Acrostics

Al Rocheleau, online poetry guru first with Atlantic Monthly then with the popular Orca forum, gives a thorough, understandable explanation, with example.

Ballad

Al Rocheleau, online poetry guru first with Atlantic Monthly then with the popular Orca forum, gives a thorough, understandable explanation, with example.

Blank Verse

Al Rocheleau, online poetry guru first with Atlantic Monthly then with the popular Orca forum, gives a thorough, understandable explanation, with example.

Blank Verse

From The Craft of Poetry, a poetry course devised by Vince Gotera and Damon McLaughlin

Cinquain

John Hewitt's intro to the cinquain, with examples.

Cinquain

Excellent definition and examples, with several links to other sites, including the complete Adelaide Crapsey cinquains.

Couplet

From The Craft of Poetry, a poetry course devised by Vince Gotera and Damon McLaughlin.

Epistle

John Hewitt's brief intro to the Epistle, with an example.

Poetry Formats

Brief explanations of acrostic, ballad, ballade, blank verse, cinquain, clerihew, free form, free verse, ghazal, haiku, limerick, pantoum, paradelle, renga, rengay, rondeau, rubiyat, senryu, sestina, sijo, sonnet, Spenserian stanza, tanka, triolet, villanelle, and virelay. Some with examples. A handy place to start.

Quatrain

From The Craft of Poetry, a poetry course devised by Vince Gotera and Damon McLaughlin

Sestina

From The Craft of Poetry, a poetry course devised by Vince Gotera and Damon McLaughlin

Sestinas

Al Rocheleau, online poetry guru first with Atlantic Monthly then with the popular Orca forum, gives a thorough, understandable explanation, with example.

Sonnet

Al Rocheleau, online poetry guru first with Atlantic Monthly then with the popular Orca forum, gives a thorough, understandable explanation, with example.

Sonnet

From The Craft of Poetry, a poetry course devised by Vince Gotera and Damon McLaughlin

Sonnet Central

Best sonnet site around. Definitions, instructions for writing, articles and sonnets from 600 years of sonneteers, from Petrarch to the 20th century, plus a Sonnet Magnet board for instant composing and other attractions as well; you can even submit poems to the site and read those of others.

Tercet

From The Craft of Poetry, a poetry course devised by Vince Gotera and Damon McLaughlin

Tercet and Triad

John Hewitt's brief intro to the 3-line verse, with examples.

Villanelle

Al Rocheleau, online poetry guru first with Atlantic Monthly then with the popular Orca forum, gives a thorough, understandable explanation, with example.

Villanelle

Simplified explanation of the form, with examples

Villanelle and Terzanelle

From The Craft of Poetry, a poetry course devised by Vince Gotera and Damon McLaughlin

Cited from: http://thewordshop.tripod.com/forms.html

Some Poetry Forms

A cinquain has five lines.

• Line 1 is one word (the title);
• Line 2 is two words that describe the title.
• Line 3 is three words that tell action
• Line 4 is four words that express feeling
• Line 5 is one word that recalls the title

Snow
White and cold
Blowing, falling, piling,
Excitement - maybe no school!
Snow.

A quatrain has four lines.

• Lines 2 and 4 must rhyme.
• Lines 1 and 3 may or may not rhyme.
• Rhyming lines should have about the same number of syllables.

A limerick has five lines.

• Lines 1, 2, and 5 have seven to ten syllables and rhyme with one another.
• Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven syllables and also rhyme with each other.

There once was a seed in the sky.
That rode on the wind way up high.
The wind did die down.
Dropped the seed on the ground.
A flower will grow by and by.

A haiku has three lines

• Lines 1 and 3 have five syllables.
• Line 2 has seven syllables.

Winter
An icy wind blows
The tree is lonely and cold
Its branches are bare.
- by Karleen O'Connor

A couplet has rhyming stanzas each made up of two lines.

Across the sky they seem to flow
As wind and currents gently blow.

The cumulus clouds in the sky,
Fluffy, white, and ever so high.

Their shapes and forms are most complex
Numbering at least a googolplex.
- by Rebecca Wiggins

A name poem tells about the word.

• It uses the letters of the word for the first letter of each line.

Wind
W ...
I ...
N ...
D ...

An ABC poem has 5 lines that create a mood, picture, or feeling.

• Lines 1 through 4 are made up of words, phrases or clauses
• The first word of each line is in alphabetical order from the first word.
• Line 5 is one sentence, beginning with any letter.

Birds call
Clouds hover over the horizon
Darkness creeps away.
Each sun ray reaches into the sky.
A new day has begun.
- by Kathie Deeths

A parts of speech poem has five lines.

• Line 1 is one article and 1 noun.
• Line 2 is an adjective, a conjunction, and another adjective.
• Line 3 is one verb, one conjunction and one verb.
• Line 4 is one adverb.
• Line 5 is one noun or pronoun that relates to line one

Cited From: http://www.umeedu.maine.edu/coehd/wind/poemtypes.html