Poetry Forms

Couplet A poem made of two lines of end rhyming poetry that usually have the same meter. Example: I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

Diamante A 7 lined poem. That is diamond in shape Line 1: Noun Line 2: Two Adjectives describing the first noun Line 3: Three -ing words describing the first noun Line 4: Four words: two about the first noun and two about the antonym or synonym of the first noun Line 5: Three -ing words about the antonym or synonym Line 6: Two adjectives describing the antonym or synonym Line 7: Antonym or synonym for the first noun

Diamante Example Rain humid, damp refreshing, dripping, splattering wet, slippery, cold, slushy sliding, melting, freezing frigid, icy Snow

Haiku Unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines Line 1: five syllables Line 2: seven syllables Line 3: five syllables Haiku is usually written in the present tense and focuses on nature. Example: warm soup in a bowl letters of the alphabet hang on the teaspoon

Cinquain Short, usually unrhymed poem consisting of twenty-two syllables distributed as 2, 4, 6, 8, 2, in five lines Line 1: Noun Line 2: Description of Noun Line 3: Action Line 4: Feeling or Effect Line 5: Synonym of the initial noun

Slurping, sliding, falling Between my plate and mouth Cinquain Example Spaghetti Messy, spicy Slurping, sliding, falling Between my plate and mouth Delicious

Epitaph A phrase or statement written in memory of a person who has died, especially as an inscription on a tombstone. EXAMPLE: John Donne (1572-1631) Reader, I am to let thee know, Donne's body only lies below; For could the grave his soul comprise, Earth would be richer than the skies.

Sonnet A Sonnet is a poem consisting of 14 lines (iambic pentameter) with a particular rhyming scheme: Examples of a rhyming scheme: #1) abab cdcd efef gg #2) abba cddc effe gg #3) abba abba cdcd cd

Iambic Pentameter Pentameter is simply penta, which means 5, meters. So a line of poetry written in pentameter has 5 feet, or 5 sets of stressed and unstressed syllables. An iamb is a foot or beat consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, In basic iambic pentameter, a line would have 5 feet of iambs.

Sonnet Example Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 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 dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest 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.

Acrostic The first letter of each line spells a word, usually using the same words as in the title. DOG Devoted, On  Guard.

Shape Poetry The poem to takes on the shape of its subject. Therefore, if the subject of your poem were of a flower, then the poem would be shaped like a flower. If it were of a fish, then the poem would take on the shape of a fish

Shape Poem Example STARS UMBRELLA

Free Verse An irregular form of poetry in which the content is free of traditional rules of versification, (freedom from fixed meter or rhyme)..

Free Verse Example The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens