| A | B |
|---|
| Alliteration | words beginning with the same consonant sound |
| Assonance | repitition of similar vowel sounds |
| Allusion | a reference to a well-known item in history or literature |
| Concrete Poem | a poem shaped to look like its subject |
| Couplet | two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry |
| Free Verse | poem without regular meter and rhyme |
| Imagery | pictures created in the mind |
| Lyric Poem | poem expressing personal thought or emotion |
| Metaphor | compares two different things without using "like" or "as" |
| Simile | compares two different things using "like" or "as" |
| Ballad | poem that tells a story and often set to music |
| Narrative | long poem that tells a story |
| Onomatopoeia | word or phrase that sounds like what it names |
| Personification | giving human qualities to nonhuman things |
| Poetry | imaginative writing that appeals to the senses |
| Refrain | line or lines repeated at regular intervals |
| Rhyme | words that have the same ending sounds |
| Rhythm | beat pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables |
| Meter | regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables |
| Limerick | a humorous five-line poem |
| Quatrain | group of four consecutive lines of poetry |
| Stanza | group of lines forming a unit in a poem; verse |
| Open Poem | has no formal grouping of lines |
| Closed Poem | follows strict, traditional patterns of rhythm, rhyme, number of syllables, etc. |
| Hyperbole | exaggeration for effect |
| Symbolism | when something stands for more than itself |
| Literal | word-for-word meaning |
| Theme | the meaning of a piece of writing |
| Oxymoron | the blending of two contradictory terms |
| Mood | the feeling a reader has when reading a selection; atmosphere |
| Tone | the author's attitude toward his subject |
| Sensory Language | language that creates images involving the five senses |
