|
|
"A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words." --William Carlos Williams
This page is and was inspired by the 7th grade literature class I teach. During the semester, we will cover a variety of poems and poetical forms, and as it seems miserable that my research should go to waste, the following page and links are, although works in progress, a part of my valiant attempt to organize my thoughts and research coherently.
Please avoid the old and unupdated Poetry List until the bookworm has tempered it with an update or ten. The Bookworm's own pitiful attempts at poetry can also be found on this website in the Spiral Notebook section.
| Lyric | Narrative | ||||
| Couplet Although couplets are found all through poetry, two of their most common uses are as heroic couplets in epics and similarly "noble" texts, and in the oft-witty and occasionally-rhyming epigrams by many authors. | Quatrain | Cinquain | |||
| Ballad The ballad is a vibrant poem generally intended to be sung, or to feel as though it could be sung. Traditionally, each stanza is a quatrain alternating lines of three and four feet, and the tone may be satiric, heroic, or romantic. Sometimes presented and learned orally, the ballad is most often a narrative poem used to vividly describe an event or situaion, from battles to breakups. | Chorus | Nursery Rhyme | |||
| Epic | Ode There are three main kinds of odes; Pindaric, Horatian, and irregular. | Elegy Although the ancient elegy was thus named for its elegaiac meter (alternating pentameter and hexameter), the modern elegy is a loose poetical form defined not by meter and rhyme but by content and style. Traditionally, it begins with an invocation of the muses or a praise of the subject, then is followed by expressions of grief, various reminiscences, a description of the mourners or the funeral, adulation of the subject, and occasionally the perpetual question of "why do good things happen to bad people?" Considering the subject and purpose of the elegy, it is necessary but probably redundant to mention that it often takes a mournful tone. | |||
| Dramatic Monologue | Idyll/Pastoral Idyll and Pastoral poems are less characterized by a set form or meter and more by the mood of a poem: they commonly depict pastoral or country scenes and ususlly idealize these to extremes (consequently, such poems are usually more lyric than narrative). A few counter-pastoral poems can be found in the responses by Raleigh and Donne to Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd poem. | Villanelle | |||
| Light Verse | Free Verse | Blank Verse | |||
| Sonnet (4 kinds) | |||||
| Limerick | Haiku The haiku is a form of poetry adapted from Japanese literature, which is unfortunate only because the greatest works in this form are far less striking in translation. It is one of the shortest poetical forms, having only three lines and seventeen syllables altogether, but the conciseness this forces makes it an excellent poetical exercise. The first and third lines are five syllables each, with a line of seven sandwiched in the middle. In theory, the swift poem is supposed to capture an entire mood, feeling, or circumstance. | Epigram | |||
| Terza Rima | Ottava Rima | ||||
| Sapphic | Rondeau | Sestina | |||
| Triolet The traditional triolet is a poem of eight lines in which the first, fourth, and seventh lines are identical (although usually with a different intent) and the second and eighth lines are likewise identical. The other lines are used to intensify the poem so that the recurring lines change in mood or intent. The form was first developed in medieval France; the first triolets in the English language are said to have been written as devotionals by the Benedictine monk Patrick Carey (also spelled Cary). | Englynion | ||||
| Kyrielle | Ballade | ||||
| Chant Royal | Rhyme Royal | ||||