alliteration: The repetition of consonant sounds.

allusion: An indirect reference in art or writing to another visual or literary work or a historical personage or event.

antithesis: The contrast of ideas through the use of terms with opposite meanings.

appropriation: The practice of incorporating elements from a preexisting literary or visual work to create a new work.

assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds.

calligram: A type of poem, such as that created by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire in his book Caligrammes, made up of words that are placed in such a way that they visually represent the subject of the poem (see pattern poem).

coined words: Invented words.

concrete poem: A poetic work that calls a reader’s attention to the visual appearance or shape of the letters, words, or lines comprising the poem. 

ekphrastic [ek-FRAS-tic] poem: A poetic work written about a work of art.

epic poem: A long, rhymed, narrative poem, usually about heroic characters and their actions.

epic verse: Text written in a rhythm traditionally used for an epic poem.

epistolary [eh-PIS-toh-lehr-ee] poem: A poetic work written like a letter, with one person addressing another, often including conventions typical of letters, such as a heading, greeting, body, closing, and signature.

form: The structure of a poem, whether standard (like a sonnet) or without a regular pattern.

hyperbole: A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used to convey a particular effect.

imagery: In literature, mental pictures of a feeling, sensation, or idea that are suggested by language; also, actual pictures.

list poem: A poetic work composed of a list of items. 

metaphor: A type of figurative language in which a term for one thing serves as a symbol for another thing. 

onomatopoeia: A word, such as swish, zoom, or whiz, whose name describes a sound.

pattern poem: A poetic work in which the words are artfully placed in the shape of a picture or symbol (see calligram).

plastic poem: Term used by the Japanese Surrealists to describe a poetic work that utilizes photography, in addition to or in place of text, to evoke complex and symbolic meanings.

rhyme: The repetition of the sounds of words in a poem.

rhythm: In poetry, a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

simile: A type of figurative language in which two different things are compared using “like” or “as.”

sonnet: A poem traditionally comprised of 14 lines written in a set rhyme scheme.

Surrealism: A 20th-century artistic and literary movement that emphasized the role of the unconscious mind in creating visual and textual works.

symbolism: The process of using an object or idea to represent or suggest something else.

tableaux: Scenes depicted through posing without talking or moving, usually with costumes.

typographic poem: A poetic work in which the way words and letters look on the page is more important than what the words say.

visual poem: A general term for a poetic work, such as a calligram, concrete poem, pattern poem, or plastic poem, that uses an arrangement of text and/or images to visually convey meaning.