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55 Types of Poetry with definition

55 Types of Poetry

ABC

A poem that has five lines that create a mood, picture, or feeling. Lines 1 through 4 are made up of words, phrases or clauses while the first word of each line is in alphabetical order. Line 5 is one sentence long and begins with any letter.

Acrostic

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

Ballad

A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tail or legend which often has a repeated refrain. 

Ballade

Poetry which has three stanzas of seven, eight or ten lines and a shorter final stanza of four or five. All stanzas end with the same one line refrain.

Blank verse

A poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter and is often unobtrusive. The iambic pentameter form often resembles the rhythms of speech.

Bio

A poem written about one self's life, personality traits, and ambitions.

Burlesque

Poetry that treats a serious subject as humor.

Canzone

Medieval Italian lyric style poetry with five or six stanzas and a shorter ending stanza.

Carpe diem

Latin expression that means 'seize the day.' Carpe diem poems have a theme of living for today.

Cinquain

Poetry with five lines. Line 1 has one word (the title). Line 2 has two words that describe the title. Line 3 has three words that tell the action. Line 4 has four words that express the feeling, and line 5 has one word which recalls the title. 

Classicism

Poetry which holds the principles and ideals of beauty that are characteristic of Greek and Roman art, architecture, and literature.

Concrete

Also known as "size poetry". Concrete poetry uses typographical arrangements to display an element of the poem. This can either be through re-arrangement of letters of a word or by arranging the words as a shape. 

Couplet

A couplet has rhyming stanzas made up of two lines.

Dramatic monologue

A type of poem which is spoken to a listener. The speaker addresses a specific topic while the listener unwittingly reveals details about him/herself.

Elegy

A sad and thoughtful poem about the death of an individual.

Epic

An extensive, serious poem that tells the story about a heroic figure.

Epigram

A very short, ironic and witty poem usually written as a brief couplet or quatrain. The term is derived from the Greek epigramma meaning inscription.

Epitaph

A commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument written to praise the deceased.

Epithalamium (Epithalamion)

A poem written in honor of the bride and groom.

Free verse (vers libre)

Poetry written in either rhyme or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed metrical pattern.

Found

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.

Ghazal

A short lyrical poem that arose in Urdu. It is between 5 and 15 couplets long. Each couplet contains its own poetic thought but is linked in rhyme that is established in the first couplet and continued in the second line of each pair. The lines of each couplet are equal in length. Themes are usually connected to love and romance. The closing signature often includes the poet's name or allusion to it.

Haiku

A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five morae, usually containing a season word. 

Horatian ode

Short lyric poem written in two or four-line stanzas, each with its the same metrical pattern, often addressed to a friend and deal with friendship, love and the practice of poetry. It is named after its creator, Horace.

Iambic pentameter

One short syllabel followed by one long one five sets in a row. Example: la-LAH la-LAH la-LAH la-LAH la-LAH

Idyll (Idyl)

Poetry that either depicts a peaceful, idealized country scene or a long poem telling a story about heroes of a bye gone age.

Irregular (Pseudo-Pindaric or Cowleyan) ode

Neither the three part form of the pindaric ode nor the two or four-line stanza of the Horatian ode. It is characterized by irregularity of verse and structure and lack of coorespondence between the parts.

Italian sonnet

A sonnet consisting of an octave with the rhyme pattern abbaabba followed by six lines with a rhyme pattern of cdecde or cdcdcd.

Lay

A long narrative poem, especially one that was sung by medieval minstrels.

Limerick

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

List

A poem that is made up of a list of items or events. It can be any length and rhymed or unrhymed.

Lyric

A poem that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet.

Memoriam stanza

A quatrain in iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of abba -- named after the pattern used by Lord Tennyson.

Name

Poetry that tells about the word. It uses the letters of the word for the first letter of each line.

Narrative

A poem that tells a story. 

Ode

A lengthy lyric poem typically of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanza structure.

Pastoral

A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, romanticized way.

Petrarchan

A 14-line sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abbaabba followed by a sestet of cddcee or cdecde

Pindaric ode

A ceremonious poem consisting of a strophe (two or more lines repeated as a unit) followed by a an antistrophe with the same metrical pattern and concluding with a summary line (an epode) in a different meter. Named after Pindar, a Greek professional lyrist of the 5th century B.C.

Quatrain

A stanza or poem consisting of four lines. Lines 2 and 4 must rhyme while having a similar number of syllables.

Rhyme

A rhyming poem has the repetition of the same or similar sounds of two or more words, often at the end of the line.

Rhyme royal

A type of poetry consisting of stanzas having seven lines in iambic pentameter.

Romanticism

A poem about nature and love while having emphasis on the personal experience.

Rondeau

A lyrical poem of French origin having 10 or 13 lines with two rhymes and with the opening phrase repeated twice as the refrain.

Senryu

A short Japanese style poem, similar to haiku in structure that treats human beings rather than nature: Often in a humorous or satiric way.

Sestina

A poem consisting of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy. The end words of the first stanza are repeated in varied order as end words in the other stanzas and also recur in the envoy.

Shakespearean

A 14-line sonnet consisting of three quatrains of abab cdcd efef followed by a couplet, gg. Shakespearean sonnets generally use iambic pentameter.

Shape

Poetry written in the shape or form of an object. This is a type of concrete poetry.

Sonnet

A lyric poem that consists of 14 lines which usually have one or more conventional rhyme schemes. 

Sound

Intended primarily for performance, sound poetry is sometimes referred to as "verse without words". This form is seen as the bridging between literary and musical composition in which the phonetics of human speech are used to create a poem.

Tanka

A Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables and the other seven.

Terza Rima

A type of poetry consisting of 10 or 11 syllable lines arranged in three-line tercets.

Verse

A single metrical line of poetry.

Villanelle

A 19-line poem consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes. The first and third lines of the first tercet repeat alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.

Visual

The visual arrangement of text, images, and symbols to help convey the meaning of the work. Visual poetry is sometimes referred to as a type of concrete poetry.

My Figure of speech Quiz Result

Selection 1    They sat down to dinner, and after an excellent meal adjourned to the library. Candide, seeing a copy of Homer in a splendid binding, complimented the noble lord on his good taste.    That is an author, said he, who was the special delight of great Pangloss, the best philosopher in all Germany.    He's no special delight of mine, said Pococurante coldly. I was once made to believe that I took pleasure in reading him; but that constant recital of fights which are all alike, those gods who are always interfering but never decisively, that Helen who is the cause of the war and then scarcely takes any part in the story, that Troy which is always under siege and never taken—all that bores rne to tears. I have sometimes asked scholars if reading it bored them as much as it bores me; everyone who answered frankly told me the book dropped from his hands like lead, but that they had to have it in their libraries as a monument of antiquity, like those old rusty coins which can't be used in real trade. Source: Voltaire, Candide, trans. by Robert M. Adams, Norton Critical Edition, 2nd ed., New York, W.W. Norton, 1991, pp. 60-61.
1	CORRECT		What figure of speech is bores me to tears?
				A) hyperbole
				B) simile
				C) metaphor
				D) personification
2	CORRECT		What figure of speech is the book dropped from his hands like lead?
				A) simile
				B) metaphor
				C) hyperbole
				D) personification
3	INCORRECT		What figure of speech is they had to have it [the book] in their libraries as a monument of antiquity, like those old rusty coins which can't be used in real trade?
				A) metonymy
				B) simile
				C) personification
				D) metaphor
Selection 2 The field sits breathless in the orangy glow of the evening sun. I stare at the potato-colored earth of the infield, that wide, dun arc, surrounded by plastic grass. As I contemplate the prickly turf, which scorches the thighs and buttocks of a sliding player as if he were being seared by hot steel, it stares back in its uniform ugliness. The seams that send routinely hit ground balls veering at tortuous angles are vivid, gray as scars.    I remember the ballfields of my childhood, the outfields full of soft hummocks and brown-eyed gopher holes.    I stride down from the stands and walk out to the middle of the field. I touch the stubble that is called grass, take off my shoes, but find it is like walking on a row of toothbrushes. It was an evil day when they stripped the sod from this ballpark, cut it into yard-wide swathes, rolled it, memories and all, into great green-and-black cinnamon roll shapes, trucked it away. Nature temporarily defeated. But Nature is patient. Source: W.P. Kinsella, "The Thrill of the Grass," in The Norton Book of Sports, George Plimpton, ed., New York , W.W. Norton, 1992, p. 123
4	CORRECT		What figure of speech is The field sits breathless?
				A) simile
				B) metaphor
				C) personification
				D) hyperbole
5	INCORRECT		What figure of speech is . . . which scorches the thighs and buttocks of a sliding player as if he were being seared by hot steel?
				A) metaphor
				B) simile
				C) personification
				D) hyperbole
6	INCORRECT		What figure of speech is I touch the stubble that is called grass, take off my shoes, but find it is like walking on a row of toothbrushes?
				A) hyperbole
				B) metonymy
				C) simile
				D) metaphor
7	INCORRECT		What figure of speech is But Nature is patient?
				A) personification
				B) metaphor
				C) simile
				D) hyperbole
Selection 3    It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigor of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the world, as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he best might. How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow telling him to do this and avoid that; and by slow degrees the man would receive an education, which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very few accomplishments.    That man, I think, has had a liberal education, who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself. Source: Thomas Henry Huxley, "A Liberal Education," speech delivered at South London Working Men's College, London, 1868.
8	CORRECT		What figure of speech is Pain and pleasure would be at this elbow telling him to do this and avoid that . . .?
				A) hyperbole
				B) simile
				C) metaphor
				D) personification
9	CORRECT		What figure of speech is . . . his body is the ready servant of his will?
				A) metaphor
				B) simile
				C) personification
				D) hyperbole
10	INCORRECT		What figure of speech is . . . whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order?
				A) hyperbole
				B) simile
				C) metaphor
				D) metonymy
Selection 4    "Well, I gotta go. Come over at four," said Sharon, leaving Rosie off at the boardwalk.    "Okay. See ya." She watched Sharon walk away. There was over five dollars in the pocket of her voluminous shorts, and nearly an hour and a half to kill. And she couldn't go home.    Rosie was lonelier than anyone had ever been before, except for Typhoid Mary. Everything felt wrong, like a creepy dream, and she was afraid she was going to die: Rosie was stoned with fear.    She bought a package of bubble gum at the five and dime, where she saw herself in a full-length mirror: ugly, skinny, evil. Her eyebrows looked like caterpillars. Her heavy black curls and her eyes were devilish, like that lady with snakes for hair, whose face turned you to stone. Don't look! Turn away! But for a moment, she didn't move a muscle. Source: Anne Lamott, Rosie, New York, Penguin Books, 1997, p. 189.
11	INCORRECT		What figure of speech is Rosie was lonelier than anyone had ever been before, except for Typhoid Mary?
				A) simile
				B) metaphor
				C) personification
				D) hyperbole
12	CORRECT		What figure of speech is Her eyebrows looked like caterpillars?
				A) personification
				B) simile
				C) hyperbole
				D) metaphor
Selection 5 I never thought I'd hear the words heroin and chic mentioned in the same sentence. But lately the two have been paired, in movies and other pop culture. This shakes me to my very soul, as I recall the private hell that heroin brought to my life for over 20 years. A single decision can determine one's life path. My seminal moment came on my nineteenth birthday. A friend stopped by to help me celebrate. At the time, I'd been experimenting with all kinds of illicit drugs. Marijuana had been the first. Soon the world was a veritable candy store: alcohol, uppers, downers, psychedelics—there was a pharmaceutical cocktail for every mood. Combine this with the invincibility of youth, and life became one long party. Or so it seemed. My true goal was self-anesthetization from the pains of life. On my nineteenth birthday, however, I crossed a further threshold. For the first time, I tried heroin, and the drug became my life partner for the next two decades. At first, there were no meetings in dark alleys or dingy bars. Drug use was easy and attractive. Heroin was just another adventure. A negative experience might have been the best thing to happen on that nineteenth birthday, but that wasn't the case. I felt right at home in the sedated euphoria caused by the drug. The insidious danger of heroin is that in early use, you're in control. You feel you can take it or leave it; therefore, quitting holds no urgency. Year after year passed. I went to school and became a social worker. It was all right; I just needed to use responsibly. Can you believe that? A responsible heroin addict. By age 30, the addiction was a way of life. The pain was great, an all-consuming dull throb of hopelessness and dependence that possessed my life. Greeting the day was a chore of the greatest magnitude. Sometimes I would sleep until 5:00 p.m. because the light was too revealing. I was a creature of the night, a vampire sucking family and friends for all they were worth. Source: Daniel Zanoza, "Back from the Brink," in A Reader for Developing Writers, 4th ed., Santi Buscemi, Ed., New York, McGraw-Hill, 1999, p. 178.
13	INCORRECT		What figure of speech is life became one long party?
				A) hyperbole
				B) simile
				C) metaphor
				D) personification
14	CORRECT		What figure of speech is the world was a veritable candy store?
				A) metaphor
				B) simile
				C) personification
				D) hyperbole
15	CORRECT		What figure of speech is the drug became my life partner for the next two decades?
				A) simile
				B) personification
				C) metonymy
				D) hyperbole
Selection 6 Introduction to Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to water-ski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. Source: Billy Collins, Sailing Around the Room Alone, New York : Random house, 2001, p. 16.
16	CORRECT		What figure of speech is to hold it [a poem] up to the light / like a color slide?
				A) simile
				B) personification
				C) metaphor
				D) hyperbole
17	CORRECT		What figure of speech is But all they [students] want to do / is tie the poem to a chair with a rope / and torture a confession out of it?
				A) personification
				B) simile
				C) hyperbole
				D) metaphor