Types of Poems Flashcards
a traditional cornerstone of Japanese poetry with no set rhyme scheme, but a specific shape: three lines composed of five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third line.
Haiku
a short, famous poetic form consisting of five lines that follow the rhyme form AABBA. Usually these are quite funny and tell a story. The first two lines should have eight or nine syllables each, the third and fourth lines should have five or six syllables each, and the final line eight or nine syllables again
Limerick
a type of poetry that’s written in a precise meter, usually iambic pentameter, but without rhyme. This is reminiscent of Shakespearean sonnets and many of his plays, but it reflects a movement that puts rhythm above rhyme.
Blank verse
a type of French poem made up of nineteen lines grouped into six separate stanzas. The first five stanzas have three lines each, and the last stanza has four lines. Each three-line stanza rhymes ABA, and the last one ABAA. They tend to feature a lot of repetition, which lends them a musical quality; usually the very first and third lines become the alternating last lines of each following stanza.
Villanelle
a poetic form of celebration used to honor a person, thing, or idea. They’re often overflowing with intense emotion and powerful imagery.
Ode
is similar to an ode in that it celebrates a person or idea, but in this instance is the poem centers around something that has died or been lost.
Elegy
grand, overarching story written in verse—they’re the novels of the poetry world. This is sometimes called ballad poetry, or narrative poetry. Before stories were written as novels and short stories and then, later, screenplays, all of our classic tales would be written as a narrative poem.
Epic
similar to an epic in that it tells a story, but it’s much shorter and a bit more structured. This poetry form is made up of four-line stanzas (as many as are needed to tell the story) with a rhyme scheme of ABCB.
Ballad
certain letters of each line spell out a word or message. Usually the letters that spell the message will be the first letter of each line, so that you can read the secret word right down the margin; however, you can also use the letters at the end or down the middle of the lines to hide a secret message. These poems are especially popular with children and are sometimes called “name poems.”
Acrostic
sometimes called a shape poem, is a visual poem structure where the shape of the poem resembles its content or message. These are another favorite with children, although they can be used to communicate powerful adult ideas, too.
Concrete
combines elements of both prose writing and poetry into something new. Prose poems don’t have shape and line breaks in the way that traditional poems do, but they make use of poetic devices like meter, internal rhyme, alliteration, metaphor, imagery, and symbolism to create a snapshot of prose that reads and feels like a poem.
Prose poem
a form of poetry that is used to tell a story. The poet combines elements of storytelling—like plot, setting, and characters—with elements of poetry, such as form, meter, rhyme, and poetic devices. Similar to an epic, this poem tells a story. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” exemplify this form.
narrative poem
a 14 line poem, typically (but not exclusively) concerning the topic of love. They contain internal rhymes within their 14 lines; the exact rhyme scheme depends on the style of them.
Sonnet
the type of poetry most favored by contemporary poets; it has no set meter, rhyme scheme, or structure, but allows the poet to feel out the content of the poem as they go.
Free verse
refers to the broad category of poetry that concerns feelings and emotion. This distinguishes it from two other poetic categories: epic and dramatic.
Lyric poetry
