Alliteration -

The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. 

Example: Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood”. “In the Valley of the Elwy”.

Anapest- 

Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one, as in comprehend or intervene. An anapestic meter rises to the accented beat as in Byron’s lines from “The Destruction of Sennacherib”: and the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, / When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee”. 

 The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in “I rose and told him of my woe”. Witman’s “When I heard the learn’d Astronomer”. Contains assonantal “I’s” in the following lines: “How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself”.

A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter. 

The associations called up by a word that go beyond its dictionary meaning. Poets, especially, tend to use words rich in connotation. Dylan Thomas’s 

“Do not go gentle into that good night”, includes intensely connotative language, as in these lines “Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright/ Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay/ Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”

A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme scheme in a villenelle. Literary conventions are defining feature of particular literary genres, such as novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play.

A pair of rhymed lines that may or many not constitute a separate stanza in a poem. Shakespeare’s sonnets end in rhymed couplets, as in “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings”.

A stressed Syllable followed by two unstressed ones, as in flut-ter-ing or blue-ber-r-y. 

Higgledy Piggledy / Gibbering Jabbering

The dictionary meaning of a word. Writers tyipcally play off a word’s denotative meaning against its connotations, or suggested and implied associational implications. In the following lines from Peter Meinke’s “Advice to my son” the references to flowers and fruit, bread and wine denote specific things, but also suggest something beyond the literal, dictionary meanings of the words

To be specific, between the peony and rose

Plan squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;

Beauty is nectar and nectar, in a desert, saves -- 

...

and always serve bread with your wine

But, son,

always serve wine

A type of poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener. As readers, we overhear the speaker in a dramatic monologue. Robert Brownings “My Last Duchess” represents the epitome of this genre.

 run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. . 

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, 

Looking as if she were alive, I call

That piece a wonder, now.....

 A from of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words. Examples include hyperbole or exaggeration, litotes, or understatement, simile and metaphor, which employs comparison, and synecdoche and metonymy, in which a part of a thing stands for the whole.

 A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, an iamb, or iambic foot is represented by an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. Frost’s line “Whose woods are these I think I know” contains four iambs, and is thus an iambic foot.

Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. 

An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.

-A poetic line of five iambic feet. “When in disgrace with fortune and mens eyes”

A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. 

The pattern of related comparative aspects of language, particularly of images, in a literary work. 

 A type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling. Most of the poems in this book are the lyrics. The anonymous “Western Wind” epitomizes this genre:

Western Wind, when will thou blow,

The small rain down can rain?

Christ, if my love were in my arms

And I in my bed again!

A measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems.

A figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or idea. An example “We have always remained loyal to the crown”

A poem that tells a story, See Ballad.

An eight-line unit, which may constitute a stanza or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet.

Onomatopoeia-

The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as “buzz” and “crack” are onomatopoetic. The following from Pope’s “Sound and Sense” Onomatopoetically imitates in sound what it describes.

When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,

The line too labors, and the words move slow.

The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.

A four-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines and the second four lines in a petrarchan sonnet. A shakespearian sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a couplet. 

The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. The following stanza of Richard Cory employs alternate rhyme, with the third line rhyming with the first and the fourth with the second: 

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him;

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored and imperially slim

The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the following lines from “Same in Blues” by Langston Hughes, the accented words and syllables are underlined:

I said to my baby,

Baby take it slow...

Lulu said to Leonard,

I want a diamond ring.

 A six-line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem; the last six lines of an Italian sonnet.

A poem of thirty-nine lines written in iambic pentameter. Its six-line stanzas repeat in an intricate and prescribed order the final word in each of the first six lines. After the sixth stanza, there is a three-line envoi, which uses the six repeating words, two words, two per line.

A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. The shakespearian or english sonnet is arranged as three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet divides into two parts: and eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming abba abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd.

A metrical foot represented by two stressed syllables, such as knick-knack.

 A division of unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form-- either with similar or identical patters or rhyme and meter, or with variations from one stanza to another. The stanzas of Rita Dove’s “Canary” are irregular.

 a figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole. An example: Lend me a hand.

 A three-line stanza, as exemplified by shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”. The three-line stanzas or sections that together constitute the sestet of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet.

An accented Syllable followed by an unaccented one, as in football

A 19 line lyric poem that relies heavily on repetition. The first and third lines alternate throughout the poem, which is structured in 6 stanzas- five tercets and a concluding quatrain. Examples: Bishop’s “One Art”, Roethke’s “The Walking”.