This information was found on poets.org, the website of the Academy of American Poets.
See below for descriptions and examples of popular poetic forms. This information is from poets.org, the website of the Academy of American Poets.
The abecedarian is an ancient poetic form guided by alphabetical order. Generally each line or stanza begins with the first letter of the alphabet and is followed by the successive letter, until the final letter is reached.
"Abecedarian for the Dangerous Animals" by Catherine Pierce
All frantic and drunk with new warmth, the bees
buzz and blur the holly bush.
Come see.
Don’t be afraid. Or do, but
everything worth admiring can sting or somber.
The acrostic is a form in which names or words are spelled out through the first letter of each line.
"A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky" by Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July—
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
The ballade is a formal French form of poetry, comprising three main stanzas and a shorter final stanza. The first three stanzas have the same rhyme structure, and all four stanzas have the same final refrain.
"Ballade at Thirty-Five" by Dorothy Parker
This, no song of an ingénue,
This, no ballad of innocence;
This, the rhyme of a lady who
Followed ever her natural bents.
This, a solo of sapience,
This, a chantey of sophistry,
This, the sum of experiments,—
I loved them until they loved me.
Decked in garments of sable hue,
Daubed with ashes of myriad Lents,
Wearing shower bouquets of rue,
Walk I ever in penitence.
Oft I roam, as my heart repents,
Through God’s acre of memory,
Marking stones, in my reverence,
“I loved them until they loved me.”
The blazon is a form of poetry that describes the physical features or attributes of the poem's subject, usually in a romantic way.
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)" by William Shakespeare
Note -- this sonnet acts as a parody of the blazon, also called a contreblazon
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
The blues poem is a form based on African American oral traditions. It often deals with themes of struggle and may follow a form in which a statement is repeated in different ways throughout the poem.
"I've Got the Covid Blues" by Tony Medina
I got the Covid blues
Hazmat outfit to read the news
I gots that damn viral blues
Mystifying perspiring invisible shit
Blowing through the wind like
Yesterday’s news blues
I can’t think breathe or snooze
I gots the rumble rumble chest-rattly
Bubble gut blues
I’ve been sanitized ostracized hydrogen peroxide
Cleaner than hospital sheet blues
My tears are sterilized
My fears capsized spilling
Out over my broke bedtime blues
So much so I’m afraid
To read the news
The bop is a poetic form comprising three stanza, each ending with the same refrain and each serving a different purpose.
"Rambling" by Afaa Michael Weaver
In general population, census
is consensus—ain't nowhere to run
to in these walls, walls like a mind—
We visitors stand in a yellow circle
so the tower can frisk us with light,
finger the barrels on thirsty rifles.
I got rambling, rambling on my mind
In general population, madness runs
swift through the river changing, changing
in hearts, men tacked in their chairs,
resigned to hope we weave into air,
talking this and talking that and one brutha
asks Tell us how to get these things
They got, these houses, these cars.
We want the real revolution. Things...
I got rambling, got rambling on my mind
The cento is a form of poetry wherein the poem is made up solely of lines from works by other creators. Also called a "collage poem," it is from the Latin word for "patchwork."
"Google Cento" by Danielle Mitchell, a cento composed of Google search results for Kim Kardashian
Enter: kim kardashian body
If you know nothing else about Kim Kardashian,
you know that she is an actual woman, a physical body:
5 feet 2 inches, 130 pounds, 38-26-42, 34D
Kim Kardashian is queen of her self-made kingdom
Kim Kardashian’s Entire Body Is Naked in These Paper Photos
The contrapuntal poem consists of two separate poems woven together. A key characteristic of the contrapuntal is that its position on the page affects how it is read and contributes to the meaning of the poem.
"Elastic Love Contrapuntal" by Sarah Cooper
The subject of lesbianism is very ordinary […]
— Judy Grahn
in darkness of March’s midnight she is eyes:
moon rays rebound lake ripples to eggplant purple walls
your hands find her body face lies upturned, opened
smaller than weeks prior. She knows you prefer protruding hip bones,
feels hungered for by you, not memory of the boy, her brother
diaphragms guttural groan, cold in body bag not on pleated comforter,
you’ve described your favorite body your type as “heroin skinny”
she knows you like the ripples of her torso but before you knew her brother
also concave trajectory to pelvis bones as drug addict,
loving you is an argument with the impossible.
The doha is a form common in Hindi poetry. It consists of rhyming couplets, each 24 syllables.
"Doha 6" by Tulsidas
Ram naam mani deep dharoo jih dehari dwar|
Tulsi bheeter bahrao jo chahasi ujiyar||
(If one follows principles laid down by Lord Rama then one can see the light of both the worlds.)
The duplex is a form comprising seven couplets. The last line of each couplet is echoed in the first line of the following couplet, and each line is nine-eleven syllables long.
"Duplex for the Sick & Tired" by Kay Ulanday Barrett
A poem can spasm, stretch, but it can let salve in.
There aren’t enough pages for the longing.
There aren’t enough pages for the longing
drenched in medicine bottles and ice packs.
Drenched in medicine bottles and ice packs,
our aches sing beyond joints and stethoscopes in denial.
Those who sing beyond joints and stethoscopes in
denial, how do the symptoms stack your days?
The elegy is a poetic form used to express grief or loss.
"How could I have known I would need to remember your laughter," by Lauren K. Alleyne
the way it ricocheted—a boomerang flung
from your throat, stilling the breathless air.
How you were luminous in it. Your smile. Your hair
tossed back, flaming. Everyone around you aglow.
How I wanted to live in it those times it ignited us
into giggles, doubling us over aching and unmoored
for precious minutes from our twin scars—
the thorned secrets our tongues learned too well
to carry. It is impossible to imagine you gone,
dear one, your laugh lost to some silence I can’t breach,
from which you will not return.
Erasure is a type of "found poetry" in which the poet erases or blacks out parts of an existing text to create a new work.
"Poem in Which Words Have Been Left Out" by Charles Jensen
—The "Miranda Rights," established 1966
You have the right to remain
anything you can and will be.
An attorney you cannot afford
will be provided to you.
You have silent will.
You can be against law.
You cannot afford one.
Exquisite corpse is a collaborative poetry game in which each player writes a word on a piece of paper, folds the paper to hide the word, and then passes the paper along to the next player to add a word.
This exquisite corpse poem was created by the staff at the Academy of American Poets. Learn more here.
Slung trousers melt in a roseate box.
A broken calendar oscillates like sunny tin.
The craven linden growls swimmingly. Blowfish.
A glittering roof slaps at crazy ephemera.
Found poetry is a form of poetry in which existing texts are refashioned into a new work. Erasure poetry and centos are types of found poetry.
"An Unemployed Machinist" by John Giorno
An unemployed
machinist
An unemployed machinist
who travelled
here
who travelled here
from Georgia
from Georgia 10 days ago
10 days ago
and could not find
a job
The ghazal is a structured poetic form consisting of five to fifteen couplets. The lines must be the same length, and there are rules governing the use of refrain and rhyme scheme throughout the poem.
"Even the Rain" by Agha Shahid Ali
What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain.
“Our glosses / wanting in this world”—“Can you remember?”
Anyone!—“when we thought / the poets taught” even the rain?
After we died—That was it!—God left us in the dark.
The golden shovel poem is a form that uses one line of poetry from another poem. Each line of the golden shovel poem ends with a word from the source poem.
"Golden Shovel: at the Lake’s Shore, I Sit with His Sister, Resting" by Sasha Pimentel
Lost softness softly makes a trap for us.
—Gwendolyn Brooks
Michael’s skin splinters below the water’s line, his navel and all murky and lost
like a city from my old life, or that scarf I’d loved, the softness
with which we sink into what disappears, and the country of his groin and knees so softly
already blackened. His sister snores below my hands. Her mouth makes
tadpoles. Her breath wet from chemotherapy, I’ve massaged her a-
sleep. Her shoulders swell their small tides. The air burns leaves. I want to want to trap
her sighs, dividing the stillness, in glass, to a Mason jar: breath like smoke against a window—: for
this man halved by water. But we sit in sun and grit, watch the waves which lose us.
The haibun is a Japanese form of poetry that combines prose and haiku poetry. The prose portion of the poem usually comes before the haiku and describes an environment.
"Forsythe Avenue Haibun" by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Only a few people and three alley cats remember when the house was gray, not yellow. A pair of empty swing sets at the schoolyard rock themselves to sleep for a late-afternoon nap. A blue dog used to trot on top of little ginkgo fans confettied on the sidewalk like he showed up too late to a parade. Farther down the avenue is a baby who seems to lose her pacifier each day around seven o’clock. Tulip bulbs that a girl once planted and sprinkled with pepper flakes have all been scratched up by brave squirrels who now strut the street with tiny blistered mouths. When they chew chickadee wing in their wet, hot mouths, the alley cats become accomplices. This is her legacy. Her footprints are everywhere:
every gate is her
red mouth on fire—birds want
to speak but cannot
The haiku is a traditional Japanese form of poetry. It consists of seventeen syllables divided among three lines in a five-seven-five pattern. Haikus are often about nature, and they are known for their simplicity and directness.
"Haiku [for you]" by Sonia Sanchez
love between us is
speech and breath. loving you is
a long river running.
Hudibrastic verse is a humorous form of poetry consisting of eight-syllable lines and rhyming couplets.
"A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General" by Jonathan Swift
His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he’s gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He’d wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we’re told?
Iambic pentameter is a poetic meter. Each line consists of ten syllables divided into five pairs. In each pair, the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is stressed. William Shakespeare is well known for using iambic pentameter in his works.
"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore (Sonnet 60)" by William Shakespeare
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
The limerick is known for being a comical, whimsical form of poetry found frequently in children's literature. It comprises at least one stanza of five lines and adheres to a strict meter and rhyme scheme.
"There was an Old Man with a beard" by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared!--
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!"
The litany is a poetic form that makes use of repetition and often resembles a prayer or supplication.
"litany" by Mahogany L. Brown
today i am a black woman in america
& i am singing a melody ridden lullaby
it sounds like:
the gentrification of a brooklyn stoop
the rent raised three times my wages
the bodega and laundromat burned down on the corner
the people on the corner
each lock & key their chromosomes
a note of ash & inquiry on their tongues
The madrigal is an Italian form of poetry that typically consists of two to three stanzas of three lines each, each line with seven to eleven syllables, and ending with a rhyming couplet (although most modern writers no longer include the couplet).
"Tomorrow Is the Marriage Day" by Thomas Weelkes
Tomorrow is the marriage day
Of Mopsus and fair Philida.
Come shepherds, bring your garlands gay.
O do not weep, fair Bellamour,
Though he be gone there's many more.
For love hath many loves in store.
The pantoum is a form of poetry in which a poem comprises four-line stanzas. The length of the poem is not specified, but the second and fourth lines of a stanza must be the first and third lines of the following stanza.
"Sleepless Pantoum" by Laurel Nakanishi
The ʻōlauniu breeze lifts voices from the night.
Dogs curl under their houses. The city
burns to the shore, red with distant industry.
Awake, my baby’s eyes are two dark moons.
Even the dogs curl into sleep. Even the city.
We watch the headlights swipe past our window.
Awake, my baby’s eyes are two dark moons
or their eclipse—night opening to night.
A renga is a collaborative poem written in stanzas. The first author writes a stanza of three lines and seventeen syllables, and the next author writes a couplet with seven syllables per line. The renga continues in this pattern for an unspecified number of stanzas and couplets.
"Renga for Obama" curated by Major Jackson and published by the Harvard Review Online is a celebration of former President Barack Obama, composed of stanzas contributed by the public.
Healing in winter
Lava-flower tea—its wood
Endures like laurel.
Island-born, cool lava-bloom.
You. Presiding, laurel-crowned.
a helicopter
lifts from winter lawns—yet your
verdant hope keeps on
the snow conceals a future
hatch of shadow dragonflies
A riddle is a short poem that usually poses a question.
"A Riddle" by William Cowper
I am just two and two, I am warm, I am cold,
And the parent of numbers that cannot be told.
I am lawful, unlawful -- a duty, a fault,
I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought;
An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course,
And yielded with pleasure when taken by force.
The rondeau is a French form of poetry composed of rhyming stanzas in groups of five, four, and six lines, respectively.
"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties,
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
The Sapphic is an ancient Greek form of poetry. Sapphic poems are composed of any number of four-line stanzas.
[In my eyes he matches the gods] by Sappho, translated from Greek by Jim Powell
In my eyes he matches the gods, that man who
sits there facing you--any man whatever--
listening from closeby to the sweetness of your
voice as you talk, the
sweetness of your laughter: yes, that--I swear it--
sets the heart to shaking inside my breast, since
once I look at you for a moment, I can't
speak any longer,
The Sijo is a Korean poetic form typically comprising 44-46 syllables in three or six lines. Each line usually has a pause somewhere near the middle.
"2060" by U Tak, translated from Korean by Jaihiun Kim
The spring breeze melted away the snow
on the hills and was quickly gone without a trace
Would that I borrowed it briefly
to blow through my hair;
I wish to blow away the ageing frost
thickening behind my ears.
The sonnet is a classical form of poetry traditionally composed in iambic pentameter. There are different types of sonnets, and they usually contain 14 lines.
[Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find] by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find
The roots of last year’s roses in my breast;
I am as surely riper in my mind
As if the fruit stood in the stalls confessed.
Laugh at the unshed leaf, say what you will,
Call me in all things what I was before,
A flutterer in the wind, a woman still;
I tell you I am what I was and more.
My branches weigh me down, frost cleans the air.
My sky is black with small birds bearing south;
Say what you will, confuse me with fine care,
Put by my word as but an April truth,—
Autumn is no less on me that a rose
Hugs the brown bough and sighs before it goes.
The tanka is a traditional Japanese form of poetry similar to a haiku. Contemporary tankas usually consist of five lines with a 5/7/5/7/7 syllable pattern.
"Tanka" by Sadakichi Hartmann
Were we able to tell
When old age would come our way,
We would muffle the bell,
Lock the door and go away—
Let him call some other day.
Terza rima is an Italian form of poetry using three-line stanzas with a specific rhyme scheme. When written in English, iambic pentameter is often used.
"Acquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
The triolet is a French form of poetry. A triolet is made up of eight lines with a particular rhyme and repetition scheme, wherein the first line is repeated in lines four and seven, and the second line is repeated in line eight.
"How Great My Grief" by Thomas Hardy
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
- Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Nor memory shaped old times anew,
Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee?
The villanelle is a poem consisting of five three-lines stanzas and one four-line stanza. It adheres to a rigid repetition pattern and rhyme scheme.
"Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas
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.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The zuihitsu is a Japanese form of poetry that typically relays the author's personal thoughts and reflections in a mix of prose and poetry.
"Nouns That Have a Religious Quality" by Kimiko Hahn
The most important object in our whole apartment is a stack of flat stones or a single plain stone around which I tie a tiny bib. R asked why I have such things in several nooks and I told him about Jizo. How they are the Buddhist patron saint of children—hence the bib. We stack stones to help the babies who do not make it to the afterlife and whose task it is to do so.
More than blood—cerise, maroon, scarlet, vermillion.
More than blood and more than incense, incensed.