Term	Pronunciation	Definition
verse		A line of writing arranged in a metrical pattern, i.e., a line of poet.y. Also, a piece of poet.y or a particular form of poet.y such as free verse, blank verse, etc., or the art or work of a poet. NOTE: The popular use of the word verse for a stanza or associated group of metrical lines is not in accordance with the best usage. A stanza is a group of verses. (See also stich)
verset	VUHR-sut, vuhr-SET	A short verse, especially one from a sacred book.
versicle		A little verse; also, a short passage said or sung by a leader in public worship and followed by a response from the people. (Compare ditty)
versifier		A writer of verse, often applied to a writer of light or inferior verse. (See bard, metrist, poet, sonneteer, wordsmith) (See also doggerel, poetaster, poeticule, rhymester)
villanelle	vil-uh-NELL	A poem in a fixed form, consisting of five three-line stanzas followed by a quatrain and having only two rhymes. In the stanzas following the first, the first and third lines of the first stanza are repeated alternately as refrains. They are the final two lines of the concluding quatrain. NOTE: The villanelle gives a pleasant impression of simple spontaneity, as in Edwin Arlington Robinson's The House on the Hill. (Compare rondeau, rondel, rondelet)
virelay	VIHR-uh-lay	An ancient French verse form consisting of stanzas of indeterminate length and number, with alternating long and short lines and an interlaced rhyme scheme, as abab bcbc cdcd dada. NOTE: Virelay is the Anglicized spelling of the French virelai, a variation of the lai.
visual poetry		Poetry arranged in such a manner that its visual appearance has an elevated significance of its own, thus achieving in an equivalence (or even more) between the sight and sound of the poem. NOTE: While the term, visual poetry, is generally applied to the definition above, most poets consciously strive to influence the visual impact of their poems by their selection of line lengths, stanzaic structures, indentations, white space, punctuation, capitalization, and type styles. In traditional verse, though, these aspects are subordinate to the written text. (See also concrete poetry, pattern poetry, sight rhyme)
volta	VAWL-tuh	The place at which a distinct turn of thought occurs. The term is most commonly used for the characteristic transition point in a sonnet, as between the octave and sestet of a petrarchan sonnet.

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