Elements of poem

SPEAKER is the imaginary voice assumed by the writer of a poem. In many poems the speaker is not identified by name. When reading a poem, remember that the speaker and the poet are not the same person, not more than an actor is the playwright. The speaker within the poem may be a person, an animal, a thing, or an abstraction.
A STANZA is a formal division of lines in a poem, considered as a unit. Often the stanzas in a poem are separated by spaces. Stanzas are sometimes named according to the number of lines found in them.

a. 2 lines ---- couplet

b. 3 lines ---- tercet

c. 4 lines ---- quatrain

d. 5 lines ---- cinquain

e. 6 lines ---- sestet

f. 7 lines ---- heptastich

g. 8 lines ---- octave

Rhythm: This is the music made by the statements of the poem, which includes the syllables in the lines. The best method of understanding this is to read the poem aloud. Listen for the sounds and the music made when we hear the lines spoken aloud. How do the words resonate with each other? How do the words flow when they are linked with one another? Does sound right? Do the words fit with each other? These are the things you consider while studying the rhythm of the poem. METER of a poem is its rhythmical pattern. This pattern is determined by the number and types of stresses, or beats, in each line.
Rhyme: A poem may or may not have a rhyme. When you write poetry that has rhyme, it means that the last words of the lines match with each other in some form. Either the last words of the first and second lines would rhyme with each other or the first and the third, second and the fourth and so on. Rhyme is basically similar sounding words like ‘cat’ and ‘hat’, ‘close’ and ‘shows’, ‘house’ and ‘mouse’ etc. Free verse poetry, though, does not follow this system. Or RHYME is the repetition of sounds at the ends of