Types Of Poems

Question 1

Haiku

Answer 1

Originally a japanese form, a three-lined poem of 17 syllables often capturing a tiny moment in time

Question 2

Limerick

Answer 2

A five-lined poem, which usually tells the story of a character from a particular place, and has a distinctive rhythm and a aabba rhyme scheme

Question 3

Ballad

Answer 3

A narritive poem, often written in quatrains with a tight rhyme scheme and a memorable rhyme, which usually tells a dramatic story

Question 4

Sonnet

Answer 4

A 14 lined poem in iambic pentameter, usually following either a Shakespearean or Petrarchan form

Question 5

Ode

Answer 5

A poem that addresses an object, event or element of landscape or a person, sometimes in a elevated style; modern versions of the form can be witty or even irreverent (showing a lack of respect for people or things that are usually taken seriously)

Question 6

Sestina

Answer 6

A 39-lined poem with 6 stanzas and a final three-lined enovi (summary thats explanotory/commentory), in which the six words in each stanza are repeated in a set pattern but in a changing order

Question 7

Villanelle

Answer 7

A 19-line poem with an aba rhyme scheme, and 5 three-lined and 1 four-lined stanzas, in which lines from the first stanza are picked up and repeated in the rest of the poem

Question 8

Ghazal

Answer 8

A popular verse form in Urdu, which is increasingly used in English, consisting of at least 5 couplets; the first couplet has an aa structure with subsequent couplets ba, ca, da, etc. The final couplet traditionally includes a reference to the poet’s real or literay name

Question 9

Elegy

Answer 9

A poem, written as a lament in memory of a person, place or even a way of life, that has a melancholy tone, but does not follow any set metrical pattern

Question 10

Free verse

Answer 10

Poetry that does not use traditional rhyme schemes or metrical arrangments

Question 11

Epigram

Answer 11

A short witty saying usually about an event or a person and written in very compressed language

Question 12

Blank verse

Answer 12

An unrhymed poem written in iambic pentameter, said to mirror the rhythms of everyday speech

Question 13

Narrative poem

Answer 13

A poem that tells a story or describes a series of events

Question 14

Epic

Answer 14

A lengthy narrative poem that is heroic and written in an elevated style

Question 15

Heroic couplets

Answer 15

Rhyming pairs of lines usually in iambic pentameter with ten alterning stressed syllables and a rhyme scheme progressing aa bb cc and so on; the strong rhyme scheme and very regular beat made it a popular choice for satirical or epigrammatic poetry in the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries