Lee Maracle [67]
See more [61]
Metaphor [68]
An implied comparison where one thing is described in terms of another without using the words like or as (see simile). Emily Dickinson doesn’t write that “hope” is like a thing with feathers she writes that “hope” is the thing with feathers. Sometimes the story of a poem is a metaphor for a larger idea, as in “The Road Not Taken,” where Robert Frost describes a forked road as a metaphor for the moment one chooses between two different ways of life.
- Homage to the Mineral of the Onion (I) [69] by Erin Mouré [70]
- “Hope” is the thing with feathers— [71] by Emily Dickinson [72]
- The Road Not Taken [73] by Robert Frost [74]
See more [68]
Ode [75]
A poem that formally addresses a person, place, thing, or idea; odes often praise or celebrate their subjects.
- Ode on Solitude [76] by Alexander Pope [77]
- Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes [78] by Thomas Gray [79]
- To Autumn [80] by John Keats [81]
See more [75]
Pastoral [82]
Poetry that idealizes rural life as tranquil, uncomplicated, and virtuous.
- I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud [83] by William Wordsworth [84]
- The Passionate Shepherd to His Love [85] by Christopher Marlowe [86]
- The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd [8] by Sir Walter Ralegh [9]
See more [82]
Persona poem
A poem that, though written in first person, is not in the voice of the poet but rather speaks from the point of view of a dramatic character.
- Mrs. Kessler [87] by Edgar Lee Masters [88]
- My Last Duchess [89] by Robert Browning [90]
- Richard Cory [91] by Edward Arlington Robinson [92]
Personification [93]
A figure of speech in which human characteristics are given to an animal, object, or abstract idea.
- A Virginal [94] by Ezra Pound [95]
- Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud [96] by John Donne [97]
- Love (III) [98] by George Herbert [99]
See more [93]
Prose poem [100]
A poem that appears to follow the same form as prose — with sentences that flow into paragraphs rather than being broken into verse lines — but that uses poetic devices, such as metaphor, imagery, or symbolism.
- Dog Boy [101] by Matthew Rohrer [102]
- Two Words: A Wedding [103] by bp Nichol [104]
See more [100]
Quatrain [105]
A four-line stanza.
- Lord of My Heart’s Elation [106] by Bliss Carman [107]
- The Tyger [108] by William Blake [109]
- Wild Nights—Wild Nights! [110] by Emily Dickinson [72]
See more [105]
Refrain [111]
A phrase or line that repeats regularly in a poem, often at the end of stanzas.
- A Hymn to God the Father [112] by John Donne [97]
- Insomnia [113] by Dante Gabriel Rossetti [114]
- What horror to awake at night [115] by Lorine Niedecker [116]
See more [111]
Rhyme [117]
A patterned repetition of vowel and consonant sounds.
- A Fixed Idea [118] by Amy Lowell [119]
- From The Titanic: The Iceberg [120] by E.J. Pratt [121]
- My Last Duchess [89] by Robert Browning [90]
See more [117]
Rhythm [122]
The organization of sound patterns.
- Jack Would Speak Through the Imperfect Medium of Alice [123] by Alice Notley [124]
- The Dark Stag [125] by Isabella Valancy Crawford [126]
- The Owl and the Pussy-Cat [127] by Edward Lear [128]
See more [122]
Sensory language [129]
The use of words and details that appeal to a reader’s physical senses (sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell).
- A Glass Tube Ecstasy [130] by Jerome Rothenberg [131]
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree [132] by William Butler Yeats [133]
- The Windhover [6] by Gerard Manley Hopkins [7]
See more [129]
Simile [134]
The use of like or as to compare one thing to another, as Michael Ondaatje writes “Your voice sounds like a scorpion being pushed / through a glass tube.”
- Dover Beach [135] by Matthew Arnold [136]
- Sweet like a Crow [137] by Michael Ondaatje [138]
- The Fish [139] by Marianne Moore [140]
See more [134]
Sonnet [141]
One of the most enduring forms in English poetry, a sonnet — from sonetto, which means “little song” in Italian — is a 14-line poem. Traditionally a sonnet employs a variable rhyme scheme, though many contemporary examples of the sonnet do not rhyme.
- Blank Sonnet [26] by George Elliott Clarke [27]
- I think I should have loved you presently [142] by Edna St. Vincent Millay [143]
- Sonnet XVIII: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? [144] by William Shakespeare [145]
See more [141]
Stanza
A group of two or more lines that make up a single unit of a larger poem, traditionally in a set structure (of couplets, tercets, quatrains, etc.), though contemporary poems often contain stanzas of varying lengths without a formal pattern. A poem moves from stanza to stanza in much the same way that a prose composition moves from paragraph to paragraph.
Tercet [146]
A three-line stanza or a three-line poem. There are many contemporary examples of poems written entirely in tercets.
- A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky [147] by Lewis Carroll [148]
- Death of a Young Son by Drowning [149] by Margaret Atwood [150]
- One Art [151] by Elizabeth Bishop [152]
See more [146]