Poetry Terms and Terminology - V

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Where a poet pays to have his/her work published. Another form of vanity publishing occurs where a publisher compiles work by little known/unknown poets and then charges them for a copy of the book. (Beware Forward Press and poetry.com!)

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See metaphor.

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See Sesta Rima.

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Term for a poem coined by WH Auden.

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See dialect verse.

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Form of light verse which concerns itself with the comings and goings of polite society. Matthew Prior and Henry Austin Dobson both specialised in vers de société. How to Get On in Society by John Betjeman is another example - although this poem is also satirical in tone.

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Revolt against the formal constraints of classical French prosody. Occurring in the final years of the 19th century - vers libre abandoned traditional metre and rhyme schemes in favour of natural rhythm. It was pioneered by poets such as Rimbaud, Lafargue, Baudelaire and Mallarmé. See also free verse. 

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A line of writing arranged in a metrical pattern, a line of poetry. Also, a piece of poetry or a particular form of poetry such as free verse, blank verse, etc., or the art or work of a poet. The popular use of the word verse for a stanza or associated group of metrical lines is not in accordance with the best usage. A stanza is a group of verses.

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N/A

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An extended narrative poem e.g. Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning or Omeros by Derek Walcott.

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A sub category of prosody dealing with meter and rhyme.

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Someone who composes verse; often a pejorative term for poet.

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Verse written during the reign of Queen Victoria (1819-1901). Unlike Victorian novelists (such as Dickens) who tackled harsh social realism, most Victorian poets tended to create an escapist world fuelled by Arthurian legend, and featuring long haired maidens in towers. Tennyson was the pre-eminent Victorian poet. See also Pre-Raphaelites.

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Vignettes are short, impressionistic scenes that focus on one moment or give a trenchant impression about a character or an idea. It could describe a scene or even describe a situation involving action. A vignette points to a style rather than any form.

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SHOWDOWN

The hand
ticks toward noon,
main street quiets,
a voice call out -
make my day

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Complex 14th Century French form composed of long and short lines. The long lines of the second stanza take their rhyme from the short lines of the first stanza. This pattern continues  through out the poem until the final stanza - where the short lines take their rhyme from the long lines of the first stanza.

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Variation on the virelai featuring a double refrain at the start of the poem. These refrain lines are then used alternately at the end of  successive stanzas and then appear together again at the end of the final stanza but in reverse order. An example of a virelai nouveau is July by Dobson.

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See virelai above.

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Prosodic symbol (/) used to separate metrical feet.

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Relating to deep inner feelings rather than to the intellect.

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Italian term for the change in feeling which occurs between the octave and sestet in some sonnets.

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Literary and artistic movement occurring between 1912-1915 which attacked the sentimentality of 19th Century art. Ezra Pound was one of the main exponents.

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See assonance.

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a, e, i, o and u. As opposed to consonants.

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