Glossary of Poetic Terms

Abecedarian

An abecedarian poem is one in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows the sequential order of the alphabet. A notable example is Jessica Greenbaum’s “A Poem for S.” Additionally, Tom Disch’s “Abecedary” and Matthea Harvey’s “The Future of Terror/The Terror of Future” sequence also employ the alphabet as a structural element. Mary Jo Bang in “The Bride of E” and Harryette Mullen in “Sleeping with the Dictionary” have utilized the abecedarian form throughout entire collections.

Accentual Verse

Accentual verse refers to poetry where the meter is determined solely by the number of stressed syllables per line, regardless of the total number of syllables. Many Old English poems, including “Beowulf,” are accentual. Ezra Pound’s modern translation of “The Seafarer” and Richard Wilbur’s poem “Junk” also employ this meter. Traditional nursery rhymes like “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake” often follow this metrical structure.

Accentual-Syllabic Verse

Accentual-syllabic verse is characterized by a fixed number of syllables and a specific alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables within each line. This metrical system dominated English poetry from the Renaissance through the 19th century.

Acmeism

Acmeism was an early 20th-century Russian poetic movement that rejected the emotionality and vagueness of Symbolism in favor of clarity and concrete imagery. Key figures included Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova.

Acrostic

An acrostic poem spells out a word, name, or phrase with the first letter of each line. An example is Lewis Carroll’s “A Boat beneath a Sunny Sky.”

Affrilachian Poets

Coined by Frank X. Walker, “Affrilachian” refers to African American residents of the Appalachian Mountains. Walker founded the Affrilachian Poets Collective in 1991, including writers such as Nikki Finney and Crystal Wilkinson. The term challenges the assumed whiteness of the Appalachian region and its culture.

Alcaic

An alcaic stanza, developed by the Greek poet Alcaeus, consists of four lines with a specific syllabic count and a predominantly dactylic meter. Alfred, Lord Tennyson mimicked this form in his poem “Milton.”

Alexandrine

In English poetry, an alexandrine is a 12-syllable iambic line, adapted from French heroic verse. Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “To a Skylark” feature alexandrine lines.

Allegory

An allegory is an extended metaphor where characters, places, and objects symbolize larger concepts, often religious, moral, or historical. Prominent examples include John Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress” and Edmund Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene.”

Alliteration

Alliteration involves the repetition of initial stressed consonant sounds within a phrase or verse line. Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty” includes the alliterative phrase “With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim.”

Allusion

An allusion is a brief, intentional reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, or movement. T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is dense with allusions, while Seamus Heaney’s “Singing School” alludes to W.B. Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium.”

Ambiguity

Ambiguity occurs when a word, statement, or situation has multiple meanings. William Empson’s book “Seven Types of Ambiguity” explores this concept, emphasizing its importance in poetry. e.e. cummings’s “[anyone lived in a pretty how town]” and Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “The Windhover” both exhibit ambiguity.

Anachronism

An anachronism places someone or something in an incorrect historical period. Shakespeare’s clock in “Julius Caesar” and Charles Olson’s “The Maximus Poems” are examples of this technique.

Anagram

An anagram rearranges the letters of a word to form another word, such as turning “exam pages” into “example gas.”

Anapest

An anapest is a metrical foot with two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one. Words like “underfoot” and “overcome” are anapestic. Lord Byron’s “The Destruction of Sennacherib” uses anapestic meter.

Anaphora

Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or lines. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Joanna Klink’s poem “Some Feel Rain” utilize anaphora to create rhythm and emphasis.

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism attributes human qualities to inanimate objects, animals, or concepts. Vachel Lindsay’s “What the Rattlesnake Said” and John Keats’s sonnet “Bright Star, Would I Were as Steadfast as Thou Art” feature anthropomorphism.

Antithesis

Antithesis contrasts or combines two opposing ideas. William Blake’s “The Clod and the Pebble” exemplifies this by juxtaposing love’s selflessness and self-interest.

Aphorism

An aphorism is a concise, instructive statement or truism. Benjamin Franklin’s “How to get RICHES” is a classic example.

Apostrophe

An apostrophe addresses a dead or absent person or personified object as if present. John Donne’s “Death, be not proud” and Emily Dickinson’s “Wild nights!—Wild nights!” are notable examples.