Common Poetic Forms

Villanelle

5 tercets (3 line stanzas) with ABA rhyme scheme. Followed by 1 quatrain (4 line stanza) with ABAA rhyme scheme. The first and third lines of the tercet are alternately repeated as the last lines of the remaining stanzas.

Sonnet

A 14 line poem with a specific rhyme scheme. Each type of sonnet follows a different rhyming scheme.

Cinquain

A 5 line poem that follows a specific format

Diamante

A 7 line poem that looks like a diamond. It does not have to rhyme.

Tanka

A Japanese form of poetry that follows a syllable format. This poem is composed of 5 lines. Lines 1 and 3 have 5 syllables. Lines 2, 4, and 5 contain 7 syllables each.

Pantoum

A poem that uses a lot of repetition.

Ballad poem

A popular narrative song passed down orally. In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (abcb) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines.

Limerick

A short, humorous poem that follows a determined rhyme scheme of AABBA. This five line poem also follows a syllable count.

Free Verse

These poems do not follow any rules. Their creation is completely in the hands of the author.

Haiku

This is a form of Japanese poetry that follows a specific syllable pattern. It's made up of 3 lines, consisting of 17 syllables in total and are usually about a specific part of nature.

Acrostic

Is a form of poetry where the first or last letters of each line create a name, word, or phrase.

Emotion Poem

Is used to describe various emotions, good or bad, using descriptive language.

Bio Poem

Is used to reveal information to the reader about the poet.

Concrete Poem

Is written in a way that the words create the shape of the subject of the poem.

ABC

Poem Each line of this poem begins with a letter in the alphabet, starting with A and moving in order through Z.

Narrative Poem

Tells the story of an event in the form of a poem.