A poem's structure is determine by meter (patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables) and rhyme (regular patterns of similar sounding syllables). Poems that have both a regular meter and rhyme are called closed form and fit into a specifically named and defined poetic structure (sonnet, villanelle, haiku, etc). Otherwise, the poem is open form.
Open form structures
BLANK VERSE: Poetry that has a regular meter but no rhyme; blank verse has a conversational tone and is used to tell a story from a specific perspective. Shakespeare uses blank verse in most of his plays, and his characters communicate their perspectives. Other examples include "Unending Love" by Tagore and "Mending Wall" by Frost.
SWEET (OR RHYMED) VERSE: Poetry that has a regular rhyme scheme but an irregular meter. This is not to say sweet verse has no meter-- it almost always does. Yet meter is a constant syllable pattern with a consistent number of syllables per line. Sometimes sweet verse has a metric pattern but no regularity in the number of syllables per line (like "Around the Corner" by Towne), while other times it has a consistent number of syllables per line but no consistent metric pattern (like "Richard Cory" by Robinson). Sweet verse always employs a reveal-- the end of the poem surprises the narrator or reader, often through irony.
FREE VERSE: Poetry that has a no regular meter or rhyme; free verse bucks traditional poetic constraints (except for clear line and stanza divisions) and is used to discuss freedom, usually focusing on either its beauty of the struggle to achieve it. Famous examples include "Theme for English B" by Hughes and "Song of Myself" by Whitman.
SWEET (OR RHYMED) VERSE: Poetry that has a regular rhyme scheme but an irregular meter. This is not to say sweet verse has no meter-- it almost always does. Yet meter is a constant syllable pattern with a consistent number of syllables per line. Sometimes sweet verse has a metric pattern but no regularity in the number of syllables per line (like "Around the Corner" by Towne), while other times it has a consistent number of syllables per line but no consistent metric pattern (like "Richard Cory" by Robinson). Sweet verse always employs a reveal-- the end of the poem surprises the narrator or reader, often through irony.
FREE VERSE: Poetry that has a no regular meter or rhyme; free verse bucks traditional poetic constraints (except for clear line and stanza divisions) and is used to discuss freedom, usually focusing on either its beauty of the struggle to achieve it. Famous examples include "Theme for English B" by Hughes and "Song of Myself" by Whitman.
Closed form strucures
Classical Forms
ABECEDARIAN: The abecedarian is an ancient acrostic poetic structure based on alphabetical order. Each line or stanza begins with the first letter of the alphabet and is followed by the successive letter until the final letter is reached. The earliest examples are religious Hebrew poetry. Abecedarian poems use the motif of completeness, as they structurally complete the alphabet; thus, this is a popular form for prayers, hymns, and psalms. Examples: "The ABC" (Chaucer)
BALLAD: A ballad is a poem that is meant to be sung. Ballads always relate important stories--histories that are either political, national, or personal. Ballads use quatrains (typically heroic quatrains) and often have a quatrain that is repeated several times (known as a chorus). Examples: "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (Coleridge), "The Cremation of Sam McGee (Service), "Lucy Grey" (Wordsworth), "The Highwayman" (Noyes), "Annabel Lee" (Poe)
CINQUAIN: The prefix "cinq" means 'five;' fittingly, cinquians consist of five-lined stanzas. There are three types:
- CLASSICAL: This form has iambic meter, requires ababb, abaab or abccb rhyme scheme, and is about a woman who personifies an abstract ideal, such as love or beauty. Examples: “To Helen” (Poe), "The World" (Herbert).
- CRAPSEY: This form is a mock of the Japanese tanka. Like the tanka, the cinquain is always about nature and has no regular meter or rhyme with the syllable pattern 2-4-6-8-2. Examples: “November Night” (Crapsey)
- DIDACTIC: This form is used by American primary school teachers to teach parts of speech. Line one: one noun; line two: two adjectives; line three: three present participles; line four: four word phrase; line five: on more noun. noun Didactic cinquains, as you can see here, are all doggerel.
DIZAIN: This French form features a single ten lined stanza in perfect pentameter (the type doesn't matter so long as each line has exactly ten syllables). The rhyme scheme is ababb ccdcd, mirroring itself in a way. Mirrors are important in a dizain, as they center on mirrored subject, or things that when examined from a new perspective become opposite in their meaning. A sunny day can become a terrifying force, a dark creepy night can become a comforting shelter, and a hungry spider tearing into a moth can become the hero of the story.
KYRIELLE: From Latin kyrie, kyrielles are songs praising God or similar devotion to the supernatural. Most English Kyrielles are made of three or more quatrains--these stanzas use an AABB rhyme scheme. The lines are in iambic tetrameter (8 syllables). Often, the fourth line is a refrain that is repeated in all stanzas. Examples: “A Lenten Hymn” (Campion), "Kyrielle" (Payne)
LINE 1 (RHYME A): A lark in the mesh of the tangled vine,
LINE 2 (RHYME A): A bee that drowns in the flower-cup's wine, LINE 3 (RHYME B): A fly in sunshine,--such is the man. REFRAIN (RHYME B): All things must end, as all began. LINE 4 (RHYME C): A little pain, a little pleasure, LINE 5 (RHYME C): A little heaping up of treasure; LINE 6 (RHYME B): Then no more gazing upon the sun. REFRAIN (RHYME B): All things must end that have begun. LINE 7 (RHYME D): Where is the time for hope or doubt? LINE 8 (RHYME D): A puff of the wind, and life is out; LINE 9 (RHYME B): A turn of the wheel, and rest is won. REFRAIN (RHYME B): All things must end that have begun. ("Kyrielle") |
LIMERICK: A limerick is a bawdy and humorous poem revolving around topics not for polite conversation-- typically, lust and drink, though many by famous poets employ wit and wordplay. Limericks, which were developed in Ireland, consist of five lines with an AABBA. Limericks use anapestic meter: two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable:
LINE 1 (RHYME A) meter: - - / - - / - - /
LINE 2 (RHYME A) meter: - - / - - / - - / LINE 3 (RHYME B) meter: - - / - - / LINE 4 (RHYME B) meter: - - / - - / LINE 5 (RHYME A) meter: - - / - - / - - / |
There was a young tease from Mount Chesser
Who'd smile as men would assess her. So flirtatious was she, She brought each one to tea But wouldn't let any undress her. |
MADRIGAL: Madrigals developed in the late Middle Ages as an alternative to the popular music of the time: liturgical (or religious) music. Therefore, madrigals are about secular topics outside of religion like love, war, childhood, hunting, or adventure. Madrigals began simply as poems, but then started to be sung acapella in inns and pubs because they were fun. What made them so much fun was their incorporation of "word painting," or using onomatopoeia to help listeners visualize the subjects through their sighs, cheers, yells, and yawns. Madrigals became very popular during the Renaissance, when secular topics were replaced by Classicism, and around this time they solidified into their complex poetic structure thanks to the work of Geoffrey Chaucer. While true madrigals have several specific tonal and metric requirements, they basically consist of three stanzas: a tercet, a quatrain, and a sestet. The tercet has an ABB rhyme scheme; the quatrain has an ABAB rhyme scheme, with its third and forth line a repeat of the first and second line of the tercet; and the sestet ha a ABBABB rhyme scheme, with the last three lines repeating the tercet at the beginning. No matter the stanza, all lines contain either 7 or 11 syllables each.
ODE: Odes praise a person, place, object, or an inspirational idea. This object of memorial may be either alive or dead. While some odes vary in structure, they are traditionally written in iambic or trochaic pentameter. Such stanzas are nine lines long, with an ABABCDCDE rhyme scheme. Examples: “To Autumn” (Keats), "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (Keats), "Ode to the Artichoke" (Neruda)
ROUNDEL: A roundel is the English version of French rondeau and takes its form. Each line has the same number of syllables (usually 10) EXCEPT the refrain (it has exactly half the syllables as the other lines). Roundels have no set meter but are typically written in iambic pentameter. Roundels consist of ABA triplets with every odd stanza tacking on a repeated refrain (rhyme B). Roundels, in accordance with their name, are about cycles: seasons, birth/death, royal power, and so on. Example: “The Roundel” (Swinburne)
SAPPHIC: Named for the Greek poet Sappho, the Sapphic consists of any number of quatrains. The first three lines of each quatrain contain two trochees, one dactyl, then two more trochees; the last line, called an Adonis, contains one dactyl followed by one trochee. The structure, which features stressed syllables more prominently, lends Sapphics to have a motif of urgency center to their conceits. Example: "The Anactoria Poem" (Sappho)
SESTINA: The sestina is a French form from the 12th Century and is one of the most complex poetic forms--complex because sestinas were originally conceived as a poetic challenge between rivals. As such, the motif of overcoming challenges are central to sestinas, and they often include witty remarks to other competitors. Each line has ten syllables but no rhyme scheme. There are 39 lines: the first 36 are divided into six sestets, which repeats the same end words in the pattern below. These stanzas are followed by a three line envoi. Line one contains word B and ends in word E; line 2 contains word D and ends in word C, and line 3 contains word F and ends in word A. Example: “Paysage Moralise” (Auden)
STANZA 1: A B C D E F
STANZA 2: F A E B D C STANZA 3: C F D A B E STANZA 4: E C B F A D STANZA 5: D E A C F B STANZA 6: B D E F C A |
SOLEDAD: Soledads are a Spanish form (the name means "solitude"), and are always about separation or isolation. Soledads consist of any number of three line stanzas with an ABA rhyme schem. Each line has exactly eight syllables and uses lots of consonance (similar consonant sounds) and assonance (similar vowel sounds). Examples: "Soledad" (Manalang Gloria), "Soledad" (Hayden)
SONNET: Sonnets are an Italian form (the name sonnet means "little song"), and are always about love. Sonnets are always written in iambic pentameter and fourteen lines long, but there are two types of stanza/rhyme scheme combinations. The original Italian sonnets (called Petrarchan) have two ABBA quatrains followed by two CDC triplets. English sonnets (called Shakespearean, for obvious reasons) have three ABAB quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet. Examples: "Sonnet 18" (Shakespeare), "Sonnet 73" (Shakespeare again), "Sonnet 104" (Shakespeare yet again), "Grief" (Browning), "Love Song for Love Songs" (Campo)
TERZA RIMA: The terza rima form was invented by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri for his Divine Comedy. A terza rima, which means "third rhyme” in Italian, uses triplet stanzas. The stanzas follow a rhyme scheme of ABA BCB CDC...; essentially, except for the first rhyme, every rhyme ends three lines. These interlocking lines allow the poem to, theoretically, be endless. This is the structural motif of a terza rima: endlessness and the eternal. When a terza rima does end, it is either in a single line (classical) or rhyming couplet (English). Terza rima uses iambic meter, typically pentameter in English. Examples: Inferno, Canto I (Dante--Italian version), "Ode to the West Wind" (Shelly), "The Yachts" (Williams), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (Frost)
VILLANELLE: From Latin for “farmhand song,” villanelles began in France and consist of five triplets and a quatrain. Villanelles have no defined regular meter. The most important part of the villanelle construction is the repetition of exact lines--lines 1 and three are repeated in their entirety throughout the poem. Here is the rhyme and repetition scheme for the nineteen-lined poem: ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA. The first line is repeated as lines 6, 12, and 18; the third line is repeated as lines 9, 15, and 19. Villanelles are typically about loss, especially an obsession over a loss. Examples: "One Art" (Bishop), “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” (Thomas), "Mad Girl's Love Song" (Plath)
Eastern Forms
GHAZAL: Ghazals come from Persian tradition and are popular in Iran, India, and Pakistan. Ghazals traditionally feature longing for love, and often tackle metaphysical questions regarding how people fall in love and how love lasts. The ghazal is composed of pairs of couplets (between five and fifteen) that are structurally and thematically independent from one another. Each line must have the same number of syllables (though constant meter is not always used) and couplets may or my not rhyme with other couplets. Occasionally, ghazals will have a refrain where a couplet or single lie is repeated. The final couplet usually includes refers to the author by name, acting as a signature. Examples: "Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun" (McHugh), "Ghazal" (Levis), "In Silence" (Khalvati), "Even in the Rain" (Ali)
HAIKU: Haiku is a Japanese form that centers on nature. Every haiku includes a kigo-- a seasonal reference, and most are about a juxtaposition of two ideas. Each haiku is only three lines (though haikus can be part of an interrelated series) with a pattern of 5 syllables-7 syllables-5 syllables. The switch between these two ideas typically occurs through a "cutting word" that has two different definitions. There is no rhyme scheme with haiku.
5 SYLLABLES EXACTLY
7 SYLLABLES EXACTLY 5 SYLLABLES EXACTLY |
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond, Splash! Silence again. |
Autumn moonlight--
a worm digs silently into the chestnut. |
PANTOUM: Originally a Malay form from Indonesia, pantoums are about memory and usually compare the present to the past in some way. Pantoums are made of quatrains of any meter (though syllables are typically regular between stanzas). Pantoums have no set rhyme scheme (though some are ABAB), but are really dependent on their repetition: The first stanza is line A-line B-line C-line D, with the second as line B repeated-line E-line D repeated-line F (see an example below). The pantoum continuous this pattern until, typically, it ends with lines A and C repeated in the last stanza. Examples: “Pantoum of the Great Depression” (Justice), “She Put on Her Lipstick in the Dark” (Dischell)
LINE A: I really did meet a blind girl in Paris once.
LINE B: It was in the garden of a museum, LINE C: Where I saw her touching the statues. LINE D: She had brown hair and an aquamarine scarf. LINE B: It was in the garden of the museum. LINE E: I told her I was a thief disguised as a guard. LINE D: She had brown hair and an aquamarine scarf. LINE F: She told me she was a student from Grenoble. LINE E: I told her I was not a thief disguised as a guard. LINE G: We had coffee at the little commissary. LINE F: She said she had time till her train to Grenoble. LINE H: We talked about our supreme belief in art. --"She Puts Her Lipstick On in the Dark" |
RENGA (KASEN): Renga, meaning “linked poem," is Japanese form that requires poetic collaboration. Poet one creates a traditional haiku, then the second poet continues the poem with a couplet containing seven syllables per line. This pattern of haiku-then-couplet continues. Though rengas can be any length, finished renga poems are typically 36-lines long form (this is called a kasen). Like the haiku, rengas depict natural and seasonal imagery, yet they center on the gratitude each person feels that the other is in their life.
SEDOKA (KATAUTA): This form of Japanese poetry is very similar to the renga and typically involves collaboration centering around a conversation between two lovers. The first stanza is a question by one of the lovers to the other. The stanza takes the form of a katauta: it has no rhyme scheme, three lines, and the syllables for each line are 5-7-7. The other love then answers in their own katauta, completing the cycle. Like rengas, the sedoka can be of any length. The katauta can also stand by itself--it means "half poem" and gives the poem an intentional sense of incompleteness.
SENRYU: Named after Japanese poet Senryu Karai (“river willow”), the senryu is like a haiku except it centers on human nature. Like the haiku, the senryu juxtaposes two contrasting ideas and has three lines. However, the senryu can have fewer (but not more) than 17 syllables.
Laughing loudly
To forget My loneliness. |
The reason he is a good man
Is simply because He is a coward. |
TANKA: The tanka is a Japanese form meaning “short poems." Like other Japanese forms, there is no rhyme scheme or meter. Tankas center around emotion and gratitude; they were originally written by lovers to each other after spending the night together.
LINE 1 (5 SYLLABLES): On the white sand
LINE 2 (7 SYLLABLES): Of the beach of a small isle LINE 3 (5 SYLLABLES): In the Eastern Sea LINE 4 (7 SYLLABLES): I, my face streaked with tears, LINE 5 (7 SYLLABLES): Am eating with a crab --Ishikawa Takubok |
Modern Forms
BOP: The Bop was created by Afaa Michael Weaver in the past decade. The Bop is a poetic argument consisting of three stanzas: stanza one (six lines long) states the problem, stanza two (eight lines long) explores the problem, and stanza three (six lines long) resolves or attempts to resolve the problem. Each stanza followed by a repeated refrain. The idea of the bop is to work through anger. There is no rules concerning rhyme or meter. Example: "Rambling" (Weaver)
CASCADE: This poetic form was created by Udit Bhatia to explore the feeling of becoming receptive and noticing something new about something common. There is no rhyme scheme, required length, or meter: the only rule is that the lines in the first stanza all need to end the lines of subsequent stanza, and that all the stanzas must be the same length. For example, if the poem starts with a tercet of ABC, the following stanzas will all be tercets: DEA, FGB, HIC.
I laugh hard at the poor butcher,
With scarlet hands and crimson eyes, He smiles as he cuts away. They gather around him every day, “Unholy killer” they all scream. I laugh hard at the poor butcher. Deaf toward the plea of all, the butcher's fate was long written with scarlet hands and crimson eyes. Children cry amidst the crowd, a mother faints, another screams. He smiles as he cuts away. -- Ubit Bhatia |
Amidst the quiet hush of falling snow
A candle burns bright in a small window And welcome is shown in its even glow Though the home is considerably small Yet is filled with the love for one and all Amidst the quiet hush of falling snow A signal is sent out upon the night Shelter and warmth in its radiant light A candle burns bright in a small window Frost creeps its fingers across windowpane As tired, old hands set plain wax to flame And welcome is shown in its even glow -- "Flickering Light," Brad Osborne |
CENTO: Latin for "patchwork," the cento is a poem made up of lines from famous poems. The cento can be of any length and structure (some even rhyme) so long as it is made from borrowed lines. These lines are truly borrowed--under the cento is a list of poets the poem borrows from, and modern web-based centos even hyperlink to the originals. Just as the poem is patchwork of lines, the poem itself is a patchwork of ideas and models itself on stream or consciousness thought. This form is not technically new (both Homer and Virgil wrote centos) yet there are few notable centos before the modern era. Example: "Wolf Cento" (Muench)
CONCRETE: A concrete poem takes its lines and weaves them into a specific shape or arrangement, with its visual adding to the meaning. In fact, the typography is often more important than the words, focusing on the journey of the reader's eyeline as they try to parse the sometimes hard to read arrangements. The form has taken its name "concrete" from the fact that, like a block of concrete, the poetic lines are stuck in the artistic shape and cannot be reprinted in any other way, lest its meaning be lost. As Concrete poetry seeks to transcend the barriers of words to create richer description than words can provide, the conceit of these poems are always about pushing boundaries and even sometimes border on nonsense.
DUPLEX: Created by poet Jericho Brown, the duplex is a fusion of the sonnet and the ghazal. The poem is a series of seven non-rhyming couplets--14 lines total with 9 to 11 syllables per line. The first line is echoed in the last line, the second line is echoed in the third line, the fourth line is echoed in the fifth line, and so on. Note the term echoed and not repeated: the echoed line should only use three or four of the same words of the original line and should create new meaning of that initial line. This creates the central conceit around barriers of communication. In the words of Brown himself: "I decided to call the form a duplex because something about its repetition and its couplets made me feel like it was a house with two addresses. It is, indeed, a mutt of a form as so many of us in this nation are only now empowered to live fully in all of our identities. I wanted to highlight the trouble of a wall between us who live within a single structure. What happens when that wall is up and what happens when we tear it down? How will we live together? Will we kill each other? Can we be more careful?"
FOUND POETRY: Found poetry is created by taking a non-poetic text and turning it into poetry. This text could be a newspaper, recipe, email, poster, piece of mail, or page of a book. The key to this poetry is not the words (which must match the original text in spelling and order) but how the poet uses grammar and line breaks to turn the block of text into the poem. The point of a found poem is to critique modern society, often using irony.
A special kind of found poetry is the blackout poem, where a page of text has most of its words blacked out so that what remains is a poem. This type of found poem is less of a social critique and more about revealing hidden subtext that lies within the original text. The irony comes when the blackout poem reveals something under the surface of the original text by using its own words.
A special kind of found poetry is the blackout poem, where a page of text has most of its words blacked out so that what remains is a poem. This type of found poem is less of a social critique and more about revealing hidden subtext that lies within the original text. The irony comes when the blackout poem reveals something under the surface of the original text by using its own words.
GOLDEN SHOVEL: Created by poet Terrance Hayes, a golden shovel is a poem where the last word of each line, when read in order, forms a line or two from a famous poem. Moreover, the poem itself centers on the story behind those lines, building and expanding upon the original imagery. Hayes originally used the entire poem "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks for his golden shovel. His poem depicts who the "we" in Brooks' original poem are, creating a cast of rebellious young city gang members. When writing a golden shovel, be sure to cite the original poet that served as inspiration (e.g., "after Gwendolyn Brooks).
KWANSABA: Created by poet Eugene B. Redmond, this poetic form is inspired by the African diaspora holiday of Kwanzaa. As Kwanzaa is a seven day festival revolving around the seven principles (unity, self-determination, working together, purposeful action, creativity, sharing resources, and faith), the poem is a single stanza of seven lines with seven words per line. The poem centers on praise of Black culture with no word in the poem longer than seven letters.
LUNE: This is a modern form of a haiku created by American Robert Kelly and developed by Jack Collom, who hated that Japanese haikus lost their effectiveness when translated into English from their native language. This American Haiku has five words (not syllables) in its first line, three words in its second line, and five words in its third line. Like Japanese Haikus, the Lune has no rhyme or meter; however, the Lune does not share the Japanese form's themes of nature or its emphasis on juxtaposition. Rather, these are poems about the immediate feelings of the writer, such as impatience, hunger, regret, confusion, or desire. While many lunes can contain profound ideas (and some do indeed weave in nature), they come across as quick and passing thoughts.
NASHER: This form was created by American poet Ogden Nash, who was known for his light and entertaining verses. A nasher consists of two rhyming couplets, and one of the pairs often uses a wrenched rhyme (where a word is awkwardly modified to fit the rhyme). The poems are intended to poke fun at serious topics like death, age, marriage troubles, disappointment, and heartache. These lines have no meter and may be any length.
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree Indeed, unless the billboards fall I'll never see a tree at all. --"Song of the Open Road," Ogden Nash |
The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity. He throws open his nest with prodigality, But I distrust his waspitality. -- "The Wasp," Ogden Nash |
The hunter crouches in his blind
'Neath camouflage of every kind. This grown-up man, with pluck and luck is hoping to outwit a duck -- "The Hunter," Ogden Nash |
Oh, weep for Mr. and Mrs. Bryan!
He was eaten by a lion; Following which, the lion's lioness Up and swallowed Bryan's Bryaness. -- "The Lion," Ogden Nash |
TRIVERSEN: This is a modern form created by poet William Carlos Williams and popularized by his poems "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This is Just to Say." The form is simple: the poem has three to ten stanzas, with each stanza consisting of one sentence broken into three lines. The six sentences break down into stanzas this way:
- LINE ONE: an observation or fact
- LINE TWO: imply a condition
- LINE THREE: set a tone
VIATOR: This form was created by Canadian poet Robin Skelton and is named after the Latin word for "traveler." Indeed, this type of poem is about travel with the poet exploring a new place travelled to or reminiscing on a place once travelled. The viator also has a "travelling" line: the first line of the poem, which consist of four quatrains (typically ABBA), becomes the second line of the second stanza, the third line of the third stanza, and the last line of the last stanza.
As shingle slides upon the shore,
the gentle summer night, we stroll. The great bear pointing to the pole as if to prove what stars are for. A far light winks once, then is gone as shingle slides upon the shore; impermanence, we know, is law and, hand in hand, we wander on bemused by moonlight on the sea and troubled by a distant war. As shingle slides upon the shore, I turn to you and you to me. And though above the jet plane roar, the universe has come to be a moon that's mirrored in the sea as shingle slides upon the shore. -- "Dover Beach Revisited," Robin Skelton |
I grew up very near the border with Canada,
and at times I feel Canadian by osmosis. The influences of their media had a profound affect on my upbringing. I remember singing "O Canada" at hocky games (I grew up very near the border with Canada.) or when the games were televised on Saturday night. At the end of the day, I sang both anthems when tehy'd play. Many shows would entertain and remain to, long after I had grown. You would have known I grew up very near the border with Canada by the True North knowledge I would amass. Mow, my attraction is due to may daughter. She married a Canadian gent and went to live in Ottawa in the Great True North. She grew up very near the border with Canada. -- "The True North," Walter J. Wojtanik |
Subgenres of poetry
ARS POETICA: Literally "the art of poetry," ars poetica is a poem on writing poetry. Horace wrote the first ars poetica poem (named, of course, "Ars Poetica") and the tradition has continued since. Examples: "Ars Poetica" (MacLeish), "On Modern Poetry" (Stevens), "The Poet" (Neruda)
BLASON: Poems in the blason tradition praise a women by taking her individual features and creating metaphors for each one of them-- they literally piece a woman into parts. While once very common, these poems are considered sexist and in poor taste in modern context. Examples: "There is a Garden in Her Face" (Campon), “Sonnet 130” (Shakespeare)
BURLESQUE: A burlesque is any imitation of other literary works or of people’s actions and attitudes, and aims to amuse and to ridicule by distortion or by incongruity of style and subject. As an example of the latter, it would be a burlesque of serious poetry to write a very technically correct sonnet about a used tissue; the form is very rigid and demanding, while the subject is not worthy of such attention. Examples: "The Lady's Dressing Room" (Swift--mocks the blason), "Description of a City Shower" (Swift--mocks pastoral poems)
CARPE DIEM: Carpe diem is a Latin phrase roughly meaning "seize the day." In comes from the Odes of Horace, where he wrote "While we speak, time is envious and is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting little in the future." Carpe diem poetry reflects this sentiment of experiencing the wonders of life while young and able, and makes mention of the looming specter of death. Popular carpe diem phrases include "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die" and "YOLO." Examples: "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" (Herrick), "Poem 443" (Dickenson), "Be Drunk" (Baudelaire)
DIDACTIC: A didactic poem is meant to teach the reader something by giving the reader explicit advice. Sometimes the lesson is about the author's life, sometime it is about life in general, and sometimes it is posed as a question for readers to answer. Examples: "Thinking" (Wintle), "Harlem" (Hughes), "The Laughing Heart" (Bukowski)
EKPHRASTIC: Ekphrastic poems are inspired by an object of art. If the errant k in the spelling didn't give it away, this is an ancient Greek subgenre that started with Homer. Modern ekphrastic poetry often centers around a famous painting or artwork. Examples: "The Shield of Achilles" (Auden), "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (Keats), "The Abolition of Reality" (Spatola)
ELEGY (DIRGE): An elegy is a lament for the recently dead, and is a funeral poem. Elegies are not the same as odes (which became more object based) and epitaphs (which are not very long). Traditional elegies cover three stages of loss: a lament of sorrow, then a praise of admiration for the dead, and finally a consolation to others also grieving. Example: “O Captain, My Captain” (Whitman), "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" (Auden), "Fugue of Death" (Paul Celan)
IDYLL: An idyll focuses on rustic country life and how wonderful it is. It is like a pastoral but does not mention the city at all. Idylls are often short and focus on the honest labor of the country. Examples: "Idyll" (Sassoon), "Snowbound" (Whittier), "Late October" (Angelou)
LYRIC: Lyric poetry expresses personal emotions and feelings from a first person perspective. Often, lyrics are admissions of love or betrayal, leading to the term lyric applying in general to the words of a song. Lyrics as a subgenre require a poem has a regular meter. Examples: "Sonnet 18" (Shakespeare), "Mad Girl's Love Song" (Plath), "When You Are Old" (Yeats)
PASTORAL: A pastoral is a poem that praises the country life and rural setting and scorn city life and urbanity; there is praise of nature and a rejection of machines. Pastorals became especially popular during the Enlightenment, Romantic, and Realist periods, as cities started to become the locus of culture and economic survival. Examples: “The Faerie Queene” (Spenser), "Fern Hill" (Thomas), "Country Summer" (Adams)
PAEAN: A paean is poem praising a joyful and triumphant moment or a thanking a patron who has helped one triumph. A form originating from ancient Greece, the poem could be a song or hymn of praise and joy. Examples: "Paean to Place" (Niedecker), "If" (Kipling)
Writing poetry
When writing a poem, start with your conceit. What do you want to say with your poem? What emotion do you want to evoke in the reader? Next, write down all of your ideas and what you want to say about the poem. Next, determine what poetic structure or subgenre above will support your covey your message best. Take your ideas and edit them to conform to the structure, drafting each time to focus on another element (meter, rhyme scheme, enjambment, etc). Remember Williams' rule of "a perfect economy" and cut out all the extra unneeded words.