Types of Poems — Forms, Structure, and Examples
Poetic forms
The characteristics of a poem, which consist of its line length, number of stanzas, rhyme scheme, and metric pattern, determine its form.
The following list identifies the most common types of poetry:
Ballad: A ballad is a narrative poem traditionally set to music and passed down orally. It is comprised of multiple 4-line stanzas (quatrains) that follow either an ABCB or ABAB rhyme scheme. The first and third lines contain four beats of stressed and unstressed syllables (iambic tetrameter), while lines two and four contain three beats of stressed and unstressed syllables (iambic trimeter).
Blank Verse: Blank verse consists of any number of unrhyming lines that contain five beats of stressed and unstressed syllables (iambic pentameter). Classical playwrights often used blank verse within their dramatic works.
Elegy: In an elegy, the poet or speaker expresses grief due to a loss of some kind. Elegies consist of multiple quatrains written in iambic pentameter with an ABAB rhyme scheme.
Epic: An epic poem is a narrative typically the length of a novel. These poems focus on characters with extraordinary abilities who commit themselves to a journey.
Free Verse: Free verse poems do not follow a specific rhyme scheme or rhythmic pattern. Instead, poets mimic the flow of natural speech.
Haiku: Originally a Japanese form of poetry, haikus traditionally contain three lines with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. The subject matter of these short poems classically revolved around nature.
Limerick: A limerick is a short, humorous, and trivial poem. They consist of a 5-line stanza written in an AABA rhyme scheme. Lines one, two, and five contain three beats of two unstressed syllables and one stressed syllable (anapestic trimeter), while lines three and four contain three beats of two unstressed syllables and one stressed syllable (anapestic dimeter).
Ode: In an ode, the poet or speaker pays tribute to a person, place, object, or idea. Poets usually incorporate a rhyme scheme and rhythm throughout the ode; however, there is no requirement regarding which they use, often creating a unique structure. Odes are one of the oldest forms of poetry, developed in ancient Greece.
Sonnet: The sonnet is a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter and follows one of several rhyme schemes depending upon the type.
English: English or Shakespearean sonnets consist of three quatrains with an alternating rhyme scheme and end with a rhyming couplet (two lines).
Italian: Italian or Petrarchan sonnets consist of an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines) and typically follow the following rhyme scheme: ABBAABBA CDCDCD or CDECDE.
Villanelle: A villanelle is a 19-line poem consisting of five tercets (3 lines) and ending with a quatrain. Each tercet follows an ABA rhyme scheme, with the final quatrain following an ABAA pattern. The first and third lines alternate as the last line of each tercet. The first and third lines also make up the final two lines in the concluding quatrain.
Structure of a poem
Poets use the following characteristics when structuring a poem:
Stanza: The stanza is the building block of a poem. Each stanza consists of a specific number of lines that contextually connect; therefore, they act much like a paragraph does in prose.
Meter: Meter identifies the specific rhythmic pattern in a line of poetry and consists of the number of syllables and how the poet emphasizes those syllables. The lines are then broken down into "feet," each of which has a certain number of syllables and a specific pattern:
Number of Feet
One: monometer
Two: dimeter
Three: trimeter
Four: tetrameter
Five: pentameter
Six: hexameter
Seven: heptameter
Eight: octameter
Syllable Emphasis
Trochee: DUM da
Iamb: da DUM
Spondee: DUM DUM
Dactyl: DUM da da
Anapest: da da DUM
Rhyme Scheme: Poets use different rhyming patterns depending upon the poetic form. The types of rhymes and their placement include the following:
Placement
End: Rhyming words at the end of a line
Internal: Rhyming words within a line of poetry or between lines
Type
Perfect/True: The stressed vowel sounds and any other sounds after are identical (bake and cake)
Slant/Imperfect: Words that have similar but not identical sounds (work and fork)
Identical: Repetition of the same word
Sight: Words that look like they rhyme, but they do not (alone and gone)
Poetic form examples
The following poems utilize the most common poetic forms.
Ballad
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (lines 1-7)
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set. . .
Blank Verse
“Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey…” by William Wordsworth (lines 1-7)
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! And again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. – Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs …
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose . . .
Elegy
“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” by Walt Whitman (lines 1-6)
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.
Epic
Paradise Lost by John Milton (lines 1-5)
Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, . . .
Free Verse
“April” by Ezra Pound
Three spirits came to me
And drew me apart
To where the olive boughs
Lay stripped upon the ground:
Pale carnage beneath bright mist.
Haiku
“In the Twilight Rain” by Matsuo Basho
In the twilight rain
these brilliant-hued hibiscus -
A lovely sunset
Limerick
“There Was an Old Lady” by Edward Lear
There was a Young Lady whose chin
Resembled the point of a pin:
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
Narrative
The Iliad by Homer (excerpt)
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.
Begin with the clash between Agamemnon-
The Greek warlord - and godlike Achilles.
Ode
“Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats (lines 1-10)
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
Sonnet
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Villanelle
“Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas (excerpt)
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.