Types of Poems

Poetry can take many different forms Poetry can take many different forms. Each comes with it’s own unique rules and limitations that can affect numerous elements.

Identifying the Types Let’s take a look at some of the more popular types of poems and their various restrictions, limitations, criteria, etc.

Free Verse Free Verse is a form of poetry which uses fewer rules and limitations using either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed metrical pattern. The early 20th-century poets were the first to write what they called "free verse" which allowed them to break from the formula and rigidity of traditional poetry.

Example of Free Verse Fog The fog comes on little cat feet.   It sits looking over harbour and city on silent haunches and then moves on. Carl Sandburg

Sonnet A Shakespearean, or English, sonnet consists of 14 lines, each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet.

Example of a Shakespearean Sonnet No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it, for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse; But let your love even with my life decay;    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,    And mock you with me after I am gone. William Shakespeare

Sonnet A Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet also consists of 14 lines, each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, but is broken into two distinct sections with their own rhyme scheme: The first 8 lines in a Petrarchan sonnet (called the octave) is a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, while the remaining six line (called the sestet) is made up of two or three rhyming sounds c-d-c-d-c-d, c-d-d-c-d-c, c-d-e-c-d-e, c-d-e-c-d-e, c-d-e-c-e-d, or c-d-c-e-d-c

Example of a Petrarchan Sonnet On His Blindness When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide, Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, least he returning chide, Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd, I fondly ask; But patience to prevent That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts, who best Bar his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o're Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and waite. John Milton

Identify this Sonnet… Death be not proud Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. John Donne

Ballad A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion. At best, a ballad does not tell the reader what’s happening, but rather shows the reader what’s happening, describing each crucial moment in the trail of events. The ballad is often constructed in quatrain stanzas, each line containing as few as three or four stresses and rhyming either the second and fourth lines, or all alternating lines.

Example of a Ballad Rime of the Ancient Mariner It is an ancient mariner And he stoppeth one of three. --"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stoppest thou me? The bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: Mayst hear the merry din." He holds him with his skinny hand, "There was a ship," quoth he. "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!" Eftsoons his hand dropped he. He holds him with his glittering eye-- The wedding-guest stood still, And listens like a three-years' child: The mariner hath his will. Samuel Taylor Coleridge