The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within

hypermetric A line with an extra syllable. Technically, a hendecasyllabic line of pentameter is hypermetric.

hypermonosyllabic Optional synaeresis q.v. A word that can be sounded with either one or two syllables, i.e. ‘réal’, ‘flówer’ and ‘líar’ (can be said as ‘reel’, ‘flour’ and ‘lyre’).

ictus The unit of stress within a foot. The second element in an iamb, the first in a trochee, the third in an anapaest etc.

idyll A short pictorial poem, chiefly lyrical or pastoral: ‘idyllic’ is often now used to mean ‘ideal’ and ‘perfect’.

internal rhyme Oh for heaven’s sake it’s obvious, isn’t it? inversion Reversal of usual sentence structure. ‘Happy am I’, etc.

jeu d’esprit Merry word play or similar gamesome larkiness.

kenning A Norse and Anglo-Saxon metaphorical or metonymic yoking of words, such as ‘whale road’ for sea.

kigo The ‘season word’ placed in a

haiku to tell the reader in which time of year the verse is set.

tomato A red savoury fruit sometimes known as a love-apple which has a place in many sauces and salads but none whatever in a glossary of poetical terms. Especially when it has not been inserted in the correct alphabetical order.

kireji The caesura that should occur in the first or second line of a haiku.

kyrielle A refrain verse form descended from an element of Catholic mass.

lay Narrative poem or short song.

leonine rhyme Internal rhyming in verse of long measure where the word preceding the caesura rhymes with the end-word.

limerick You know perfectly well.

lineation The arrangement of lines in a poem, how they break and how their length is ordered. Prescribed in metrical verse but at the poet’s discretion in free verse. See stichic.

lipograms Verse or writing where for some reason best known to himself the poet has decided to omit one letter throughout. As I have unquestionably done with the letter q here. Damn.

litotes Understatement for comic effect, often cast in negatives to indicate a positive: ‘a not unsatisfactory state of affairs’ for ‘a splendid outcome’ etc. Same as meiosis

q.v.

loop See feedback.

luc bat A Vietnamese form described in Chapter Three.

lyric ode An open form of rhymed, stanzaic verse, usually in iambic pentameter, descended as much from the sonnet as from the Horatian Ode. Used to describe the odes of Keats and other romantic poets.

majuscule Capital letters. Upper Case.

masculine ending A stressed word end.

masculine rhyme The rhyming of same.

meiosis Cell division to a biologist, understatement to a grammarian. Often comical. See litotes.

melon Sweet pleasant fruit. What possible reason can it have for being in this glossary? Andrew Marvell stumbled on them as he passed, but otherwise they have no business being here. Please ignore this entry.

melopoeia Word coined by Ezra Pound to describe the overall soundscape of a poem.

mesostich Halfway point of a line–used to apply to acrostics that descend therefrom.

metaphor Figurative use of a word or phrase to describe something to which it is not literally applicable. ‘The ship ploughed through the waves’, ‘Juliet is the sun’, ‘there’s April in her eyes’ etc.

metonym A metaphoric trope in which a word or phrase is used to stand in for what it represents: ‘the bottle’ is a metonym for ‘drinking’, ‘the stage’ for ‘theatrical life’, ‘Whitehall’ for the civil service etc. Kennings q.v. and synecdoche are often metonymic.

minuscule non capital letters. lower case.

molossus A ternary foot of three long, or stressed, units. ‘Short sharp shock’, etc.

monody Ode or dirge sung or declaimed by a single individual.

monometer A metric line of one foot.

monosyllable Let me say this in words of one sill ab uhl.

mora From Lat. for ‘delay’. In syllable-timed languages the duration of one short syllable. Two morae make a long syllable. Equivalent of crotchet and minim in music.

Muses Nine multi-domiciled girls (the daughters of Mnemosyne

or Memory) who shuttle between Pieria, Parnassus and Mount Helicon and give poets and others inspiration. Erato helps us with our Love Poetry, Calliope with our epics, Melpomene with our tragedies, Polyhymnia is good for sacred verse and Thalia for comedy. For non-poets Clio looks after History and Renault motor cars, Euterpe is in charge of music, Terpsichore is the dance mistress and Urania teaches astronomy.

near rhyme Echoic devices such as assonance, consonance and homeoteleuton q.q.v