THE MANY FORMS OF POETRY
Introduction
There are two main forms of poetry, closed
form and open form…
Closed Form
Open Form
-characterized by patterns
(stanza length, verse, rhyme,
meter, syllables)
-the content fits into the form
-haiku
-sonnets
-sestina
-ballad
-villanelle
-”Follows RULES”
-characterized by the lack of
pattern
-the content determines the
form
-punctuation, line breaks,
white space is very important
-free verse
-concrete poems
-shaped poems
-”no RULES”
Rhyme Scheme
regular pattern of rhyme, one that is
consistent throughout the extent of the poem
The following short poem illustrates the labeling of a rhyme
scheme.
There once was a big brown cat
That liked to eat a lot of mice.
He got all round and fat
Because they tasted so nice.
This rhyme scheme is abab
a
b
a
b
Stanzas
A group of lines in poetry…looks like a paragraph
 2 line stanzas: couplets
 3 line stanzas (tercets)
 triplets: aaa bbb ccc ddd
 terza rima: aba bcb cdc ded
 4 line stanzas: quatrains
 5 line stanzas: quintets
 6 line stanzas: sestets
 7 line stanzas: septets
 8 line stanzas: octaves
Couplets-
2 line stanzas
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
William Carlos Williams
Free Verse
Follows no rules….writer just speaks
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun -- hark to the
musical clank
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink,
Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the
negligent rest on the saddles.
Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford -while,
Scarlet and blue and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.
Walt Whitman, 1865
Concrete Poems
Words create picture, more a visual than a
literary form, related to “Pop Art”
I

<')))><ing.
Billy Eckles
Dusk
Above the
water hang the
loud
flies
Here
O so
gray
then
What
A pale signal will appear
When
Soon before its shadow fades
Where
Here in this pool of opened eye
In us
No Upon us As at the very edges
of where we take shape in the dark air
this object bares its image awakening
ripples of recognition that will
brush darkness up into light
even after this bird this hour both drift by atop the perfect sad instant now
already passing out of sight
toward yet-untroubled reflection
this image bears its object darkening
into memorial shades Scattered bits of
light
No of water Or something across
water
Breaking up No Being regathered
soon
Yet by then a swan will have
gone
Yes out of mind into what
vast
pale
hush
Swan and Shadow
of a
place
John Hollander
past
sudden dark as
if a swan
sang
Shaped Poems
Create a picture or visual pattern
Content is more
important than shape
Content follows general
grammatical rules
Shape complements
content of poem
Haiku
 Japanese
 Syllabic poetry:
Silent and still: then
Even sinking into rocks,
The cicada’s screech
Basho
17 syllables
 1st line – 5 syllables
 2nd line -- 7 syllables
All night this headland
 3rd line -- 5 syllables
Lunges into the rumpling
 Seasonal reference
Capework of the wind
Richard Wilbur
Limerick
Gervaise
There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez
 5 line nonsense poem
When comment arose
 First line ends in proper On the state of her clothes
name of place or person She drawled, When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez!
Ogden Nash
 Rhyme: aabba
There was a young woman named Plunnery
Who rejoiced in the practice of gunnery
Till one day unobservant
She blew up a servant
And was forced to retire to a nunnery.
Edward Gorey
Ballad
 English
 Narrative (tells a
story)
 4 line stanzas
 Rhymes
 abab or
 abcb
I'll tell a tale, a thrilling tale of love beyond compare
I knew a lad not long ago more gorgeous than any I've
seen.
And in his eyes I found my self a'falling in love with the
swain.
Oh, the glorious fellow I met by the ocean with eyes of
deep-sea green!
He was a rugged sailor man with eyes of deep-sea
green,
And I a maid, a tavern maid! Whose living was serving
beer.
So with a kiss and with a wave, off on his boat he sailed
And left me on the dock, the theif! Without my heart,
oh dear!
And with a heart that's lost at sea, I go on living still.
I still am now still serving beer in that tavern by the sea.
And though the pay check's still the same, the money
won't go as far
For now I feed not just myself, but my little one and
me!
So let that be a lesson, dear, and keep your heart safely
hid.
I gave mine to a sailing thief with gorgeous eyes of
green.
Save yours for a sweeter lad who makes the land his
home.
Ah me! If only I'd never met that sailor by the sea!
-- Lonnie Adrift
Sonnet
 Italian origin
 Lyric (expresses
personal and
emotional feelings)
 Does not rhyme
 14 lines
"London, 1802"
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
by Dylan Thomas
Villanelle
 French origin
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
 Stanzas and Rhyme
 5 tercets:
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
aba aba aba aba aba Their
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 1 quatrain: abaa
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
 Line Repetition
Do not go gentle into that good night.
 1, 6, 12, 18
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
 3, 9, 15, 19
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Sestina
 French origin
 Stanzas:
Here in this bleak city of Rochester,
Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow,"
Not all of them polite, the wayward mind
Basks in some Yucatan of its own making,
Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon island
Alive with lemon tints and burnished natives,
And O that we were there. But here the natives
 6 sestets
Of this grey, sunless city of Rochester
 1 tercet
Have sown whole mines of salt about their land
 Repetition and linking: (Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snow
a/b/c/d/e/f
f/a/e/b/d/c
c/f/d/a/b/e
e/c/b/f/a/d
d/e/a/c/f/b
b/d/f/e/c/a
ba/dc/fe
 Atmosphere ranges from
cozy to claustrophobic
Comes down as if The Flood were in the making.
Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind
An ark sets forth which is itself the mind,
Bound for some pungent green, some shore
whose
natives
Blend coriander, cayenne, mint in making
Roasts that would gladden the Earl of Rochester
With sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.
It might be well to remember that an island
From "Sestina d'Inverno" by Anthony Hecht