Greek and Latin metrical foot consisting of long, short, short, and short syllables. Used as a song or hymn of praise, joy, or triumph, originally sung by Greeks in gratitude to Apollo.

An ode or song that retracts what the poet wrote in a previous poem; a recantation.

A poem in great praise of someone or something.

A French verse form of four quatrains that repeats entire lines in a strict pattern, 1234, 2546, 5768, 7183. E.g.,
1 My iambs walk the line
2 Trochees cannot salute,
3 As anapests decline
4 And dactyls follow suit.
2 Trochees cannot salute,
5 Delaying this pantoum,
4 And dactyls follow suit,
6 Eschew a pyrrhic tune

5 Delaying this pantoum.
7 Never mind sestinas,
6 Eschew a pyrrhic tune,
8 Amazing terza rimas!

7 Never mind sestinas!
1 My iambs walk the line,
8 Amazing terza rimas
3 As anapests decline.

Mayan antecedent of the pantoum, with a single quatrain, rhyming aabb, couplets that at first reading seem to have nothing to do with one another.
For example —
Professors talk and talk and talk, a lot;
Their students mumble, stare, and doze, somewhat.
Leno and Letterman go head-to-head
On TV just before we go to bed.

Imitation of a poem or another poet's style for comic/satiric effect, that is, a form imitating another person's work, with the objective of mocking it in either formal or thematic elements.

A poem that describes the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a timeless life in a world that is full of beauty, music, and love.
For instance - Shakespeare's "As You Like It" includes pastoral elements. Other terms often used as synonyms for pastoral are idyll, eclogue, and bucolic poetry.

Verse that creates the shape of its subject typographically on the page (and thus also called 'shape poetry'). George Herbert's Wings and Lewis Carroll's story of a cat and a mouse in Alice in Wonderland, chapter III, are examples.

A line of poetry comprising of five metrical 'feet'.

A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept. An example is found when Keats describes 'autumn' as a harvester "sitting careless on a granary floor".

A term to describe a poem which relies upon 'throwing a visual image on the mind'.
In “Exile’s Letter,” Pound found a language purged of the Decadent poeticality of chinoiserie, a modernist bareness:
"And if you ask how I regret that parting:
It is like the flowers falling at Spring’s end
Confused, whirled in a tangle.
What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking,
There is no end to things in the heart."

This ode consists of a series of triads in which the strophe and antistrophe have the same stanza form and the epode has a different form.

'Pindaric ode is derived from the Greek poet born in 518. Pindar was of aristocratic birth; educated in neighbouring Athens and lived much of his life in Thebes. Almost all his early poems have been lost, but his reputation was probably established by his later hymns in honour of the gods. He developed into the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, respected throughout the Greek world. Of his 17 volumes, comprising almost every genre of choral lyric, only four have survived complete, and those lack his musical settings. The extant poems, probably representing his masterpieces, are odes commissioned to celebrate triumphs in various Hellenic athletic games. Lofty and religious in tone, they are noted for their complexity, rich metaphors, and intensely emotive language.'

Apollo degreed that poets should receive laurels as a prize. The British crown created the post of Poet Laureate in 1688 and awarded it to poets for life.
Traditionally English poets laureate are appointed for life but Andrew Motion, the current laureate, is the first to be appointed for ten years. The requirement to write occasional verse is no longer enforced.
In the USA, the title of poet laureate was officially established in 1985 by the Senate. The post is salaried but is only held, on average, for 1-2 years.

Canada's Poet Laureate: George Bowering, (two-year appointment.)

U.S.A. Poet Laureate: Louise Glück

British Poet Laureate: Andrew Motion

A term invented by the critic Thomas Rymer in the late seventeenth century to describe the proper moral resolution that he believed drama or narrative should have. That is, unlike the often random justice in real life, literary plots should end with the reward of the good and the punishment of the evil.

The freedom to depart from correctness and grammaticality sometimes extended to poets by generous readers who believed that the poets knew better but needed such effects to be true to their subject.

Couplets in which a twelve-syllable line rhymes with a fourteen-syllable line.
Chapman uses this form in his translation of Homer. Hymn writers split the couplet into a quatrain (6 6 8 6), as did ballad writers (8 6 8 6).

Usually a short composition having the intentions of poetry but written in prose rather than verse.

Prosody is the study and classification of different poetic metres, rhyme schemes, and stanzas.

A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept.

Verse that aims to delight rather than to instruct the reader.

Lines that stand out from a longer poem because of their vivid diction or figures of speech, and perhaps because of the agitated flush that rises in the face of someone trying to recite it.