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Literature vocabulary · Poetry

Poem

Meaning in literature, with examples

/ˈpəʊɪm/nounCore term

In literature, poem means: A single piece of writing in lines, often with a regular rhythm or rhyme, that expresses an experience, feeling or idea through carefully chosen language.

In Turkish: şiir, manzume

How it is used

Countable: you write, read, recite, memorize, publish or analyze a poem. Critics speak of a long poem, a love poem or a narrative poem, and quote lines from it. Titles of poems are put in quotation marks in English essays.

Example sentences

  1. Choose one poem from the anthology and analyze its imagery.

  2. My grandmother can still recite the poems she learned at school.

Common collocations

  • write a poem
  • recite a poem
  • love poem
  • narrative poem
  • the poem opens with
  • poetryLiterary writing arranged in lines that uses rhythm, sound, imagery and often rhyme to express feelings and ideas in a concentrated way.
  • stanzaA group of lines in a poem, separated from other groups by a space, that works like a paragraph in prose.
  • verseWriting arranged in lines with a rhythm, as opposed to prose; also a single line of a poem or a group of lines in a song.
  • sonnetA poem of fourteen lines with a fixed rhyme scheme, usually in iambic pentameter in English, often about love or a single strong feeling.

More terms: Poetry

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