Poetry forms

Lines

14: three quatrains and a closing couplet.

Meter

Iambic pentameter: five da‑DUM beats, ten syllables a line.

Rhyme

A new pair of rhymes in each quatrain, then a rhyming couplet.

The turn

The couplet usually concludes, or turns against, what the quatrains have built.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
…
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

Shakespearean sonnet
14 lines of iambic pentameter (10 syllables)

a __________________________
b __________________________
a __________________________
b __________________________

c __________________________
d __________________________
c __________________________
d __________________________

e __________________________
f __________________________
e __________________________
f __________________________

g __________________________  (the turn)
g __________________________

Written one? Check it in the meter counter: it counts the syllables and letters the rhymes.

Lines

14: an octave of eight lines and a sestet of six.

Meter

Iambic pentameter in English (Petrarch wrote in Italian eleven-syllable lines).

Rhyme

Only two rhymes in the octave; the sestet runs cdecde or cdcdcd.

The turn

The volta comes between the eighth and ninth lines, where the sestet answers the octave.

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet never did I breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Petrarchan sonnet
14 lines of iambic pentameter (10 syllables)

Octave (the problem or question)
a __________________________
b __________________________
b __________________________
a __________________________
a __________________________
b __________________________
b __________________________
a __________________________

Sestet (the answer; the turn comes here)
c __________________________
d __________________________
e __________________________
c __________________________
d __________________________
e __________________________

Written one? Check it in the meter counter: it counts the syllables and letters the rhymes.

Lines

19: five tercets and a closing quatrain.

Refrains

Line 1 (A1) returns as lines 6, 12 and 18; line 3 (A2) as lines 9, 15 and 19, so the two refrains end the poem as a couplet.

Rhyme

Only two rhyme sounds in the whole poem.

Meter

Not fixed by the form.

They are all gone away,
  The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
  The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.

Villanelle
19 lines: two refrains (A1, A2), two rhymes (a, b)

A1 ________________  (refrain 1)
b  __________________________
A2 ________________  (refrain 2)

a  __________________________
b  __________________________
A1 (repeat refrain 1)

a  __________________________
b  __________________________
A2 (repeat refrain 2)

a  __________________________
b  __________________________
A1 (repeat refrain 1)

a  __________________________
b  __________________________
A2 (repeat refrain 2)

a  __________________________
b  __________________________
A1 (repeat refrain 1)
A2 (repeat refrain 2)

Written one? Check it in the meter counter: it counts the syllables and letters the rhymes.

Lines

3, unrhymed.

Syllables

5, 7 and 5 in the traditional pattern, seventeen in all.

Subject

Traditionally a fleeting moment in a particular season, read in one breath.

In English

Japanese counts sound units (on), not syllables, so translations and many English haiku break the 5-7-5 pattern.

An ancient pond!
With a sound from the water
Of the frog as it plunges in.

Haiku
3 lines, 5-7-5 syllables, unrhymed

________________  (5 syllables)
__________________________  (7 syllables)
________________  (5 syllables)

Written one? Check it in the meter counter: it counts the syllables and letters the rhymes.

Lines

5.

Rhyme

Lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme; lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other. The last line may repeat the first.

Rhythm

Bouncing anapests (da-da-DUM): three beats in lines 1, 2 and 5, two in the shorter lines 3 and 4.

Tone

Comic, light verse.

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!”

Limerick
5 lines, aabba, anapests (da-da-DUM)

a __________________________  (3 beats)
a __________________________  (3 beats)
b ________________  (2 beats)
b ________________  (2 beats)
a __________________________  (3 beats)

Written one? Check it in the meter counter: it counts the syllables and letters the rhymes.

Lines

39: six stanzas of six lines and a three-line envoi.

End words

The six words that end the lines of stanza 1 end every stanza’s lines, in a new order each time (each stanza takes the last word, then the first, then the fifth, the second, the fourth and the third of the one before).

Envoi

Three lines ending E, C, A (or A, C, E), with B, D and F inside them, so all six words appear.

Rhyme and meter

None required: the repeated words do the work.

Speakin’ in general, I ’ave tried ’em all—
The ’appy roads that take you o’er the world.
Speakin’ in general, I ’ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get ’ence, the same as I ’ave done,
An’ go observin’ matters till they die.

Sestina
6 stanzas of 6 lines and a 3-line envoi

Your six end words:
A ________  B ________  C ________
D ________  E ________  F ________

End words, line by line:
Stanza 1:  A  B  C  D  E  F
Stanza 2:  F  A  E  B  D  C
Stanza 3:  C  F  D  A  B  E
Stanza 4:  E  C  B  F  A  D
Stanza 5:  D  E  A  C  F  B
Stanza 6:  B  D  F  E  C  A
Envoi:     E  C  A  (B, D, F inside the lines)

Write over the blanks, keeping the pattern of repeated words or lines.

Stanzas

Quatrains, as many as you like.

Repetition

The second and fourth lines of each stanza return as the first and third of the next.

Ending

The last line is often the poem’s first line, closing the circle.

Origin

The Malay pantun, a short rhymed quatrain (abab); English pantoums may rhyme or not.

Toiling in Town now is “horrid,”
  (There is that woman again!)—
June in the zenith is torrid,
  Thought gets dry in the brain.

There is that woman again:
  “Strawberries! fourpence a pottle!”
Thought gets dry in the brain;
  Ink gets dry in the bottle.

Pantoum
Quatrains: lines 2 and 4 return as 1 and 3 of the next

Stanza 1
1 __________________________
2 __________________________
3 __________________________
4 __________________________

Stanza 2
2 (repeat)
5 __________________________
4 (repeat)
6 __________________________

Stanza 3
5 (repeat)
7 __________________________
6 (repeat)
8 __________________________

Last stanza
7 (repeat)
3 (repeat line 3)
8 (repeat)
1 (repeat line 1)

Write over the blanks, keeping the pattern of repeated words or lines.

Couplets

At least five, usually no more than fifteen, each complete in itself.

Rhyme and refrain

The first couplet ends both lines with a rhyme followed by a refrain; every later couplet picks them up in its second line only.

Signature

The last couplet usually names the poet, or plays on the name’s meaning.

Origin

Seventh-century Arabia, made famous by Persian poets such as Rumi and Hafiz.

Breeze of the morn, if hence to the land thou fliest—Of my friend,
Return with a musky breath from the lock so sweet
  Of my friend.

Yea, by that life, I swear I would lay down mine in content,
If once I received through thee but a message sent
  Of my friend.

Ghazal
5 to 15 couplets: rhyme (R) + refrain (REF)

________________ R REF
________________ R REF

__________________________
________________ R REF

__________________________
________________ R REF

__________________________
________________ R REF

__________________________  (your name, or its meaning)
________________ R REF

Write over the blanks, keeping the pattern of repeated words or lines.

Lines

Quatrains, as many as the story needs.

Meter

Four beats, then three, alternating; in common measure that is iambic, 8 and 6 syllables.

Rhyme

Lines 2 and 4 rhyme (abcb); common measure, the meter of hymns, often rhymes abab.

Use

Storytelling: folk ballads, hymns, and many of Emily Dickinson’s poems.

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

Ballad stanza
Quatrains: 4 beats, 3 beats, abcb

a __________________________  (8 syll.)
b ________________  (6 syll.)
c __________________________  (8 syll.)
b ________________  (6 syll.)

Written one? Check it in the meter counter: it counts the syllables and letters the rhymes.