Allegory: A story or poem in which characters, events, or images represent deeper ideas or lessons.

Alliteration: Repeating the same beginning sound in nearby words.

Allusion: A reference to a well-known person, place, event, or story.

Ambiguity: Language that can be understood in more than one way.

Analogy: A comparison that helps explain an idea.

Anaphora: Repeating a word or phrase at the beginning of lines or sentences.

Ars Poetica: A poem about poetry or the art of writing poems.

Assonance: Repeating vowel sounds in nearby words.

Ballad: A poem that tells a story, often about people or events.

Blank Verse: Poetry written in a regular rhythm but without rhyme.

Caesura: A pause in the middle of a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation.

Concrete Poetry: Poetry whose words are arranged on the page to create a visual shape that adds meaning.

Connotation: The feelings or ideas a word suggests beyond its basic meaning.

Consonance: Repeating consonant sounds within or at the ends of words.

Couplet: A pair of lines of poetry, often that rhyme.

Diction: A poet’s choice of words.

Ekphrasis: A poem inspired by or describing a work of art.

Elegy: A poem that expresses sadness, often about someone who has died.

Enjambment: When a sentence continues from one line into the next without stopping.

Epigraph: A short quotation or passage placed at the beginning of a poem to introduce its theme or ideas.

Epistle: A poem written as a letter to a person or group.

Extended Metaphor: A metaphor that continues over several lines or throughout a poem.

Figurative Language: Words or phrases that express ideas in imaginative, nonliteral ways.

Form: The overall structure or shape of a poem.

Free Verse: Poetry that does not follow a regular rhyme or rhythm pattern.

Ghazal: A poetic form made of paired lines that often explore themes such as love, longing, or loss, with repeated words or phrases creating a musical pattern.

Haiku: A short poetic form with three lines that often focuses on nature or a moment in time.

Hyperbole: An intentional exaggeration or emphasis or effect.

Imagery: Words that help readers picture, hear, smell, taste, or feel something.

Irony: A contrast between what is expected and what actually happens or is meant.

Line Break: The place where one line of poetry ends and the next begins.

Lyric Poem: A poem that expresses personal thoughts or feelings.

Metaphor: A comparison that says one thing is another to create meaning. 

Meter: The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem.

Mood: The feeling or atmosphere a poem creates for the reader.

Narrative Poem: A poem that tells a story.

Occasional Poem: A poem written for a particular event, celebration, or public occasion.

Ode: A poem that praises or celebrates a person, object, idea, or experience. 

Onomatopoeia: A word that sounds like the noise it describes.

Oxymoron: Two words with opposite meanings placed together.

Personification: Giving human qualities to animals, objects, or ideas.

Persona: The voice or character speaking in a poem.

Prose Poem: A poem written in sentences and paragraphs instead of lines, while still using poetic language and imagery.

Quatrain: A group of four lines in a poem.

Refrain: A phrase, line, or group of lines repeated throughout a poem.

Repetition: Repeating words, sounds, or phrases for emphasis or effect.

Rhetorical: Using language to persuade, emphasize, or make an idea more powerful.

Rhyme: Words with matching or similar ending sounds.

Rhythm: The beat or flow created by the pattern of sounds and stresses.

Sestina: A poetic form with six stanzas and a repeating pattern of six ending words.

Simile: A comparison using “like” or “as.”

Sonnet: A poetic form consisting of 14-lines with a specific structure and pattern.

Speaker: The voice telling or expressing ideas in a poem.

Stanza: A group of lines that forms a section of a poem.

Symbol: A person, place, object, or action that represents a larger idea.

Tercet: A group of three lines in a poem.

Theme: The main message or central idea of a poem.

Tone: The speaker’s attitude toward the subject or audience.

Verse: A line of poetry or a section of a poem.

Villanelle: A poetic form consisting of 19-lines with two repeating rhymes and two repeating lines.

Volta/Turn: The turning point in a poem where the thought, idea, perspective, mood, or argument changes.