Types of Poems

Acrostic Acrostic Poetry is where the first letter of each line spells a word, usually using the same words as in the title.

Acrostic Example Devoted,  On  Guard.

BIO POEM A poem written about one’s life, personality traits, and ambitions. (Line 1) First name (Line 2) Three or four adjectives that describe the person (Line 3) Important relationship (daughter of . , mother of . etc) (Line 4) Two or three things, people, or ideas that the person loved (Line 5) Three feelings the person experienced (Line 6) Three fears the person experienced (Line 7) Accomplishments (who composed . . . , who discovered . . . , etc.) (Line 8) Two or three things the person wanted to see happen or wanted to experience (Line 9) His or her residence (Line 10) Last name

Sample Bio Poem Rosa Determined, brave, strong, loving Wife of Raymond Parks, mother of all children Who loved equality, freedom, and the benefits of a good education Whohated discrimination, loved to stand up for her beliefs, and loved to help others Who feared that racism would continue, feared losing the opportunity to make a difference, and feared that young people might lose opportunities to develop strength and courage Who changed history as she accomplished great strides for equality and encouraged excellence for all Who wanted to see love triumph and see an end to all bias and discrimination in a world in which respect is freely given to all Born in Alabama and living in Detroit Parks

Cinquain Cinquain is a 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 cont. Spaghetti Messy, spicy Slurping, sliding, falling Between my plate and mouth Delicious.

Couplets Two lines with ending words that rhyme

Couplets Example "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again!" - Famous nursery rhyme

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

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

Elegy Elegy is a sad and thoughtful poem lamenting the death of a person.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. From Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain”

Epitaph An epitaph is a brief poem inscribed on a tombstone praising a deceased person, usually with rhyming lines.

Epitaph Example What happened to me, was not good, Hit by a car, bounced off the hood, Would get up, if only I could, Now here I lay, where once I stood.

Free Verse Free Verse is an irregular form of poetry in which the content free of traditional rules of versification, (freedom from fixed meter or rhyme). In moving from line to line, the poet's main consideration is where to insert line breaks. Some ways of doing this include breaking the line where there is a natural pause or at a point of suspense for the reader.

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

Free Verse cont. Fog by Carl Sandburg The fog comes on little cat feet.   It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.

Haiku Haiku is an unrhymed Japanese verse consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables (5, 7, 5) or 17 syllables in all. Haiku is usually written in the present tense and focuses on nature.

Haiku Example Over the wintry forest, winds howl in rage with no leaves to blow. ~ Soseki Natsume

Iambic Pentameter Iambic pentameter means that you have 10 syllables in a line, made up of five iambs (unstressed-stressed “feet”) One short syllable followed by one long syllable called a “foot”. la-LAH, la-LAH, la-LAH, la-LAH, la-LAH,

Iambic Pentameter Example from Shakespeare's second sonnet: "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow.“ When for / ty win / ters shall / be seige / thy brow 

Limerick A short humorous poem consisting of five anapestic lines. (Two unaccented syallables followed by one accented syallable.)

Limerick Example There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!'

Quatrain A Quatrain is a stanza or poem of four lines, the four lines can be written in any rhyme scheme. Lines 2 and line 4 must have a similar number of syllables.

Quatrain Poem Example Donna Brock's “The Mountain” The mountain frames the sky  (a)  As a shadow of an eagle flies by. (a)  With clouds hanging at its edge  (b)  A climber proves his courage on its rocky ledge. (b)

Sensory A poem written to express sensory experiences. May or may not follow a rhyme scheme One possible pattern: Pattern: Line 1—Name an emotion or feeling. Finish the line with a color word. Line 2—Tell what it sounds like. Line 3—Tell what it smells like. Line 4—Tell what it tastes like. Line 5—Tell what it looks like. Line 6—Tell what it feels like.

Sensory Poem Example Happiness is hot pink. It sounds like the Fourth of July. It smells like chocolate-chip cookies. It tastes like strawberries. It looks like a rainbow. Happiness feels like a hug.

Shape Poetry Poetry can take on many formats, but one of the most inventive forms is for the poem to take 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 Poetry Example

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

The following English sonnet was written by William Shakespeare and is number 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 wander'st 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.  

Tercet Three lines with the first two rhyming.

Tercet Example And she swatted a fly on her nose. The old woman wrinkled her toes, And she swatted a fly on her nose. Then she kept rocking in her chair.

Visual The visual arrangement of text, images, and symbols to help convey the meaning of the work. Visual poetry is sometimes referred to as a type of concrete poetry.

Visual Poem Example