Poetry 2

End-stopped: A poetic line that has a pause at the end. End-stopped lines reflect normal speech patterns and are often marked with a period, comma, colon, semicolon, exclamation point, or question mark

Exact Rhyme: Rhyme in which the final accented vowel and all succeeding consonants or syllables are identical, while the preceding consonants are different

Also called perfect rhyme, full rhyme, true rhyme.

Eye Rhyme: When words look alike but do not rhyme: bough and cough, or brow and blow

End Rhyme: The most common form of rhyme in poetry; the rhyme comes at the end of the lines

Feminine Rhyme: Consists of a rhymed stressed syllable followed by one or more identical unstressed syllables, such as gratitude and attitude; quivering and shivering

Masculine Rhyme: Describes the rhyming of single-syllable words such as grade and shade; or of rhyming words or more than one syllable when the same sound occurs in the final stressed syllable, as in defend and contend.

• DOUBLE RHYME: Words that have the same vowel sound in the second-to-last syllable and all following sounds.

• For example: soaring weary adoring

dreary

conviction

prediction

Internal Rhyme: Places at least one of the rhymed words within the line as in “In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud”

Off-rhyme: A partial or imperfect rhyme

Also called approximate rhyme, half rhyme, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, slant rhyme.

• EUPHONY: A harmonious succession of words or when the combination of consonants and vowels in a line or passage sound pleasing and suit the meaning of the poem.

Example: and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of blue-green leaves with its watery sun & three moons-Margaret Atwood from Variations on the Word Sleep

CACOPHONY: the use of words that combine sharp, harsh, hissing, or unmelodious sounds.

Example: We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work your wicked will.

STANZA

A unit of a poem, similar in rhyme, meter, and length to other units in the poem; usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme

COUPLET: Two lines of rhyming poetry

QUATRAIN: A four-line stanza

You are probably most familiar with these two terms because of the English (Shakespearean) Sonnet, which is comprised of three quatrains and a couplet)

OCTAVE: An eight-line stanza

SESTET: A six-line stanza

An Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet is comprised of an octave and a sestet

TERCET: Three-line stanza