Poet's Glossary
Every craft has its vocabulary, and poetry's is one of the most beautiful. This glossary explains the forms, meters, rhymes and devices poets reach for, in plain and warm language. Whether you are decoding a sonnet or naming a technique you already use by instinct, start with a letter below.
Terms starting with M
Masculine Rhyme
A rhyme on a final stressed syllable, as in delight and tonight. It closes a line firmly, like a latch clicking shut.
Metaphor
A direct assertion that one thing is another, with no like or as to soften it. Grief is a locked room; the metaphor hands the reader the key.
Meter
The organised pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse, measured in feet. Meter is the poem's pulse, felt even before the meaning arrives.
Metonymy
Referring to something by the name of a thing closely associated with it, as when the crown means the monarchy or the pen means writing.
Monostich
A poem of a single line. Its entire success rests on one unbroken breath of language.
Mood
The emotional atmosphere a poem creates in its reader, built from imagery, sound and rhythm. Mood is what remains after the words are forgotten.
Motif
An image, phrase or idea that recurs through a poem or collection, gathering meaning with each return.
Muse
The classical personification of poetic inspiration, one of nine Greek goddesses of the arts. Poets still invoke the muse, half in jest, wholly in hope.
All letters
Enter the October poetry contest