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 O
Occasional Poetry
Poetry written for a specific occasion such as a wedding, a funeral, an inauguration or a victory. It measures the poet's ability to rise to a public moment.
Octave
An eight line stanza, most famously the opening movement of the Petrarchan sonnet, where it sets out the problem the sestet must answer.
Ode
A formal poem of praise and meditation addressed to a person, thing or idea, from Keats's nightingale to Neruda's socks. The ode dignifies its subject by the quality of its attention.
Onomatopoeia
A word whose sound imitates its meaning, such as hiss, clang or murmur. The poem briefly becomes the thing it describes.
Ottava Rima
An Italian stanza of eight iambic lines rhyming ABABABCC, used by Byron in Don Juan to swing between romance and mockery.
Oxymoron
A compressed contradiction that turns out to be true, such as deafening silence or bittersweet. It holds two opposites in a single grip.
All letters
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