forms of poetry

• Forms of Poetry


  • Acrostic
  • Haiku
  • Tanka
  • Ballad
  • Blank Verse
  • Cinquain
  • Elegy
  • Epic
  • Epistle
  • Limerick
  • Ode
  • Sonnet
• Acrostic


  • Any poem in which the first letter of each line forms a word or words
  • The words formed are often names—the poet's or the dedicatee's
  • Longer acrostic poems can create entire sentences from the first letter of each line
  • Acrostic poems are free to rhyme or not rhyme and can be metered or free verse
• Acrostic


  • The conventional acrostic poem uses the first letter or word of each line to spell out a related word or phrase
  • The double acrostic poem embeds a message both at the beginning and at the end of each line
  • The abecedarian poem is a type of acrostic in which the first letter of each line runs in alphabetical order
• Acrostic Poem (Abecedarian)


  • Appreciate beauty
  • Be present daily
  • Color your world with kindness
  • Decide to be positive
  • Encourage others to grow
  • Focus on today
  • Give smiles freely
  • Help those in need
  • Imagine great things
  • Jostle yourself to live life fully
  • Keep on making everyday count
  • Let the past remain there
  • Make everyday new
  • Notice nice little things
  • Open your mind to new opportunities
  • Ponder possibilities
  • Quickly forgive others
  • Valiantly seize the day
  • Walk in peace with purpose
  • X out all negativity
  • Yoke yourself to Christ
  • Zoom in on peace and happiness
• Haiku


  • Three-line stanza with a 5/7/5 syllable count
  • Focuses on the beauty and simplicity found in nature
  • The 5/7/5 formula has often been broken
• Haiku ex;


  • Refreshing and cool
  • Love is a sweet summer rain
  • That washes the world
• Haiku ex;


  • Sick on a journey –
  • Over parched field
  • Dreams wander on
• Tanka


  • A thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line
  • A form of waka, Japanese song or verse
  • Tanka translates as "short song," and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form
• Cinquain


  • A five-line poem inspired by the Japanese haiku
  • There are many different variations of cinquain including American cinquains, didactic cinquains, reverse cinquains, butterfly cinquains and crown cinquains
  • Cinquains tend to follow straightforward rhyme schemes such as ABAAB, ABABB, or AABBA
• Cinquain ex;


  • Listen...
  • With faint dry sound,
  • Like steps of passing ghosts,
  • The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
  • And fall
• Ballad


  • A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and possibly a refrain
  • Deals with folklore or popular legends and is suitable for singing
  • Ballads are constructed of alternating lines of four and three beats (feet)
  • The lines are usually iambic but need not be
• Ballad


  • Oh the ocean waves may roll,
  • And the stormy winds may blow,
  • While we poor sailors go skipping aloft
  • And the land lubbers lay down below, below, below
  • And the land lubbers lay down below
• Blank Verse


  • Poetry that has no set stanzas or line length
  • Unrhymed lines that follow a strict rhythm, usually iambic pentameter
• Blank Verse


  • Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
  • Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
  • Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
  • With the loss of Eden, till one greater Man
  • Restore us and regain the blissful seat
• Elegy


  • A poem of lament and praise and consolation, usually formal and about the death of a person
  • Elegies can also mourn the passing of events or passions
  • Elegies are seldom without form, though the form varies from poem to poem
• Epic


  • A long narrative poem that usually unfolds a history or mythology of a nation or race
  • The epic details the adventures and deeds of a hero and, in so doing, tells the story of a nation
• Epistle


  • Poems written in the form of a letter
  • Epistle can adhere to form or can be free of meter and rhyme
  • The only requirement is that it is in letter form
• Epistle


  • Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
• Limerick


  • A short, humorous form known for off-color statements
  • The limerick is a five-line poem with meter and rhyme
  • The first, second, and fifth lines are all iambic tetrameter with end rhyme
  • The third and fourth lines are iambic trimeter and rhyme with each other but not the other three lines
• Limerick


  • There was a small boy of Quebec
  • Who was buried in snow to his neck
  • When they said, "Are you friz?"
  • He replied, " Yes, I is —
  • But we don't call this cold in Quebec"
• Ode


  • Often written in praise of gods, a person, an object, or an event
  • Odes tend to be longer in form and, generally, serious in nature
  • The patterns of the stanzas within an ode follow no prescribed pattern
• Ode


  • Deathless Aphrodite, throned in flowers,
  • Daughter of Zeus, O terrible enchantress,
  • With this sorrow, with this anguish, break my spirit
  • Lady, not longer!
  • Hear anew the voice! O hear and listen!
  • Come, as in that island dawn thou camest,
  • Billowing in thy yoked car to Sappho
  • Forth from thy Father's
  • Golden house in pity!
• Sonnet


  • A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme
  • Originated in Italy and brought to England in the 16th century
  • The word "sonnet" stems from the Italian word "sonetto," which itself derives from "suono" (meaning "a sound")
• Types of Sonnet


  • Petrachan
  • Shakespearean
  • Spenserian
• Petrarchan Sonnet


  • Named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch
  • They have 14 lines, divided into 2 subgroups: an octave and a sestet
  • The octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA
  • The sestet follows one of two rhyme schemes—either CDE CDE scheme (more common) or CDC CDC
• Shakespearean Sonnet


  • A variation on the Italian sonnet tradition
  • They have 14 lines divided into 4 subgroups: 3 quatrains and a couplet
  • Each line is typically ten syllables, phrased in iambic pentameter
  • It employs the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
• Spenserian Sonnet


  • Created by Edmund Spenser
  • With a more challenging rhyme scheme: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE
  • Similarities in the features of both Shakespearean and Spenserian sonnets
• Volta


  • A rhetorical device used to create a dramatic shift in tone in a poem
  • Sometimes referred to as a 'turn'
  • You can spot a volta when you look for words like 'but', 'and', 'yet''O' or 'never'