Haiku Poems

Traditionally, haiku poems are three-line stanzas with a 5/7/5 syllable count. This form of
poetry also focuses on the beauty and simplicity found in nature. As its popularity grew, the
5/7/5 formula has often been broken. However, the focus remains the same - simple
moments in life. For more, take a look at these rules for writing haiku. Now, let's enjoy two
short samples.
First, "Sick on a Journey" by Basho is a great example of a haiku:
Sick on a journey -
Over parched field
Dreams wander on
Next, "5 & 7 & 5" by Anselm Hollo demonstrates the 5/7/5 haiku syllable count across
three stanzas:
night train whistles stars
over a nation under
mad temporal czars

round lumps of cells grow

up to love porridge later
become The Supremes

lady I lost my
subway token we must part
it's faster by air
Free Verse Poems
Free verse poems are the least defined. In fact, they're deliberately irregular, taking on an
improvisational bent. There's no formula, no pattern. Rather, the writer and reader must
work together to set the speed, intonation, and emotional pull. Here are two samples.
"This is Marriage" by Marianne Moore is a great example of free verse poetry:
This institution, perhaps one should say enterprise out of respect for which one says one need
not change one's mind about a thing one has believed in, requiring public promises of one's
intention to fulfil a private obligation: I wonder what Adam and Eve think of it by this time,
this fire-gilt steel alive with goldenness;
The format of "Little Father" by Li-Young Lee contrasts "This is Marriage" considerably:
I buried my father in my heart.
Now he grows in me, my strange son,
My little root who won't drink milk,
Little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,
Little clock spring newly wet
In the fire,little grape, parent to the future
Wine, a son the fruit of his own son,
Little father I ransom with my life.
Cinquains
A cinquain is a five-line poem inspired by the Japanese haiku. There are many different
variations of cinquain including American cinquains, didactic cinquains, reverse cinquains,
butterfly cinquains and crown cinquains. Let's enjoy a sampling from the ever-popular
Edgar Allan Poe, as well as a snippet from George Herbert.
"To Helen" by Edgar Allan Poe is our first five-line poem:
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
And here we have "The World" by George Herbert:
Love built a stately house, where Fortune came,
And spinning fancies, she was heard to say
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame,
Whereas they were supported by the same;
But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.
Epic Poems
An epic is a long and narrative poem that normally tells a story about a hero or an
adventure. Epics can be presented as oral or written stories. "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey"
are probably the most renowned epic poems. But, let's take a different direction and check
out a sampling from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as Ezra Pound.
Here's an excerpt from the epic poem, "The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow:
By the shore of Gitchie Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
And here's another sampling of epic poetry, this time from "Canto I" by Ezra Pound:
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.