"Parts of a poem" is searched by students who have been handed a poem and a list of words (stanza, meter, speaker, theme) and have to match the two, and by children in grade 4 and 5 meeting the words for the first time. The parts are not hard; there are just a lot of them, and some (tone and mood, verse and stanza, rhythm and meter) sit close together. This page defines each part with an example, names the forms, labels a real stanza part by part, and gives the five-step method for taking any poem apart. The printable has the parts, the forms and a labelling exercise on two pages.
Download the parts of a poem sheet (PDF) (every element with a definition and an example, the stanza names, the five feet, the forms with their rules, the labelled Dickinson stanza, the five-step method and twelve practice questions with answers; two pages, free).
The structural parts
| Part | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Title | the name of the poem; often the first clue to the subject or the irony | "Ozymandias", "The Road Not Taken" |
| Line | a single row of words; poetry's unit, broken where the poet chooses rather than where the page ends | "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is one line |
| Stanza | a group of lines set apart by a blank space; the poem's paragraph | a four-line stanza is a quatrain |
| Couplet | two lines, usually rhyming | the last two lines of a Shakespearean sonnet |
| Tercet | three lines | the stanzas of a villanelle; Dante's terza rima |
| Quatrain | four lines | most ballads, hymns and nursery rhymes |
| Quintain (cinquain) | five lines | the limerick |
| Sestet | six lines | the second part of a Petrarchan sonnet |
| Septet | seven lines | rhyme royal |
| Octave | eight lines | the first part of a Petrarchan sonnet |
| Verse | a line, a stanza (as in a song), or poetry itself, depending on the sentence | "the second verse of the song"; "written in verse" |
| Refrain | a line or lines repeated at intervals, usually at the end of each stanza | "Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore'" |
| Enjambment | a sentence running over the end of a line without a pause | "I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high" |
| End-stopped line | a line that ends with a pause, usually punctuation | "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day," |
| Caesura | a pause within a line, usually at punctuation | "To be, or not to be: that is the question" (two caesuras) |
The sound parts
| Part | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Rhyme | matching end sounds from the last stressed vowel | night / light; ocean / motion |
| Rhyme scheme | the pattern of end rhymes, written in letters | AABB, ABAB, ABCB; a Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG |
| Rhythm | the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables as the poem is read | every poem has rhythm; only some have meter |
| Meter | a regular, countable rhythm, measured in feet | iambic pentameter |
| Foot | the unit of meter: one stressed syllable with its unstressed partners | iamb (da-DUM), trochee (DUM-da), anapaest (da-da-DUM), dactyl (DUM-da-da), spondee (DUM-DUM) |
| Line length | the number of feet: monometer 1, dimeter 2, trimeter 3, tetrameter 4, pentameter 5, hexameter 6 | "Tyger, tyger, burning bright" is trochaic tetrameter |
| Alliteration | repeated first consonant sounds | "the furrow followed free" |
| Assonance | repeated vowel sounds inside words | "the rain in Spain" |
| Onomatopoeia | words that sound like what they mean | buzz, clang, whisper |
| Repetition | a word or phrase repeated for emphasis | "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" |
The meaning parts
| Part | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Speaker | the voice of the poem, not necessarily the poet | the speaker of "My Last Duchess" is a murderous duke, not Browning |
| Subject | what the poem is literally about | a daffodil field, a dead father, a city at dawn |
| Imagery | language for the senses | "the gravel crunched"; "a velvet darkness" |
| Figurative language | simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, symbolism and the rest | "Juliet is the sun" |
| Tone | the speaker's attitude, heard in the word choice | bitter, tender, mocking, reverent |
| Mood | the feeling created in the reader | eerie, calm, mournful |
| Theme | the idea the poem explores and what it says about it | not "death" but "art outlasts the powerful" (Ozymandias) |
| Turn (volta) | the point where the poem's argument or feeling shifts | line 9 of a Petrarchan sonnet, the couplet of a Shakespearean one |
The forms
| Form | Rules | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Sonnet | 14 lines of iambic pentameter; Shakespearean ABAB CDCD EFEF GG with a closing couplet, Petrarchan an octave and a sestet | Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee" |
| Haiku | three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables, usually about nature and a moment | Bashล's frog and the old pond |
| Limerick | five lines, AABBA, bouncy anapaests, lines 3 and 4 shorter, comic | "There was an old man with a beard" (Lear) |
| Ballad | a story in quatrains, usually ABCB, often with a refrain, made to be sung | "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" |
| Ode | a formal poem of praise or celebration, often in long stanzas | Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" |
| Elegy | a poem of mourning | Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" |
| Free verse | no fixed meter or rhyme scheme; the line breaks do the work | Whitman, most modern poetry |
| Blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter | Shakespeare's plays, Milton's Paradise Lost |
| Acrostic | the first letters of the lines spell a word | the usual first poem a child writes |
| Villanelle | 19 lines, five tercets and a quatrain, two refrains | Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night" |
| Narrative poem | tells a story | "The Highwayman", epics such as the Odyssey |
| Lyric poem | expresses a feeling or thought, usually short, in a single voice | most poems in a school anthology |
| Concrete (shape) poem | the words make a picture of the subject | a poem about rain shaped like falling drops |
A labelled example
Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers" (1861, public domain), first stanza:
"Hope" is the thing with feathers โ
That perches in the soul โ
And sings the tune without the words โ
And never stops โ at all โ
| Part | In this stanza |
|---|---|
| Stanza | a quatrain (four lines); the poem has three |
| Rhyme scheme | ABCB: soul / all is a slant rhyme (Dickinson's habit), feathers and words do not rhyme |
| Meter | roughly alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter (the ballad or hymn metre: da-DUM ร 4, then ร 3) |
| Figurative language | an extended metaphor: hope is a bird that lives in the soul |
| Imagery | feathers, perching, singing |
| Speaker | an unnamed voice reflecting, not Dickinson in person |
| Tone | tender, certain |
| Mood | quiet comfort |
| Caesura and punctuation | the dashes make pauses mid-line ("And never stops โ at all โ"), a Dickinson signature |
| Theme | hope is natural, constant and asks nothing in return |
The five-step method for any poem
- Read it twice, once silently, once aloud; the sound is half the meaning.
- Say what happens: the subject, the speaker, the situation, in two sentences.
- Map the structure: stanzas, line lengths, rhyme scheme, meter if there is one, where the turn is.
- Find three devices that do real work (an image, a metaphor, a sound pattern, the enjambment) and say what each does.
- State the theme as a sentence with a verb, then show how steps 3 and 4 produce it.
An answer that names ten parts and explains none scores below one that names three and explains each.
Where it sits in school
Stanza, line, rhyme and rhythm are grade 4 and 5 in the United States (Common Core RL.4.5 asks children to explain "verse, rhythm, meter" and the structural elements of poems), Year 3 to 6 in England, Year 4 to 6 in Australia and CBSE Class 4 to 6; meter, the feet, enjambment, caesura, tone and the forms are grade 7 to 10, Key Stage 3 and GCSE English Literature (the anthology poems), Year 8 to 10, and CBSE Class 8 to 10; scansion in full is A level, IB and AP Literature.
Practice: twelve questions
- How many lines in a quatrain, a couplet, a sestet and an octave?
- What is the rhyme scheme of a limerick?
- Name the foot: "da-DUM". Name the foot: "DUM-da-da".
- How many feet in a pentameter line? What is iambic pentameter?
- What is the difference between tone and mood?
- What is enjambment? Give the opposite term.
- What is the pause in the middle of a line called?
- Name three forms of poetry and one rule of each.
- Who is the speaker of a poem?
- How many syllables in each line of a haiku?
- In the Dickinson stanza, which two words rhyme, and what kind of rhyme is it?
- Write the theme of a poem about a soldier's letter home as a full sentence.
Answers: 1) 4, 2, 6, 8. 2) AABBA. 3) Iamb; dactyl. 4) Five; five iambs in a line. 5) Tone is the speaker's attitude; mood is the reader's feeling. 6) A sentence running past the line end without a pause; end-stopped. 7) Caesura. 8) Sonnet, 14 lines; haiku, 5-7-5 syllables; limerick, AABBA (any three). 9) The voice in the poem, which may not be the poet. 10) 5, 7, 5. 11) Soul and all; slant rhyme. 12) For example: "Ordinary words carry more love than grand ones when the writer may not return."
Download the parts of a poem sheet (PDF)
Where to get help
A 1-on-1 online English class for grades 4 to 12, Key Stage 2 and 3, GCSE and A level English Literature, the Australian years and CBSE: poems read aloud and taken apart on the shared screen with the five-step method, the anthology poems for the exam, and the analysis paragraphs marked to the rubric. The recording and notes after every class, the same tutor every week, US$10 to $13 an hour. The English literature page has the courses; the free 30-minute first class is a real lesson, usually on the homework the student brings.
Questions parents ask
1What are the parts of a poem?
2What is a stanza?
3What is meter in a poem?
4What is the difference between tone, mood and theme?
5What is enjambment?
See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online โ
Shobha
Founder and lead tutor, Science with Shobha
Teaching maths, science and English to children online since 2018. 500+ students, 20+ tutors, families in nine countries.