In literature, short, narrative poem usually relating a single, dramatic event. Two forms of the ballad are often distinguished—the folk ballad, dating from about the 12th cent., and the literary ballad, dating from the late 18th cent. MORE
From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature Verse which is unrhymed, and composed of lines which normally contain ten syllables and have the stress on every second syllable, as in the classical iambic pentameter. MORE
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia Poetry without metrical form. At the beginning of the 20th century, many poets believed that the 19th century had accomplished most of what could be done with regular metre, and rejected it. MORE
Imaginative literary form, particularly suitable for describing emotions and thoughts. Poetry is highly ‘compressed’ writing, often using figures of speech to talk about one thing in terms of another. MORE
From The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English The word was invented by Spenser to entitle his poem to celebrate the double betrothal of Katherine and Elizabeth, daughters of the Earl of Worcester. They were married in November 1596, the same year in which the poem was published. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics The most complicated of the verseforms initiated by the troubadours (q.v.), the s. is composed of six stanzas of six lines each, followed by an envoi (q.v.) of three lines, all of which are unrhymed. MORE
A short poem with 14 lines of 10 or 11 syllables each and a regular rhyming pattern according to the scheme: the Italian sonnet consists of an octave and a sestet, whereas the English sonnet consists of three quatrains and ends with a rhyming couplet. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics A French fixed form composed of eight lines and using only two rhymes, disposed in the following scheme: ABaAabAB (a capital letter indicates a repeated line). MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Introduced into France in the 16th c. the v. first had as its only distinguishing features a pastoral subject and use of a refrain. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics A computer is a processor that can manipulate numerical or verbal symbols rapidly. Given a lexicon of available words and a set of rules for permissible combinations of them, it can be programmed to generate verbal strings. It becomes an interesting question, then, whether to call these strings poetry. MORE
From The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics A school of poetry which flourished in England and America between 1912 and 1914 and emphasized the virtues of clarity, compression, and precision. MORE
Modernism is based on a concern with form and the exploration of technique as opposed to content and narrative. In literature, writers experimented with alternatives to orthodox sequential storytelling. MORE
From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century Narrative poetry, broadly defined, is driven by plot and character and privileges story over subjectivity while maintaining the rhythms and compression associated with poetry rather than prose. MORE
From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century As a casually organized revival of metered and rhymed poetry among younger American poets in the 1980s, the New Formalism, or Neo-Formalism, was spearheaded primarily by poets who had come of age during the 1960s and 1970s. MORE
From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century Interpreted broadly, the category of performance poetry might include any poem that is read, sung, recited, acted, or otherwise performed before an audience. MORE
A late 18c and early 19c movement in art, literature and music, characterized by an emphasis on feelings and emotions, often using imagery taken from nature, and creating forms which are relatively free from rules and set orders. MORE
From Contemporary Youth Culture: An International Encyclopedia SLAM is a hybrid of spoken word and performed poetry, sometimes with music, that gives individuals an opportunity to voice their opinions and feelings on any topic; conveys urgency, action, and excitement. MORE
From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature
Poetry which conveys meaning through the physical arrangement of the words on the page as well as through the words themselves. MORE
From Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century