Poetry forms

Ballads

• Ballads are poems that tell a story. They are considered to be a form of narrative poetry. They are often used in songs and have a very musical quality to them.

• The basic form for ballads is iambic heptameter (seven sets of unstressed, stressed syllables per line), in sets of four, with the second and fourth lines rhyming.

Sonnets

• A lyric poem of fourteen lines, following one or another of several set rhyme-schemes.

• Topic is usually love.

Italian sonnet

• The first, the Italian form, is distinguished by its bipartite division into the octave and the sestet: the octave consisting of a first division of eight lines rhyming

• abbaabba and the sestet, or second division, consisting of six lines rhyming

• cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce.

Shakespearean sonnet

• The English (Shakespearean) sonnet, on the other hand, is so different from the Italian (though it grew from that form) as to permit of a separate classification. Instead of the octave and sestet divisions, this sonnet characteristically embodies four divisions: three quatrains (each with a rhyme-scheme of its own) and a rhymed couplet. Thus the typical rhyme-scheme for the English sonnet is

• abab cdcd efef gg.

Spenserian sonnet

• The Spenserian sonnet combines the Italian and the Shakespearean forms, using three quatrains and a couplet but employing linking rhymes between the quatrains, thus

• abab bcbc cdcd ee.

Villanelle

• A short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number, followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes

Sestina

• The lines are grouped into six sestets and a concluding tercet. Thus a Sestina has 39 lines.

• The six words that end each of the lines of the first stanza are repeated in a different order at the end of lines in each of the subsequent five stanzas.

• The repeated words are unrhymed

Sestina continued

• The first line of each sestet after the first ends with the same word as the one that ended the last line of the sestet before it.

• In the closing tercet, each of the six words are used, with one in the middle of each line and one at the end.

Acrostic

• Acrostic Poetry that certain letters, usually the first in each line form a word or message when read in a sequence.

Blank verse

• Blank verse -A poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter and is often unobtrusive. The iambic pentameter form often resembles the rhythms of speech.

Cinquain

• Poetry with five lines. Line 1 has one word (the title). Line 2 has two words that describe the title. Line 3 has three words that tell the action. Line 4 has four words that express the feeling, and line 5 has one word which recalls the title.

Elegy

• A sad and thoughtful poem about the death of an individual.

Free verse

• Poetry written in either rhyme or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed metrical pattern.

Haiku

• A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five more, usually containing a season word.

Limerick

• A short sometimes vulgar, humorous poem consisting of five anapestic lines. Lines 1, 2, and 5 have seven to ten syllables, rhyme and have the same verbal rhythm. The 3rd and 4th lines have five to seven syllables, rhyme and have the same rhythm.

Pastoral

• A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, romanticized way.

Rondeau

• A lyrical poem of French origin having 10 or 13 lines with two rhymes and with the opening phrase repeated twice as the refrain.