Glossary Q - Z

The following is an A to Z of poetic and related terms. I hope you will also find this beneficial when choosing the style of poem or letter you want written.

A - H | I - P | Q - Z

Q

Quatrain - A stanza of four lines in a poem.

R

Rhyme - The presence of similar or identical sounds at the end of two or more words. Furthermore rhyme is normally divided into masculine and feminine rhymes depending upon syllable constructions.

S

Sestina - a poem consisting of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy altogether making thirty-nine lines written in iambic pentameter. Invented in the late 12th Century in Southern France.

T

Tanka - a Japanese poem consisting of exactly 31 syllables within five lines. The first and third lines composed of five syllables and the rest of seven.

U

Ubi Sunt - a Latin term which translates as ‘where are they?’. It comes from the medieval practice of posing questions that reveal the vicissitude of life and in particular, death.

V

Villanelle - Italian in origin. It consists of five three-line stanzas or tercets followed by a final quatrain possessing two rhymes and repeating the first and third lines of the first stanza alternately in the succeeding stanzas. It then combines those two refrain lines into the final couplet in the quatrain. Altogether this repetative structure consists of 19 lines.