English poetic techniques

• Alliteration


  Where words that are close together start with the same sound
• Caesura


  A pause in a line of poetry
• Colloquial Language


  Informal language that sounds like ordinary speech
• Contrast


  When two things are described in a way which emphasises how different they are
• Dialect


  A variation of language spoken by people from a particular place or background
• Direct Address

  When the narrator speaks directly to the reader or another character in the poem
• Dramatic Monologue


  A form of poetry that uses the assumed voice of a single speaker who is not the poet, to address an implied audience
• End stop line


  Finishing a line of poetry with the end of a phrase or sentence, usually marked by a punctuation
• Enjambment


  When a sentence or phrase runs over from one line or stanza to the next
• Figurative Language


  Language that is used in a non literal way to create an effect
• Form


  The type of poem, eg a sonnet or a ballad, and the overall way it is written
• Free Verse


  Poetry that doesn't rhyme and has no regular rhythm or line length
• Hyperbole


  The use of exaggeration to emphasise a point
• Iambic Pentameter


  Poetry with a metre of ten syllables – five of them stressed, and five unstressed, The stress falls on every second syllable
• Iambic tetrameter


  Like iambic pentameter but with a metre of eight syllables – four stressed and four unstressed
• Imagery


  Language that creates a picture in your mind. It includes metaphors, similes and personification
• Internal Rhyme


  When two or more words rhyme, and at least one of the words isn't at the end of a line. The rhyming word can be in the same line or nearby lines
• Irony


  When words are used to imply the opposite of what they normally mean. It can also mean where there is a difference between what people expect and what actually happens
• Juxtaposition


  When a poet puts two ideas, events, character or description close to each other to encourage the reader to contrast them
• Language


  The choice of words used by the poets. Different kinds of language have different effects
• Metaphor


  A way of describing something by saying that it is something else
• Extended Metaphor


  A metaphor that is carried on throughout a whole poem
• Metre


  The arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables to create rhythm in a line of poetry
• Monologue


  One person speaking for a long period of time
• Mood


  The feel or atmosphere of a poem
• Narrative


  Writing that tells a story
• Narrative viewpoint


  The perspective that a text is written from
• Narrator


  The person speaking the words
• Onomatopoeia


  A word that sounds like the thing it's describing
• Oxymoron


  A phrase which appears to contradict itself
• Personification


  Describing a non-living thing as if it's a person
• Plosives


  A short burst of sound made when you say a word containing the letters b,f,g,k,p or t
• Refrain


  A line or stanza in a poem that is repeated
• Repetition


  The technique of repeating words, phrases, images or ideas
• Rhyming couplet


  A pair of rhyming lines
• Sensory language


  Language that appeals to any of the five senses
• Sibilance


  Repetition of the 's' and 'sh' sounds
• Simile


  A way of describing something by comparing it to something else, usually by the words 'like' or 'as'
• Stanza


  A group of lines in poetry
• Structure


  The order and arrangement of ideas in a poem