Free verse - Free Verse is an irregular form of poetry in which the content free
of traditional rules of verse structure.

Epic poetry - An Epic is a long narrative poem celebrating the adventures and
achievements of a hero. The Odyssey, the Iliad, and Beowulf are examples of epic poetry.

Song - A song is an expression of a poet's personal emotions, meant to be sung.
Lyrics in a song contain verses (lines that make up a song; sung poem) and a chorus (a repeating verse in a song (refrain).

Haiku - An unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all.

Ode - A poem praising and glorifying a person, place or thing.

Sonnet - A poem consisting of 14 lines with a particular rhyming scheme:
· A Shakespearean (English) sonnet has three quatrains and a couplet, and rhymes abab cdcd efef gg.

· An Italian sonnet is composed of an octave, rhyming abbaabba, and a sestet, rhyming cdecde or cdcdcd, or in some variant pattern, but with no closing couplet.

Some poetic terms:

Alliteration
Alliteration is the succession of similar consonant sounds.

Assonance
The succession of similar vowel sounds that are not recognized by spelling, rather by sound. For example, "I tried to fly but I crashed and cried".

Consonance
The close repetition of the same end consonants of stressed syllables with differing vowel sounds.

Doggerel
Crudely written poetry that lacks artistry in form or meaning. Trivial, poorly written verse that is sometimes intentionally, or unintentionally humourous.

Metaphor
Use of language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects.

Metre, Meter
A measure of rhythmic quantity organized into groups of syllables at regular intervals in a line of poetry. The unit of meter is the foot

Onomatopoeia
Words used in place of where a reader should hear sounds. Words such as pop, crackle, snap, whizz, buzz, zing.

Persona
In literature, the person doing the talking. Most often in narration, persona is the "I".

Personification
A form of metaphor where an inanimate object, animal, or idea is given human-like characteristics such as "Night swallowed the sun's last ray of light"

Poem
Written expression of emotion or ideas in an arrangement of words/verse, most often rhythmically.

Prose
Ordinary or plain everyday language used in speech or writing with no patterns or rhymes.

Refrain
A repeated verse within a poem or song pertaining to a central topic (Like a song chorus).

Rhyme
A recurrence of similar ending sounds at the ends of a poetic line/verse such as 'run' and 'sun', or 'night' and 'light'.

Rhyme Scheme
A pattern established by the arrangement of rhymes in a line or stanza.

Rhythm
The rise and fall of stress.

Run-On Lines
Lines in which the thought continues into the next line. The opposite of end-stopped.

Simile
A comparison between two unlike things using like or as, etc. such as "Your eyes are like sparkling diamonds".

Stanza, Stanzaic
One of the divisions of a poem, composed of two or more lines of verse usually characterized by a common pattern of meter, rhyme, or number of lines.

Symbol
An image or icon that represents something else by association.

Verse
A line of poetry that contains formal structure.

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