This week I thought I would take a look at the different types of poems there are, for those of you thinking about venturing into poetry and wanting some inspiration.
I managed to find 33 different types of poetry (most of which I had never even heard of!) and they are: acrostic, ballad, ballade, blank verse, cinquain, diamante, echo verse, epic, epigram, free verse, haiku, horatian ode, irregular ode, kennings, kyrielle, limerick, lyric, ode, ottava rima, pantoum, pindaric ode, renga, riddle, rondeau, senryu, Shakespearean sonnet, shape poem, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, tetractys, triolet, tyburn. Below are some facts about some of the more irregular styles of poetry to get you thinking the different structures a poem can take.
Cinquain:
– As the name might suggest, consists of 5 lines that do not rhyme
– Each line has a set number of syllables that following the structure (2 syllables, 4 syllables, 6 syllables, 8 syllables, 2 syllables.)
Kyrielle:
– Each line has 8 syllables
– There are 4 lines in each stanza (the poetry version of paragraphs)
– Each stanza ends with a refrain (a refrain is a phrase/piece of text that is repeated at intervals throughout the poem)
– This type of poem does rhyme and takes the form of a rhyming couplet.
Ottava Rima:
– Originates from Italy
– Made up of 8 lines which the rhyming structure a,b,a,b,a,b,c,c
– Consists of 11 syllables
Pantoum: (probably was the most difficult to get my head around!)
– In a pantoum, its main feature is that lines have a repetitive structure so the second and fourth line of the first stanza is then repeated in the first and third line of the next stanza
– This pattern is repeated throughout until the final stanza, where the last line of the last stanza is the first line of the first stanza, and the second line of the last stanza is the 3rd line of the first stanza (have you managed to get your head around it yet?!)
Renga:
– Meaning linked, is a poem which is constructed by a pair of group of poets where they take it in turns to compose the lines (one poet writes one stanza, then the next poet writes the next stanza and so on)
– It contains of stanzas alternating between consisting of 3 lines and another which consists of 2 lines
– Stanzas which have 3 lines contain 17 syllables in total which is the same structure as a haiku and the stanzas with 2 lines contain 7 syllables and a rhyming couplet
Tetractys:
– Another poem which only has 5 lines
– There are a set number of syllables for each line, a syllable is added to each line until the last line when there are 10 syllables (so the syllable structure is 1 syllable, 2 syllables, 3 syllables, 4 syllables, 10 syllables)
– You can also have a double tetractys which consists of 10 lines and has the following syllable structure (1 syllable, 2 syllables, 3 syllables, 4 syllables, 10 syllables, 10 syllables, 4 syllables, 3 syllables, 2 syllables, 1 syllable)
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