Poetry

Types of Poetry
Definition of Poetry
Poetry is piece of literature written by a poet in meter or verse expressing
various emotions which are expressed by the use of variety of different
techniques including metaphors, similes and onomatopoeia which are
explained in the above definitions and different examples. The emphasis on the
aesthetics of language and the use of different techniques such as repetition,
meter and rhyme are what are commonly used to distinguish poetry from prose
and explained in the above examples. Prose can be defined as ordinary speech
or writing without any metrical structure. Poems often make heavy use of
imagery and word association to quickly convey emotions. Poetry in English
and other modern European languages often use different rhyme schemes and
this technique is most often seen in children's poems such as Nursery Rhymes
making them easy to remember. Other examples of different types of poetry
which use rhyme are limericks. Poets make use of sound in different types of
poetry by employing different kinds of techniques called Alliteration,
Assonance, Consonance and Euphony all of which are explained in the above
examples of different types of poetry.
The Structure of Poetry
The structure used in poems varies with different types of poetry. The structural
elements include the line, couplet, strophe and stanza. Poets combine the use
of language and a specific structure to create imaginative and expressive work.
The structure used in some Poetry types are also used when considering the
visual effect of a finished poem. The structure of many different types of poetry
result in groups of lines on the page which enhance the poem's composition.
Definitions of different Types of Poetry
There are many different types of poetry and poems. All of the lesser known
types of poetry (such as the Idyll, Senryu, Doggerel & Enjambment) as well as
the main types of poetry and poems (such as the sonnet, Ballad, Limericks and
Rhymes) have been included in these notes together with different examples.
How do you define a Sonnet or Blank Verse? Each entry has a definition of the
genre together with the meaning, samples and examples and the rules of
different kinds and types of Poetry and poems.

A Form is the generic term for the organising principle of a literary work. In
poetry, form is described in terms elements like rhyme, meter, and stanzaic
pattern.

ABC poem
An ABC poem has 5 lines that create a mood, picture, or feeling. Lines 1
through 4 are made up of words, phrases or clauses - and the first word
of each line is in alphabetical order from the first word. Line 5 is one
sentence, beginning with any letter.
Example:

Although things are not perfect

Because of trial or pain
Continue in thanksgiving
Do not begin to blame
Even when the times are hard
Fierce winds are bound to blow

Ballad
A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a
repeated refrain. Example: Excerpt The Mermaid by Unknown author

Oh the ocean waves may roll,

And the stormy winds may blow,
While we poor sailors go skipping aloft
And the land lubbers lay down below, below, below
And the land lubbers lay down below.

Ballade
A type of poem, usually with three stanzas of seven, eight, or ten lines
and a shorter final stanza of four or five lines. All stanzas end with the
same one-line refrain. One of the most famous ballades is "Ballade des
pendus" (Ballade of the Hanged Men) by Francois Villon.

Example: Excerpt Ballade of the Hanged Men by Francois Villon

Brothers, men who live after us,
Let not your hearts be hardened against us,
Because, if you have pity for us poor men,
God will have more mercy toward you.
You see us here attached five or six:
When our flesh that was nourished so well
Is overtime devoured and putrefied,
And we, the bones, have become cinders and powder.

Let no one laugh at our misfortune:

But pray that God absolve us all!

Blank verse
Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is
often unobtrusive and the iambic pentameter form often resembles the
rhythms of ordinary speech. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in
blank verse.

Excerpt from Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Burlesque
Burlesque is a story, play, or essay that treats a serious subject
ridiculously, or is simply a trivial story. A Parody is a type of high
burlesque which imitates or exaggerates the serious manner and
characteristic features of a particular literary work. Parody is a device of
satire.

Canzone
Canzone Poetry Type is usually a medieval Italian lyric poem, with five or
six stanzas and a shorter concluding stanza (or envoy). Canzone literally
means "song" in Italian. The poet Patriarch was a master of the canzone.
Petrarch or Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) was an Italian poet and
humanist, one of the great figures of Italian literature.
Sonnet XIII from Canzoniere by Petrarch
Quando fra l'altre donne ad ora ad ora
Amor vien nel bel viso di costei,
quanto ciascuna men bella di lei
tanto cresce 'l desio che m'innamora.

I' benedico il loco e 'l tempo e l'ora

che s alto miraron gli occhi miei,
e dico: Anima, assai ringraziar dei,
che fosti a tanto onor degnata allora;
da lei ti ven l'amoroso pensiero,
che mentre 'l segui al sommo ben t'invia,
poco prezzando quel ch'ogni uom desia;
da lei vien l'animosa leggiadria
ch'al ciel ti scorge per destro sentero:
s ch' i' vo gi de la speranza altero.

Carpe diem
A Latin expression that means "seize the day." Carpe diem poems have
the theme of living for today.

Gather Ye Rose-buds by Robert Herrick

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer:
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.
Then, be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Cinquain
A cinquain has five lines.
Line 1 is one word (the title)
Line 2 is two words that describe the title.
Line 3 is three words that tell the action
Line 4 is four words that express the feeling
Line 5 is one word that recalls the title:

Tree
Strong, Tall
Swaying, swinging, sighing
Memories of summer
Oak

Classicism
The principles and ideals of beauty that are characteristic of Greek and
Roman art, architecture, and literature. Examples of classicism in poetry
can be found in the works of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, which are
characterized by their formality, simplicity, and emotional restraint.
Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope
In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns;
What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?

Couplet
A Couplets is a Stanza of only two lines which usually rhyme.
Shakespearean (also called Elizabethan and English) sonnets usually end
in a couplet and are a pair of lines that are the same length and usually
rhyme and form a complete thought. William Shakespeare makes use of
couplets in more complex rhyme schemes.
Excerpt Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
by William Shakespeare
...Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never write, nor no man ever loved.

Elegy
A sad and thoughtful poem lamenting the death of a person. An example
of this type of poem is Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard."
Excerpt

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Epic
Epic Poems are long, serious poems that tell the story of a heroic figure.
Some of the most famous epic poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey by
Homer and the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton.

~ BOOK I ~
1.

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit

2.

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast

3.

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

4.

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

5.

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

6.

Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top

7.

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

8.

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,

9.

In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth

10. Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill

11. Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
12. Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
13. Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
14. That with no middle flight intends to soar
15. Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
16. Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.
17. And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
18. Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
19. Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first

20. Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread ...

Epigram
A very short, satirical and witty poem usually written as a brief couplet
or quatrain. The term epigram is derived from the Greek word
epigramma, meaning inscription.
The epigram was cultivated in the late sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries by poets like Ben Jonson and John Donne

A Lame Begger by John Donne

I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies.

Epitaph
An epitaph is a commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary
monument written in praise of a deceased person.

Example of a Humorous Epitaph:

I was born
Then I wed
Nagging Wife
Now I'm dead!

Epithalamium (or Epithalamion)

A wedding poem written in honour of a bride and bridegroom.

Free verse (also vers libre)

Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set
fixed metrical pattern or expectation.

Haiku
Haiku Poetry Type is a Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines
of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku poetry originated in the sixteenth
century and reflects on some aspect of nature and creates images.
None is Travelling by Basho (1644-1694)
None is travelling
Here along this way but I,
This autumn evening.
The first day of the year:
thoughts come - and there is loneliness;
the autumn dusk is here.

Idyll, or Idyl
Idyll Poetry Types are either short poems depicting a peaceful, idealized
country scene, or long poems that tell a story about ancient heroes. The
word is derived from the Greek word 'eidyllion' meaning "little picture".
Also spelled Idyl.
Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an agd wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
.........................................
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
by Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

Lay
A lay is a long narrative poem, especially one that was sung by medieval
minstrels called trouvres.

Limerick
Limericks are short sometimes bawdy, humorous poems of consisting of
five Anapaestic lines. Lines 1, 2, and 5 of a Limerick have seven to ten
syllables and rhyme with one another. Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven
syllables and also rhyme with each other. Edward Lear is famous for his
Book of Nonsense which included the poetry form of Limericks.
There was an Old Man with a gong,
Who bumped at it all day long;
But they called out, 'O law!
You're a horrid old bore!'
So they smashed that Old Man with a gong.

Lyric
A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that expresses the thoughts and
feelings of the poet. The term lyric is now generally referred to as the
words to a song.

Name Poem
A name poem tells about the word. It uses the letters of the word for the
first letter of each line.

Narrative Poetry
Ballads, epics, and lays are different kinds of narrative poems.

Ode
Odes are long poems which are serious in nature and written to a set
structure. John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is probably the most
famous example of this type of poem which is long and serious in nature
written to a set structure.
Ode To A Nightingale by John Keats
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:

Pastoral
A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, idealized way for example of
shepherds or country life.

Quatrain
A stanza or poem of four lines.
Lines 2 and 4 must rhyme.
Lines 1 and 3 may or may not rhyme.
Rhyming lines should have a similar number of syllables.

Rhyme
A rhyme has the repetition of the same or similar sounds at the end of
two or more words most often at the ends of lines. There are several
derivatives of this term which include double rhyme, Triple rhyme, rising
rhyme, falling rhyme, Perfect and imperfect rhymes.

Rhyme royal
A type of poetry introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer consisting of stanzas of
seven lines in iambic pentameter.

Romanticism
Nature and love were major themes of Romanticism favoured by 18th
and 19th century poets such as Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Emphasis was
placed on the personal experiences of the individual.

Senryu
A short Japanese poem that is similar to a haiku in structure but treats
human beings rather than nature, often in a humorous or satiric way.

Tanka
A Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five
syllables and the rest of seven.

Terza rima
A type of poetry consisting of 10 or 11 syllable lines arranged in threeline "tercets". The poet Dante is credited with inventing terza rima and it
has been used by many English poets including Chaucer, Milton, Shelley,
and Auden.

Sonnet
English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are lyric poems that are 14 lines
long falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet.
Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a sixline sestet.

"There is a secret all true lovers share" By John Barlas (pseud. Evelyn Douglas)
1889
There is a secret all true lovers share,
A mystery none initiate ever names,
And none shall ever know whom love disclaims,
Whereby his votaries breathe a common air,
And know each other and themselves. Forbear,
Ye alien lives whom honest passion shames,
And ye whose bodily lust obscures and tames
The spirit's light, to seek an entrance there.
But ye whose body and soul have equal growth
And bear Love's blest baptismal mark in both,
Whether for joy the years seem scarce enough,
Or else to resignation doomed, but loth,
Approach Love's holy guild, and learn the oath,

Free of the secret brotherhood of Love.

Verse
A single metrical line of poetry, or poetry in general (as opposed to
prose).

English Poetry Terms

Poetry Terms are used when describing the content and structure of a poem.
There are many different terms used in the English language which help when
constructing poetry such as the use of metaphors and similes. If you want to
enhance the content when you write poetry or increase your knowledge of
Poetry terms in general then study the content of this page. At the very least
you will most certainly increase your vocabulary!

Accent
The prominence or emphasis given to a syllable or word. In the word
poetry, the accent (or stress) falls on the first syllable.

Allegory
Allegory is a narrative having a second meaning beneath the surface
one.

Alexandrine
A line of poetry that has 12 syllables and derives from a medieval
romance about Alexander the Great that was written in 12-syllable lines.

Alliteration
The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words
such as tongue twisters like 'She sells seashells by the seashore'

Analogy
Analogy is a likeness or similarity between things that are otherwise
unlike.

Anapaest
A metrical foot of three syllables, two short (or unstressed) followed by
one long (or stressed). The anapaest is the opposite of the dactyl.

Antithesis
An example of antithesis is "To err is human, to forgive, divine." by

Alexander Pope is an example of antithesis with words and phrases with

opposite meanings balanced against each other.

Apostrophe
A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something
nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply

Archetype
Archetype is the original pattern from which copies are made.

Assonance
The repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, as in the tongue twister
"Moses supposes his toeses are roses."

Bard
The definition of a Bard is a Gaelic maker and signer of poems.

Blank verse
Blank verse is in unrhymed iambic pentameter which is a type of meter
in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line.

Cacophony
Lewis Carroll makes use of cacophony in 'Jabberwocky' by using an
unpleasant spoken sound created by clashing consonants.

Caesura
A grammatical pause or break in a line of poetry (like a question mark),
usually near the middle of the line.

Classicism
The principles and ideals of beauty, minimised by the use of emotional
restraint, that are characteristic of Greek and Roman art and literature
used by poets such as John Dryden and Alexander Pope.

Conceit
An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I
compare thee to a summer's day?" when an image or metaphor likens
one thing to something else that is seemingly very different.

Consonance
Consonance is the repetition, at close intervals, of the final consonant
sounds of accented syllables or important words.

Connotation
connotation is what a word suggests beyond its basic definition. The
words childlike and childish both mean 'characteristic of a child,' but
childlike suggests meekness and innocence

Couplet
Shakespearean sonnets usually end in a couplet and are a pair of lines
that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete
thought.

Dactyl
A metrical foot of three syllables, one long (or stressed) followed by two
short (or unstressed), as in happily. The dactyl is the reverse of the
anapaest.

Denotation
Denotation is the basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word.

Dialect
Dialect refers to pronunciation of a particular region of a Country or
region.

Doggerel
Doggerels are a light verse which is humorous and comic by nature.

Elision
Elision refers to the leaving out of an unstressed syllable or vowel,
usually in order to keep a regular meter in a line of poetry for example
'o'er' for 'over'.

Enjambment
Enjambment comes from the French word for "to straddle." Enjambment
is the continuation of a sentence form one line or couplet into the next
and derives from the French verb 'to straddle'. An example by Joyce
Kilmer is 'I think that I shall never see/A poem as lovely as a tree'.

Envoy
The shorter final stanza of a poem, as in a ballade.

Epithet
An epithetis a a descriptive expression, a word or phrase expressing
some quality or attribute.

Euphony
Euphony refers to pleasant spoken sound that is created by smooth
consonants such as "ripple'.

Euphemism
Euphemism is the use of a soft indirect expression instead of one that is
harsh or unpleasantly direct. For example 'pass away' as opposed to 'die'

Falling Meter
Trochaic and dactylic meters are called falling meters because they
move from stressed to unstressed syllables.

Feminine rhyme
A rhyme that occurs in a final unstressed syllable: pleasure/leisure,
longing/yearning.

Figure of speech
A verbal expression in which words or sounds are arranged in a
particular way to achieve a particular effect such as alliteration,
antithesis, assonance, hyperbole, metaphor, onomatopoeia and simile.

Foot
Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm
in a poem. For example, an iamb is a foot that has two syllables, one
unstressed followed by one stressed. An anapest has three syllables, two
unstressed followed by one stressed.

Form
Form is the generic term for the organising principle of a literary work. In
poetry, form is described in terms elements like rhyme, meter, and
stanzaic pattern.

Heptameter
A line of poetry that has seven metrical feet.

Heroic couplet
A stanza composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter.

Hexameter
A line of poetry that has six metrical feet.

Hyperbole
Hyperbole (overstatement) is a type of figurative language that depends
on intentional overstatement.

Iamb
A metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long
(or stressed). The lamb is the reverse of the trochee.

Iambic pentameter
Shakespeare's plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is
the most common type of meter in English poetry. It is a basic measure
of English poetry, five iambic feet in each line.

Idiom
Idiom refers to words, phrases, or patterns of expression. Idioms became
standard elements in any language, differing from language to language
and shifting with time. A current idiom is 'getting in a car' but 'on a
plane'.

Imagery
Imagery draws the reader into poetic experiences by touching on the
images and senses which the reader already knows.

Irony
Irony is a situation, or a use of language, involving some kind of
discrepancy. An example of this is ''Water, water everywhere but ne'er a
drop to drink'.

Jargon
Jargon refers to words and phrases developed by a particular group to fit
their own needs which other people understand.

Litotes
A litote is a figure of speech in which affirmative is expressed by the
negation of the opposite. "He's no dummy" is a good example.

Metaphor
A metaphor is a pattern equating two seemingly unlike objects. An
examples of a metaphor is 'drowning in debt'.

Meter
Meters are regularized rhythms. An arrangement of language in which
the accents occur at apparently equal intervals in time. Each repeated
unit of meter is called a foot.
Literary Terms

Meiosis
Meiosis is a figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means,
or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants.

Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another with
which it is closely associated. Some significant aspect or detail of an
experience is used to represent the whole experience.

Moritake
Maritime is figurative speech that depends on intentional overstatement
or exaggeration.

Onomatopoeia
A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds. Examples
of onomatopoeic words can be found in numerous Nursery Rhymes e.g.
clippety-clop and cock-a-doodle-do.

Paradox
A paradox is a statement or situation containing apparently
contradictory or incompatible elements.

Pentameter
A line of poetry that has five metrical feet.

Persona
Persona refers to the narrator or speaker of the poem, not to be
confused with the author.

Personification
Personification means giving human traits to nonhuman or abstract
things.

Quatrain
A stanza or poem of four lines.

Refrain
A phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated throughout a poem,
usually after every stanza.

Rhyme
The occurrence of the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more
words.

Rhythm
Rhythm is significant in poetry because poetry is so emotionally charged
and intense. Rhythm can be measured in terms of heavily stressed to
less stressed syllables. Rhythm is measured in feet, units usually
consisting of one heavily accented syllable and one or more lightly
accented syllable.

Rising Meter
Anapaestic and iambic meters are called rising meters because they
move from an unstressed syllable to a stressed syllable.

Romanticism
The principles and ideals of the Romantic Movement in literature and the
arts during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romanticism, which
was a reaction to the classicism of the early 18th century, favoured
feeling over reason and placed great emphasis on the subjective, or

personal, experience of the individual. Nature was also a major theme.

The great English Romantic poets include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron,
Shelley, and Keats.

Scansion
The analysis of a poem's meter. This is usually done by marking the
stressed and unstressed syllables in each line and then, based on the
pattern of the stresses, dividing the line into feet.

Simile
A figure of speech in which two things are compared using the word
"like" or "as" to draw attention to similarities about two things that are
seemingly dissimilar.

Slang
Slang refers to highly informal and sub-standard vocabulary which may
exist for some time and then vanish. Some slang remains in usage long
enough to become permanent, but slang never becomes a part of formal
diction.

Spondee
A metrical foot of two syllables, both of which are long (or stressed).

Stanza
Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a
poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow
the same pattern of meter and rhyme.

Stress
Stress refers to the accent or emphasis, either strong or weak, given to
each syllable in a piece of writing, as determined by conventional
pronunciation.

Synecdoche
Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole.

Syntax
Syntax refers to word order and sentence structure. Normal word order
in English sentences is firmly fixed in subject-verb-object sequence or
subject-verb-complement. In poetry, word order may be shifted around
to meet emphasis, to heighten the connection between two words, or to
pick up on specific implications or traditions.

Tetrameter
A line of poetry that has four metrical feet.

Trochee
A metrical foot of two syllables, one long (or stressed) and one short (or
unstressed).

Trope
Trope is the use of a word or phrase in a sense different from its ordinary
meaning.

Understatement
Understatement refers to the intentional downplaying of a situation's
significance, often for ironic or humorous effect.

Versification
The system of rhyme and meter in poetry.