Can you unravel poetry jargon for me

Okay, here goes...

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Q. What's a stanza

A. A group of lines in a poem that, unlike verse, do not necessarily rhyme.

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Q. What's a sonnet

A. A poem of fourteen lines in length with a rhyming scheme that goes abab cdcd efef gg. Sonnets always end in a rhyming couplet, which means two lines which rhyme. Sonnets originated in Italy, and although many great writers produced sonnets, we now associate them mostly with Shakspeare.

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Q. What is poetic metre

A. It is the rhythm given to a line of poetry by the syllables and stresses chosen by the poet.

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Q. What is an iambic pentameter

A. It really means five strong stresses or 'feet' per line. In iambic pentameter there are two syllables per 'foot'. The rhythm is one two / one two / one two / one two / one two, with the stress on the two. For example 'But soft / what light / through yon / der win / dow breaks.'

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Q. What is blank verse

A. Blank verse is poetry that doesn't rhyme, but relies on stresses and pauses for dramatic effect. John Milton's Paradise Lost is written in blank verse, but the form was adapted from the heroic, epic poetry of the Greeks and Romans. Keats, Shelley, Goethe and Schiller, and, of course, Shakespeare wrote in blank verse.

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Q. What's a cinquain

A. It was an early twentieth century form of poetry�that never really took off, but is still being experimented with today. It was first developed by Adelaide Crapsey and is a poem composed of five lines with two syllables in the first line, four�in the second, six in the third, eight in the fourth and two in the fifth.

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Q. What is a clerihew
A. Developed by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, it is a short poem�of four lines with a rhyming scheme aabb where the subject of the poem is usually mentioned in the first line. Many poets adopted this form, but this is�a very appropriate one from the man himself.

The meaning of the poet Gay

Was always as clear as day

While that of the poet Blake

Was often practically opaque

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Q. What's sestina

A. It is a poem composed of six, six-line stanzas with a shorter three-line stanza to conclude. This form has been used since the twelfth century.

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Q. What's a villanelle
A. It is a really difficult poem to compose as it has nineteen lines, but only two rhymes. The best-known English villanelle is Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

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