Updated August 13, 2026 · Prose & Poetry Editorial Team Meter in poetry is the organized recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. English verse describes meter through two linked questions: what kind of foot recurs, and how many feet shape the line. An...
Updated August 13, 2026 · Prose & Poetry Editorial TeamA rhyme scheme is the pattern made by the end rhymes of a poem or stanza. We record that pattern with letters: the first rhyme receives A, the next new rhyme receives B, and every later line that returns to an...
Published August 8, 2026 · Updated August 11, 2026 · Prose & Poetry Editorial Team Rhyme gives poetry an audible memory. A sound appears, disappears, and returns after the poem has moved through new words and new ideas. That return can create pleasure, suspense,...
Written and reviewed by the Prose & Poetry Editorial TeamUpdated August 8, 2026 Lesbian poetry carries desire, secrecy, memory, friendship, erotic recognition, anger, tenderness, community, and political self-definition across centuries. Sappho’s surviving...
Confessional poetry became one of the defining currents in mid-century American verse. The label entered literary discussion in 1959, when critic M. L. Rosenthal used the word “confessional” while reviewing Robert Lowell’s Life Studies. The term soon gathered around...
