As you probably already know, there are a ton of different types of poetry, just like there are a million types of every other kind of art. Here’s a quick rundown of the ten most common types or forms of poetry:
ABC poem – An ABC poem has five lines. The first line begins with any letter of the alphabet (usually but not always A) and the subsequent four lines start with the next letters of the alphabet. In other words, each line is in alphabetical order. Each line is a word or phrase. Here’s an example:
Ants,
Bees, and
Caterpillars
Definitely aren’t very
Edible.
Acrostic – An acrostic is a poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word (usually a word that is alluded to or related to in the poem itself). It has no set form in terms of number of lines or syllables. Here’s Edgar Allen Poe’s “An Acrostic”:
Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.
Ballad - A poem that tells a story such as folk tail or legend. There is often a repeated refrain.
Free Verse - A free verse poem has no parameters; there doesn’t have to be any rhyming, there’s no meter, no number of set lines, no number of syllables, nothing.
Haiku – Haikus are simple enough in theory. They are three lines long and each line has to have a certain number of syllables. The first line has 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables, and the third line 5 syllables. Here’s a sample haiku by Tristan Higbee called “Italy”:
Europe’s sexy leg
dangles in the pool, waiting.
How can I resist?
Limerick – A limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth usually having eight or nine syllables and rhyming with one another, and the third and fourth usually having five or six syllables, and rhyming separately. Limericks are usually funny and/or obscene. Here is a famous limerick:
There was an old man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
His daughter, named Nan,
ran away with a man.
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
Ode – Odes are long, typically serious poems that are written in a set style and relatively rigid format. Perhaps the most famous ode is John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”. It’s a long poem, so click here to download a printable PDF version.
Quatrain – A quatrain is a single-stanza poem with four lines and rhyme. It doesn’t really matter which lines rhyme; there are lots of options here. Here is a quatrain by Emily Dickinson:
The Riddle we can guess
We speedily despise –
Not anything is stale so long
As Yesterday’s surprise.
Sonnet - A poem that is 14 lines long that usually has a conventional rhyme scheme.
Tanka – A Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables and the other seven. So it’s like a haiku with two more 7-syllable lines tacked on to the end.
