Poetry Verse Forms

The Villanelle at a Glance It is a poem of nineteen lines It has five stanza, each of three lines, with a final one of four lines The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas. The two refrain lines follow each other to become the second-to-last lines of the poem. The rhyme scheme is aba.

Notes about the Villanelle The repetition does not lend this poem to narrative. It generally does not tell a story. The repetition does lend itself to portraying emotions.

The Sestina at a Glance Thirty nine lines Six stanza of six lines each Stanza followed by an envoi of three lines Unrhymed The same six end-words must occur in every stanza but in a changing order that follow a set pattern. (lexical repitition) Each stanza must follow on the last by taking a reversed pairing of the previous lines. First line of second stanza must pair its end-words with the last line of the first. The second line of the second stanza must do this with the first line and so on. The envoi, or last three lines, must gather up and use all six end words.

Notes on the Sestina The amount of repetition builds up as the poems continues. The repetition of words (instead of lines) make the poem like a game of meaning. Sestinas are perfect for the witty poet. The history of this form comes from French court poets who sang their poems for French nobles. They competed to make the wittiest, most elaborate and difficult styles.

More notes on the Sestina Lends itself to ordinary speech, which makes it really liked by modern poets. Often is circular, so not good for a narrative.

Pantoum at a Glance Each pantoum stanza must be four lines long. The length is unspecified but the pantoum must begin and end with the same line. The second and fourth lines of the first quatrain become the first and third lines of the next, and so on with succeeding quatrains The rhyming of each quatrain is abab. The final quatrain changes this pattern. In the final quatrain the unrepeated first and third lines are used in reverse as second and fourth lines.

Notes on the Pantoum Unusual among strict forms of verse because it can be any length. Slowest of all verse forms because it takes four steps forward and the two steps back. Perfect form for evoking times past.

Some more vocabulary: Meter – the Greek word for measure—it is a way to measure poems, and most often refers to the stresses in a poem’s line. Feet—patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. Iambic – a foot with the stress pattern of a short stress followed by a long stess.

Ballads at a Glance It is a short narrative, which is usually—but not always—arranged in quatrains with a distinctive and memorable meter. The usual ballad meter is a first and thrid line with four stresses—iambic tetrameter—and then a second and fourth line with three stresses—iambic trimeter. The rhyme scheme is abab or abcb. The subject matter is distinctive: almost always communal stories about lost love, supernatual happenings, or recent events. The ballad maker uses popular and local speech and dialogue often and vividly to convey the story. This is especially a feature of early ballads.

Sonnets at a Glance Poem of fourteen lines, usually iambic There are two kinds of sonnet, with very different histories and forms: the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean. The Petrarchan sonnet is Italian in origin, has an octave of eight lines and a sestet of six. The rhyme scheme of the octave is ababcdcd and sestet is cdecde.

Sonnets at a Glance (cont.) The Shakespearean sonnet was developed in Engla nd and has far more than just surface differences from the Petrarchan. The rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean sonnet is ababcdcdefefgg. There is no octave/sestet structure to it. The final couplet is a defining feature.