Poetic Forms

Note: all poems used in this article were written by myself (Brian Buckley) unless otherwise noted.

Introduction

Welcome! What follows is a tutorial on writing the various forms of poetry. Although poetry need not (and frequently does not) follow any set "form," the forms do exist for those who wish to try them. This article is intended to serve as more of a reference guide to poetry than a start-to-finish tutorial, and the following table of contents is provided with that in mind.

One final note. There are some terms in this guide which, properly speaking, are not exactly "forms," and certainly there are many legitimate poetic forms which do not appear here. I have been somewhat arbitrary in my selection of which terms to include. My goal has been to provide information on a wide spectrum of different types of poetry. If you find any mistakes or significant omissions in the information below, however, please let me know! Accuracy is very important to me!

Acrostic poems are very simple; the poet thinks of a word, name, or phrase, and writes it vertically down the page. These letters then become the first letter of each line of the poem. Acrostic poems do not have to rhyme or follow any other requirements, so they are fairly easy to write.

Notice how the word "fountain" is formed in the following acrostic poem:

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(Not to be confused with ballade.)

"Ballad" is a rather vague term, but in general it refers to poems which tell a story, have a refrain (repeated verses), and are meant to be sung out loud. They are generally folk tales. Ballads vary greatly in length, from a handful of short stanzas to hundreds of lines. The sample below is from the ballad "Lord Randal" (author unknown).

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(Not to be confused with ballad.)

The ballade originated in France. In the strictest sense, it is a poem of three eight-line stanzas followed by a fourth stanza with four lines. The fourth stanza (called an "envoy" in this case) is usually dedicated to some prince or patron. The first three stanzas all follow the same rhyme scheme (ababcbcb is a common one) and the fourth stanza also has a rhyme scheme tying it to the rest of the poem, bcbc for example. In a ballade, the a, b, or c rhyme from one stanza carries over to all the other stanzas - in other words, the stanzas are linked in rhyme. Finally, all four stanzas have the same ending line. Not all ballades follow this form exactly; some have seven-line stanzas, others have ten, and the rhyme scheme varies from one ballade to another.

The ballade below was written by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (creator of the clerihew). It is entitled "The Ballade of Liquid Refreshment," and it is a departure from the frequently serious subject matter of ballades.

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As you might guess, the bref double is a French form. It is similar to the sonnet, but it need not be written in iambic pentameter. The bref double contains three quatrains (four-line stanzas) followed by a final couplet. Its rhyme scheme is axbc xaxc axab ab (where the x's represent lines which do not rhyme with anything else, even the other x's).

I imagine the subject matter of a bref double is normally more serious than it is in the one below, but it provides an ample demonstration of the form's structure nonetheless.

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At its most basic level, "cinquain" simply means a stanza (or poem) with five lines. However, the word also refers to either of two more specific types of five-line poems. The first type is usually centered to give it a diamond shape and has the following format:

The second and more traditional type is simpler and requires only that the pattern of syllables per line in the poem is 2, 4, 6, 8, 2. (In other words, the first line has two syllables, the second has four, etc.)

The following example demonstrates the first specific type of cinquain:

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Clerihews are short, fun little poems that are easy to write. Their name comes from Edmund Clerihew Bentley, who pioneered the form in his teenage years. Clerihews are four lines long and have an aabb rhyme scheme. They are about a specific person, and the second line must rhyme with the person's name. Clerihews are meant to be funny, even silly. There are no restrictions concerning rhythm or number of syllables.

This example is about Frodo Baggins, a character from The Lord of the Rings. (As a reminder, fan fiction of any kind is prohibited on Elfwood.)

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The diamante is a poem form similar the the cinquain. It consists of seven lines, as shown below:

There is also another, simpler type of diamante which contains only one subject. In this form, the first and seventh lines contain words which are two ways of saying the same thing. The example below demonstrates the former, more complex type.

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An eclogue is a poem about rural life, generally a conversation between shepherds, in which country life is usually portrayed in an idealistic way. Eclogues are also known as bucolics, idyls, or pastorals.

The following is the beginning of "Eclogue I" by Virgil. In the complete poem, the conversation continues to switch back and forth between the two men.

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Epics are very long narrative poems which typically feature heroic characters, noble deeds, fantastic battles or events, and a high style of writing (epics take themselves very seriously). The excerpt below is taken from a translation of Beowulf, an epic about a hero of the same name. The name of Beowulf's author is a mystery which will probably never be solved.

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An epigram is a very short poem, usually two or four lines long, with a simple rhyme scheme. The goal of an epigram is to encapulate a brief bit of wit or wisdom in poetic form. The epigram below, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge about a volunteer singer, is a case in point.

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An ethere has ten lines and no pattern of rhythm or rhyme. Each line contains the same number of syllables as its line number. There is also a reverse ethere, which is the opposite (first line contains ten syllables, second has nine, etc.) and also a double ethere, which usually consists of an ethere followed by a reverse ethere. The example below is simply a normal ethere.

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The ghazal is a Middle Eastern form. It is arranged in a series of couplets, usually five or more. The couplets are independent; each can stand alone as a separate poem and still make sense. The couplets can be thematically related, but this is not a requirement. Ghazals contain a refrain - a word or a short phrase - which appears at the end of both lines of the first couplet and at the end of the second line of every subsequent couplet. The ghazal also has a rhyme which appears, not at the end of the line, but within it, directly before every repetition of the refrain. Ghazals are also required to maintain a strict meter (syllable stress pattern). Finally, a ghazal's last couplet may contain the poet's name as a kind of signature, although this is not required.

The example below does not have this "signature." Notice the refrain, "today," as well as the "-ite" sound that always precedes it.

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In the glosa, a Spanish form, the first stanza serves as the template for the overall poem. Each subsequent stanza elaborates on one particular line from the first stanza and usually contains the line itself at least once as a refrain. (Other, stricter versions of the glosa also exist.) This example's first stanza was written as a complete poem by an anonymous poet, and the rest was added much later by Lewis Turco (writing under the pseudonym of Wesli Court) to form a glosa.

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The word "haiku" is Japanese in origin, and the Japanese idea of its definition is subtle and complex. In English, however, "haiku" usually refers to a three-lined poem with no pattern of rhythm or rhyme wherein the first and third lines contain five syllables each, while the second line contains seven. For example:

Haiku are also generally nature-oriented and serious, unlike their cousin, the senryu.

For a sample of authentic Japanese poetry, consider the following haiku by the Japanese master Basho. They are not three separate poems, but rather three different translations of the exact same poem; the contrast between them is meant to illustrate the difficulty of transferring the essence of poetry from one language to another.

You may notice that these translations do not follow the five-seven-five syllable pattern. This is of course because they are translations; however, even in their original Japanese, the 5-7-5 rule is often brushed aside in favor of a better word choice. Furthermore, even when the rule is followed, it applies to onji, which have no real English counterpart, rather than syllables. In recognition of this, many Western haiku poets have given up the syllable rule entirely in order to follow in the footsteps of the Japanese haiku more closely. Nothing is ever simple!

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A Spanish form of poetry, the huitain revolves around the number eight - there are eight lines in the poem, and each line contains eight syllables. The rhyme scheme is ababbcbc. That's all there is to it!

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(Also spelled idyll.)

There are two separate meanings for "idyl." In the first meaning, it is simply a synonym for eclogue. In its other meaning, an idyl is a narrative poem written in high language that deals with an epic or romantic theme. Probably the best-known idyl is Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, from which the lines below are taken:

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The French kyrielle is composed entirely of quatrains (a quatrain is any stanza with four lines). There is no set number of stanzas, although generally a kyrielle contains three or more. The rhyme scheme is up to the poet (aabb ccbb ddbb etc. is frequently used), but it must be the same for all stanzas. Also, the last line of all stanzas is the same. Kyrielles generally have eight syllables per line, although this is not a requirement.

The lines that follow are taken from a kyrielle entitled "A Little Pain," written by John Payne.

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A lai consists of stanzas with nine lines each (although some versions do not require a specific number of lines per stanza). The pattern of syllables per line is 5,5,2,5,5,2,5,5,2 and the rhyme scheme for each stanza is aabaabaab. There is no set number of stanzas and the stanzas are not linked to each other in terms of rhyme. Put all this together and you'll get something like this:

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Limericks are short poems not meant to be taken seriously. They consist of five lines with rhyme scheme aabba. The pattern of syllable stresses is not set in stone, but it is generally anapestic (unstressed, unstressed, stressed). The first, second, and fifth lines contain nine syllables, while the third and fourth have six.

This is a dry and technical explanation for a poem which is, in reality, simple and fun to write. Limericks frequently make slight departures from the "proper" form, and this is perfectly acceptable. The limerick below gives you an idea of what limericks are all about.

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The luc bat is a Vietnamese form of poetry. It means simply "six eight" due to its pattern of syllables per line: 6,8,6,8,6,8, etc. There is no set length to the luc bat, so it can be as long or as short as you'd like. But what really makes this form interesting is the rhyming structure, which sounds a little complicated but is easy to grasp in practice. The sixth syllable of every eight-syllable line rhymes with the last syllable of the six-syllable line before it, which in turn rhymes with the eighth syllable of the eight-syllable line before it. When the end of the poem is reached, the last line jumps back and rhymes with the first. In other words, the syllables go like this:

...although of course the poem can be as long as you wish. Remember that it is always the final line of the poem which ends in the "a" rhyme, linking it back to the beginning.

Hopefully an example will help clear things up.

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A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, and each line after that has one less, until the end is reached with only one syllable. Nonets need not have any rhyme or meter.

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Odes are traditionally serious, dignified poems about a specific subject or event. There are many different types of odes, so numerous and varied that I will not attempt a listing of them here. This means that odes often have a fairly rigid structure, but what that structure actually is varies greatly from one ode to another. The lines below form the final stanza from John Keats' legendary "Ode on a Grecian Urn." They are characteristic of the lyrical and poetic beauty that odes possess.

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Pantoums are composed entirely of quatrains (four-line stanzas). There is no restriction on the number of quatrains, but each quatrain must follow the rhyme scheme abab within itself. The characteristic feature of a pantoum, however, is its repetition. The first and third lines of every stanza (except the first stanza) are identical to the second and fourth lines of the previous stanza, respectively. For the final line, there is an additional rule: the second and fourth lines must be the same as the first and third lines from the first stanza, respectively. Thus the overall pattern of lines in a five-quatrain pantoum would be as follows:

In some cases, the final stanza is as follows:

Again, pantoums may be any number of stanzas; the use of five quatrains above holds no special significance (although some stricter versions of this form do require exactly four stanzas).

An example pantoum, "Rising Sap" by Mabel Ferrett, follows.

The pantoum was originally derived from the pantun.

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A Malay form, the pantun can consist of two, four, six, eight, or even ten lines; the most popular form is four. Four-line pantuns have the rhyme scheme abab, and each line generally contains eight to twelve syllables. The distinguishing feature of a pantun, however, is the relationship between the first and second pairs of lines. The first two lines establish an opening image or idea, while the second pair creates a separate image which quite often has nothing whatsoever to do with the first pair (although this is not always the case). The example pantun below is part of a series of pantuns meant to be recited during a betrothal ceremony.

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The paradelle is French in origin, and it is one of the more difficult forms. It consists of four stanzas, each of which contains six lines. Each of the first three stanzas has the following format: the first two lines are identical, the third and fourth lines are identical, and the last two lines use all the words from the first and third lines (and no others). The fourth and final stanza's only requirement is that it use all the words from the first and third lines of the previous three stanzas (and no others). The example below illustrates.

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A quatern has four stanzas, each of which has four lines. Each line contains eight syllables. It does not have to rhyme, but it does follow a specific pattern of line repetition: the first stanza's first line is repeated as the second stanza's second line, the third stanza's third, and the final stanza's fourth. This form originated in France.

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The renga and renku are two separate but very closely linked forms of poetry. The renga was created first, in Japan; later, the Japanese master poet Basho began working with renga and developed his own form, similar to the renga but generally shorter, subtler, and placing less emphasis on knowledge of esoteric literary works. This new form, which came to be called the renku, is more popular than its predecessor in modern Japan. (More recently two other forms, the rengay and renshi, have also popped up.)

So now we've had our history lesson - but what is a renku? There are many varieties of renku, each with its own particular set of requirements, but in general renku are poems written by two or more people, one stanza at a time. The stanzas are short, two or three lines, and each stanza links to the one before it in some subtle but discernible way. In this way the complete renku can be seen as a demonstration of how several poets' minds work together to form a unified poem which nevertheless retains the inviduality of its separate parts. The stanzas which follow are from the beginning of "A Winter Shower," written by five poets in 1684; the fourth stanza was written by Basho himself.

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Like so many other French forms, the retourne is all about repetition. It contains four quatrains (four-line stanzas), and each line has eight syllables. The trick is that the first stanza's second line must also be the second stanza's first line, the first stanza's third line is the third stanza's first, and the first stanza's fourth line is the fourth stanza's first. Retournes do not have to rhyme. Consider the following example:

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A rictameter is a nine-line poem. Its pattern of syllables per line goes 2,4,6,8,10,8,6,4,2. Also, the first and last lines must be the same.

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Originating in France, the rondeau is a three-stanza poem consisting of approximately ten to fifteen lines total, generally with either eight syllables per line or ten. Its distinctive features are the use of only two rhymes throughout the entire poem and a half-line refrain which begins the first stanza's first line and forms the entirety of the second and third stanza's last lines. The rhyme scheme, of course, varies with the number of lines; a typical rhyme scheme for a fifteen-line rondeau is aabba aabC aabbaC, where C represents the first half of the rondeau's first line. The refrain does not rhyme with anything else in the poem.

For example:

The rondeau has spawned several other very similar forms, including the rondel, roundel, rondelet, and rondine.

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Created by Omar Khayyam, the rubaiyat - a Middle Eastern form - contains an unlimited number of four-line stanzas. The rhyme scheme for each individual stanza is aaxa, and this rhyme does not carry over to the next stanza. (In some versions of the rubaiyat, the rhyme is slightly different - aaba bbcb ccdc dded etc.) A rubaiyat should also be iambic (syllable stress pattern of unstressed, stressed).

These lines were written by Omar Khayyam himself.

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The senryu, a Japanese form, is structurally identical to its cousin, the haiku. The difference between them is subject matter; haiku tend to deal with nature, while senryu are about humans and human nature. Humor, also, is more acceptable in a senryu than a haiku. These somewhat vague criteria make a fuzzy, indistinct dividing line between the two forms, and many poets believe that a single poem may be both a haiku and a senryu. But, as Shakespeare says, "What's in a name?" It's the poem that matters.

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Sestinas, like so many other French forms, are all about repetition. A sestina contains a grand total of seven stanzas - the first six containing six lines each, and the final stanza (in this case called an "envoy") with three. Originally, the sestina had restrictions on meter and number of syllables per line, but these rules have largely vanished - which is fine, because sestinas are difficult enough without them. The explanation is a little complicated, so bear with me.

The main idea of the sestina is that all of the first six stanzas use the same six line-ending words, arranged in a different order each time. For instance, say that the last word in the first line of the first stanza is "hope." We'll assign "hope" the number 1. Now say that the last word in the second line of the first stanza is "fire." We'll give "fire" the number 2. Continuing in this way, we can say that the first stanza's lines end in words numbered 1 through 6. So the first stanza's pattern is simply 1-2-3-4-5-6.

With this in mind, we proceed to the second stanza. For stanzas two through five, the order of ending words depends on the stanza before it. In each case, the order is last, first, fifth, second, fourth, third. So the second stanza's ending word pattern is 6-1-5-2-4-3. In the same way, the third stanza refers to the second stanza to get its pattern, 3-6-4-1-2-5. Thus the overall pattern of ending words for the first six stanzas is as follows:

It's interesting to note that if we were to repeat this pattern for a seventh stanza, we would be back to our original 1-2-3-4-5-6. However, the seventh and final stanza follows a different pattern. It has three lines. The ending word pattern for it is 5-3-1, but there is an additional restriction; the other three ending words must be used in the middle of the lines, in a specific order, as follows:

(Some versions of the sestina are less strict, demanding only that all six words appear in the envoy at some point.)

In the example that follows, the ending words have been highlighted and numbered to make this easier to understand. Note that this sestina does not follow the form shown above for the last stanza. It was written by the Italian poet Dante.

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The sijo, a Korean form of poetry, consists of three lines, each approximately fourteen to sixteen syllables long. There is no meter or rhyme. Normally the first line sets up the scene, the second line adds an interesting twist or change, and the third line resolves the first two lines, sometimes in an unexpected way, giving a sense of finality. Sometimes the three lines are split into six to make the poem easier to read.

As so often happens, prose descriptions of this poetic form are inadequate. Look at the example below, written by Yon Sun-do, and see for yourself what a sijo is.

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The sonnet. It is one of the best-known and best-loved forms of poetry in the Western world. Lax enough to permit freedom of expression but restrictive enough to be challenging, long enough to allow detail but short enough to force concision, sonnets have endured for centuries and are still written today.

A sonnet is a poem with fourteen lines and a strict rhyme scheme, written in iambic pentameter (ten syllables per line, stress pattern of unstressed, stressed). There are many types of sonnets, each with its own rhyme scheme, but whichever rhyme scheme is chosen, it must be carefully followed. For example, the Shakespearean sonnet rhymes abab cdcd efef gg. There is also the Italian sonnet (also known as the Petrarchan sonnet, after its creator), which can rhyme abbaabba cdecde or abbaabba cdcdcd, among other variations. The Spencerian sonnet rhymes abab bcbc cdcd ee. There are others as well, but the exact rhyming pattern chosen is less important than the overall effect of the sonnet on its reader. Also important to note is that many sonnets contain a turning point at the end of the eighth line, dividing the poem into an octet (the first eight lines) and a sestet (the last six).

Choosing a single sonnet to show as an example was no easy task. Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII and Sonnet LV are well-known and excellent, as is Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" - the latter is my personal favorite poem of all time, sonnet or otherwise. In the end, though, I decided on Edna St. Vincent Millay's incredible "Love is Not All." Note how the poem shifts direction at the conclusion of the eighth line.

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The tanka is a Japanese form. As with the haiku, the definition of exactly what constitutes a tanka has been "lost in the translation" to some degree. Various poets and experts will give various definitions of the form, some stricter than others. For those of us writing in English, however, the main idea of the tanka is that it is a five-line poem with a syllable-per-line count of 5-7-5-7-7. The subject matter of a tanka tends to lean towards personal feelings and the intricacies of human interaction, as in this example.

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Terza rima is a fairly simple verse form developed in Italy. It contains an unlimited number of three-line stanzas (called "tercets") with the rhyming pattern aba bcb cdc ded efe... Each tercet's middle line gives the rhyme for the first and last lines of the next tercet. The last tercet's middle line provides the rhyme for a final stanza containing one or two lines.

I can think of no better example of terza rima than Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," from which the following lines were taken. Note that in this example, there are no breaks between tercets.

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The terzanelle is a hybrid of two other types of poetry, the terza rima and the villanelle. It consists of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by a quatrain (four-line stanza). The pattern of rhyming and line repetition appears below. Lower case letters represent rhymes, while capital letters represent entire lines.

The terzanelle below was written by Lewis Turco under the pseudonym of Wesli Court.

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The triolet form is French in origin. It is simply any poem which follows the rhyme and repetition scheme shown below (where lower case letters represent rhymes and capital letters represent entire lines).

An example is shown below.

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A tyburn has six lines. The first four lines contain a single two-syllable descriptive word each, and the final two lines contain nine syllables. Lines one and two make up the fifth stanza's fifth through eighth syllables, while lines three and four are the sixth stanza's fifth through eighth syllables. The rhyme scheme is aaaabb.

I have to admit that I personally dislike the tyburn. It is needlessly limiting and makes artistic expression extremely difficult - writing a tyburn is like filling out a form, and I think the example below reflects that. But, hey - maybe someone will fall in love with it and write a bunch of fantastic tyburns.

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The villanelle is a French form with a heavy emphasis on repetition. It follows the structure given below (in which lower case letters represent rhymes and capital letters represent entire lines).

Probably the most famous villanelle ever written is "Do Not Gentle Into That Good Night," by Dylan Thomas, and it is an excellent poem besides.

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FARP Article Guestbook

Date	Name	Comment
12 Feb 2006	Alice	Loading... Poems is literally art on paper. I'm glad that this site has a desription on all the arts of poetry. Trully I thank you.
28 Apr 2006	Amy ´Insom´ Downum	Loading... Beautifully done. I'm gettin' the writin' itch again~ Thanks for sharing!
6 Jul 2006	Jenny	Loading... That is very helpful. Thank you
28 Jul 2006	Marianne Cassidy	Loading... Hey, this is a great source for the various different poetic forms, good job compiling them. I'm definitely going to be back here for ideas and information next time I feel the urge to write poetry!
5 Jan 2007	Inari Porkka	Loading... Quote Beldarius: "In the Finnish Kalevala there's an unique style: two lines start with the same letter, like this: 'Wind whirled, river ran'." From http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevalamitta (in Finnish, sorry) The Kalevala meter has two main rules: 8 syllables per line, and as much alliteration per line as possible, and the occasional repetition when it feels good. The more hard-core Kalevala fanatics have more rules.
27 Jan 2007	Jonathan Robin <jonath	Loading... In your comments on the Rubaiyat you state : "These lines were written by Omar Khayyam himself" It might be appropriate to link into one of the English versions/interpretations written by Edward Fitzgerald rather than incorrectly attributing a poem which appeared several hundred years after Omar Khayyam's death. This may help : Edward Fitzgerald Rubaiyat : http://www.arabiannights.org/rubaiyat/index2.html Best regards
26 Mar 2007	Rowena	Loading... Rubaiyat is a plural noun in Arabic (and Farsi, which was the language Khayyam wrote poems in). The singular form is 'rubaiy'. And it's not a collection of four-lined stanzas. A rubaiy is a four-lined poem with the aaba rhyme pattern, usually trying to remind you to 'carpe diem!'. (This is one of the reasons I loathe that confounded Fitzgerald. You translated the thing. Did you have to twist it into this illegible mess as well?)
17 Jun 2007	Daniella R. Postavsky	Loading... I had no idea that there were this many different types of poetry (I'm not really a poetry person).
21 Jun 2007	Mrs. Morgen <admin@tre...c	Loading... My daughter has started a new poetry magazine focusing on poetic form, and the first issue should be published online soon. She has also been putting together a big chart of all the poetic forms used in English. Helping her has shown me what a challenge your forms website has been for you to produce. Poetic form is both fixed and fluid, so it is hard to pin down sometimes. Thanks for helping your fellow writers out there with your website. I hope you will go check out her magazine and chart when they are published and give her your comments.
24 Aug 2007	Becky 'Mausengeist' Creighton	Loading... Thanks to this article, I have fallen in love with Glosas and Lais. I never even knew they existed, and now I can't stop writing them! Thanks! My writer's block has been thoroughly beaten down.
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