For Reference: Poetry

1.  Acrostic Poem- Poetry that certain letters, usually the first in each line, form a word or message when read in a sequence.

Example:

                                An Acrostic

Elizabeth it is in vain you say

"Love not"—thou sayest it in so sweet a way:

In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.

Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:

Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,

Breath it less gently forth—and veil thine eyes.

Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried

To cure his love—was cured of all beside—

His folly—pride—and passion—for he died.

                                                                -Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

2.  Ballad- A narrative (tells a story) poem that is about a subject that is very important to the poet.

Example:

The Ballad of Reading Jail

In Reading Jail by Reading town

  There is a pit of shame,

And in it lies a wretched man

  Eaten by teeth of flame,

In a burning winding-sheet he lies,

  And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,

  In silence let him lie:

No need to waste the foolish tear,

  Or heave the windy sigh:

The man had killed the thing he loved,

  And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,

  By all let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

  Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

  The brave man with a sword!

                                -Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

3.  Blank Verse Poem- A poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.[1]

Example:

                                The Second Coming

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre

    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst

    Are full of passionate intensity…

                                                -William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

4.  Burlesque Poem- Poetry that treats a serious subject in a humorous way.

Example:

                                Burlesque

Watch the fire undress him,

how flame fingers each button,

rolls back his collar, unzips him

without sweet talk or mystery.

See how the skin begins to gather

at his ankles, how it slips into

the embers, how it shimmers

beneath him, unshapen, iridescent

as candlelight on a dark negligee.

Come, look at him, at all his goods,

how his whole body becomes song,

an aria of light, a psalm’s kaleidoscope…

                                                -Amaud Jamal Johnson

5.  Carpe Diem Poem- Latin expression that means ‘seize the day.’ Carpe diem poems have a theme of living for today.

Example:

                To the Virgins, to make much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

That glorious lamp of Heaven, the sun,

The higher he’s a-getting

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer,

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry.

                                -Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

6.  Concrete Poem- A poem typed in a way that reveals a shape that the poem focuses on.  This can either be through re-arrangement of letters of a word or by arranging the words as a shape.

Example:

                                                                                        Triangle

I

am

a very

special

shape I have

three points and

three lines straight.

Look through my words

and you will see, the shape

that I am meant to be. I'm just

not words caught in a tangle. Look

close to see a small triangle. My angles

add to one hundred and eighty degrees, you

learn this at school with your abc's. Practice your

math and you will see, some other fine examples of me.

7.  Elegy- A sad and thoughtful poem about the death of an individual or a thing.

Example:

                Elegy of Ages

poets of centuries,

their words ever so

-eloquent

whisper their lives

which

Result in catastrophe

but preserve them forever

-in elegy

                -Sakura Tomoko

8.  Found Poem- Poetry created by taking words, phrases, and passages from other sources and reframing by adding spaces, lines, or by altering the text with additions or subtractions.

Example:

National Laureate                

California

I can stand here all day and tell you how much

I honor, admire, how brave you are.

Nevada

Treat your Mommy nice

and take her to Las Vegas—

she'll think you're swell.

New York

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye.

Oregon

And you pretty much gotta trust Her,

even if that means twiddling your thumbs

while she makes Her way through Her medley—

                - Robert Fitterman

9.  Free verse (vers libre)- Poetry written in either rhyme or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed metrical (rhythmic) pattern.

Example:

                                lifedance

the area dividing the brain and the soul

is affected in many ways by

experience--

some lose all mind and become soul:

insane.

some lose all soul and become mind:

intellectual.

some lose both and become:

accepted.

                                -Charles Bukowski (-1983)

10.  Haiku-  A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, usually dealing with human nature (life) or nature itself.

Example:

Epiphany

Oh, she wants me to

love her the way she would love

her if she was me.

-Kent Foreman

11.  Imagist Poem- A poem that focuses on a specific image or moment and describes it in detail.

Example:

                                The Act

There were the roses in the rain

“Don’t cut them,” I pleaded.

“They won’t last,” she said.

“But they’re so beautiful where they are.”

“Ah, we were all beautiful once.”

And then she cut them

and gave them to me in my hand.

                                -William Carlos Williams

12.  Limerick- A short sometimes vulgar, humorous poem consisting of five anapestic lines (unstressed, unstressed, stressed syllables). Lines 1, 2, and 5 have seven to ten syllables, rhyme and have the same rhythm. The 3rd and 4th lines have five to seven syllables, rhyme and have the same rhythm.

Example:

There was a young man from Japan

    Whose limericks never would scan.

        When asked why this was,

        He replied "It's because

    I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever possibly I can."

13.  Ode- A poem that praises someone or something.

Example:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

                                -Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

14.  Sonnet- A lyric poem that consists of 14 lines which usually have one or more conventional rhyme schemes.  The three main sonnet types are Shakespearean (abab cdcd efef gg), Spenserian (abab bcbc cdcd ee), and Petrarchan (abba abba cde cde).  For the Petrarchan, however, the final six lines can have a varied rhyme scheme.  

Example:

America

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,

And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,

Stealing my breath of life, I will confess

I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!

Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,

Giving me strength erect against her hate.

Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.

Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,

I stand within her walls with not a shred

Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.

Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,

And see her might and granite wonders there,

Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,

Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

-Claude McKay (1889-1948)

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[1] iambic pentameter- There are two kinds of syllables, stressed ( / ) and unstressed (u).  An iamb is an unstressed syllable, so an iambic line starts with an unstressed syllable.  Pentameter means 5 (penta) meters.  A meter is a unit of length for measuring a poetic line.