Definition: Does not consists of poems that follow patterns of lines, meter, rhymes and stanzasExample: After the Sea-Ship by Walt Whitman After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship: Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves, Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;

Definition: poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter.Example: Fog by Carl SandburgThe fog comeson little cat feet.It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on.

Definition: (fixed form) consists of poems that follow patterns of lines, meter, rhymes and stanzas.

Types: Sonnet/Villanelle/SestinaExample: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often in his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed. But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee

Definition: the ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem or verse.

Example: ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are!’

Definition: it is usually dependent not only on the number of syllables in a line but also on the way those syllables are accented. This rhythm is often described as a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Example: Iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl, spondee & pyrrhic

Definition: (prosody) a group of 2 or 3 syllables forming the basic unit of poetic rhythm.Example: I think I shall never see.

/I think/ that I/ shall ne/ver seeBesides iambic, there are also:trochaic: stressed plus unstressedanapestic: two unstressed plus one stresseddactylic: one stressed plus two unstressed

Definition: a metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long (or stressed). The lamb is the reverse of the Trochee.Example:•That time l of year l thou mayst l in me l behold Shall I l com pare l thee to l a sum l mer’s day? – Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18”

Definition: a foot consisting of one long or stressed syllable followed by one short or unstressed syllable.Example:•(I could) wait forever, Face a thousand lifetimes, Ponder your embraces, Just to live in your time.Why so pale and wan, fond Lover?Prithee why so pale?Will, when looking well can’t move her,Looking ill prevail?Prithee why so pale? – Sir John Suckling’s “Song”

Definition: a metrical foot consisting of two short or unstressed syllables followed by one long or stressed syllable.Example:•And the sound l of a voice l that is still The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the foldAnd his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold Lord Byron’s “The Destruction of Sennacherib”

Definition: a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables or (in Greek and Latin) one long syllable followed by two short syllables.Example: •Cannon to right of them,Cannon to left of them,Cannon in front of themVolley’d and thunder’d; – Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”

Definition: a foot consisting of two long (or stressed) syllables.

Example:The Song of HiawathaThe first poem is Longfellow’s classic, ‘On the Shores of Hiawatha.’ Here is the first stanza. ‘By the shore of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, At the doorway of his wigwam, In the pleasant Summer morning, Hiawatha stood and waited. All the air was full of freshness, All the earth was bright and joyous, And before him, through the sunshine, Westward toward the neighboring forest Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo Passed the bees, the honey-makers, Burning, singing in the sunshine.’

Definition: It consists of two unaccented, short syllables. It is also known as a dibrach.Example: WHEN THE blood creeps AND THE nerves prick.

Definition: a line of verse consisting of a single metrical foot or dipody.Example: A POETRY-footle Strand, Brian Footleon Read more at: http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/monometer

Definition: gives you a number and refers to any line of poetry consisting of two (di-) metrical feet.Example:Up the|mountain, Down the|valley, Steadi|ly the Train chugs|onward.

Definition: a line of verse consisting of three metrical feetExample: Iambic trimeter (contains three iambs in each line)I love the jocund dance, The softly breathing song,(I Love the Jocund Dance by William Blake)

Definition: a verse of four measures.Example:Iambic tetrameter (contains four iambs in each line)Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both(The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost)

Definition: contains five iambs in each lineExample: Her vestal livery is but sick and green And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. (Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)

Definition: contains six iambs in each lineExample: He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

..(Adonais by Percy Bysshe Shelly)

Definition: a line of verse consisting of seven metrical feet.Example:Heptameter Poem by Sara KendrickOut on porch to glimpse a sunrise Orange sun cast gray ‘on clouds Whispy light airy sparse white clouds On horizon not like shroud Then as the sun inched up orange Disappeared replaced by Illuminating brilliance clear Against blue blue sky Dramatic change for human eyes I longed to stay awhile How many didn’t even notice Beauty very worthwhile Iambic heptameter used as ballard stanza Used by Emily Dickinson in many of her works Read more at: http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/short/heptameter

Definition: a line of verse consisting of eight metrical feetExample:In HarmonyPeaceful harmonyenriches one’s soul,a blessing from Godof His loving grace.

Share with each otherthis love you embrace;there’s joy in your heart,it shines from your face.In tranquilitylift your voice in prayer;there is no façade,God has set you free.His mercy and loveHe grants you and me;never in disgraceas we run life’s race.

Definition: a group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse.Example: Five common stanzas are couplets (two lines), tercets (three lines), quatrains (four lines), sestets (six lines), and octaves (eight lines).

Definition: two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit.Example:She was a little tenseThe notice made no senseI saw a little hermit crabHis coloring was oh so drabIt’s hard to see the butterflyBecause he flies across the sky

Definition: (in verse) a pair of rhyming iambic pentameters, much used by Chaucer and the poets of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Alexander Pope.Example: Short Heroic Couplets poem by Andrew Crisci Suppressing something beautiful is not feeling what all true hearts feel. Read more at: http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/short/heroic_couplets

Definition:a set or group of three lines of verse rhyming together or connected by rhyme with an adjacent tercetExample: From Second SatireSir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) My mother’s maids, when they did sew and spin,They sang sometimes a song of the field mouse, That for because their livelihood was but so thin Would needs go seek her townish sister’s house.She thought herself endured to much pain: The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse.

..

Definition: a stanza of four lines, especially one having alternate rhymes Example:From: Hope is the Thing with Feathers, by Emily Dickinson”Hope” is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soulAnd sings the tune without the wordsAnd never stops at all,

Definition: (in verse) a five-line stanza.Example: Cinquain Pattern #1 Line1: One wordLine2: Two wordsLine 3: Three wordsLine 4: Four wordsLine 5: One wordFrom bleakening hillsLook up.

..Blows down the light, first breathOf wintry wind…look up, and scentThe snow!

Definition: the last six lines of a sonnet.Example:Example of Septet #1:From:Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan PoeBut our love it was stronger by far than the loveOf those who were older than we,Of many far wiser than we,And neither the angels in heaven above,Nor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.

Definition: A stanza comprising of seven lines.

Example: Affectionately Yours (Septet) Amorous thoughts soar through the blue, to touch a heart that is true; velvet kisses, softly set upon the lips of mine affection’s as whippoorwills sing Perfection…Read more at: http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/short/septet

Definition: is the first part of a Petrarchan sonnet, which ends with a contrasting sestet.Example:From:Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan PoeFor the moon never beams without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,In the sepulcher there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Definition: have a musical rhythm, and their topics often explore romantic feelings or other strong emotions.Example:William ShakespeareShall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate.Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

Definition: a poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English typically having ten syllables per line.Example:SonnetDante Alighieri (1265-1321)Ye ladies, walking past me piteous-eyed,Who is the lady that lies prostrate here?Can this be even she my heart holds dear?Nay, if it be so, speak, and nothing hide.Her very aspect seems itself beside,And all her features of such altered cheerThat to my thinking they do not appearHers who makes others seem beatified.’If thou forget to know our lady thus,Whom grief o’ercomes, we wonder in no wise,For also the same thing befalleth us,Yet if thou watch the movement of her eyes,Of her thou shalt be straightaway conscious.O weep no more; thou art all wan with sighs.

(Trans. D.G. Rossetti)

Definition: is the turn of thought or argument: in Petrarchan or Italian sonnets it occurs between the octave and the sestet, and in Shakespearean or English before the final couplet.Example:Death of a Sonnet Writer1.

He turned the fourteenth glass and said, “Begin.”2. and I had fourteen minutes left to live;3. and I had fourteen unrepented sins,4. and fourteen people whom I would forgive,5. and fourteen unread books upon my shelf,6. and fourteen loves I knew I’d loved in vain,7. and fourteen dreams I’d kept within myself8.

(the fourteen I’d most wanted to explain.)9. But fourteen minutes quickly passed away.10. I filled my pen with fourteen drops of ink-11. the fourteenth glass had offered one delay;12. and fourteen final grains retained the brink.

13. This sonnet flowed like fourteen final breaths-14. the fourteenth line, the fourteenth grain, then death.

Definition:is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison. Example: Shakespeare makes use of a conceit in Act 3, Scene 5 of his play “Romeo and Juliet”. Capulet comes to Juliet’s room after Romeo has left.

He finds her weeping and says:”Thou counterfeit’st a bark, a sea, a wind;For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,Without a sudden calm, will oversetThy tempest-tossed body.”

Definition:there is a “volta” or “turn” which signals the change from the proposition to its resolution. It usually appears in the ninth line. Example: The first is an Italian Sonnet by James DeFord, written in 1997:Turn back the heart you’ve turned awayGive back your kissing breathLeave not my love as you have leftThe broken hearts of yesterdayBut wait, be still, don’t lose this wayAffection now, for what you guessMay be something more, could be lessAccept my love, live for today.Your roses wilted, as love spurnedYet trust in me, my love and truthDwell in my heart, from which you’ve turnedMy strength as great as yours aloof.It is in fear you turn awayAnd miss the chance of love today!

Definition: a sonnet in which the lines are grouped into three interlocked quatrains and a couplet and the rhyme scheme is abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee.

Example:Is it|her na|ture or|is it|her will, ATo be so cruel to an humbled foe? BIf nature, then she may it mend with skill, AIf will, then she at will may will forgo. BBut if her nature and her will be so, Bthat she will plague the man that loves her most: CAnd take delight t’increase a wretch’s woe, BThen all her nature’s goodly gifts are lost. CAnd that same glorious beauty’s idle boast, CIs but a bait such wretches to beguile: DAs being long in her love’s tempest tossed, CShe means at last to make her piteous spoil. DOf fairest fair let never it be named, EThat so fair beauty was so foully shamed.

EAmoretti, Sonnet No. 41

Definition: a sonnet form used by Shakespeare and having the rhyme scheme abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Expand. Also called English sonnet, Elizabethan sonnet.Example: Sonnet 126 O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy powerO thou, my lovely boy, who in thy powerDost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle, hour;Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’stThy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow’st;If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skillMay time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:Her audit, though delay’d, answer’d must be,And her quietus is to render thee.

Definition: is a poem with no rhyme but does have iambic pentameter. This means it consists of lines of five feet, each foot being iambic, meaning two syllables long, one stressed followed by an unstressed.Example: Example #1Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,And spills the upper boulders in the sun;(Mending Walls by Robert Frost)

Definition: the action of scanning a line of verse to determine its rhythm; the rhythm of a line of verse.Example:Emily Dickinson’s Poem 254:Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all .

. .

Definition: the patterns of rhythm and sound used in poetry.

Example: Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”: She walks in beauty like the night aOf cloudless climes and starry skies bAnd all that’s best of dark and bright aMeet in her aspect and her eyes. b