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14. Golden shovel. A golden shovel poem is a more recent poetry form that was developed by poet Terrance Hayes and inspired by Gwendolyn Brooks. Though it’s much newer than many of the types of poetry on this list, it has been enthusiastically embraced in contemporary poetry.
- Acrostic. You might remember writing acrostic poems in elementary school. In an acrostic poem, the lines are arranged so the first letter in each line helps to spell out a word.
- Ballad. There’s a reason so many songs are also called ballads—ballads are narrative poems characterized by their melodious rhyme scheme. A ballad can be any length, but it must be a series of rhyming quatrains.
- Elegy. Unlike our previous entries, there are no length or form rules for elegies. However, there is a content requirement: Elegies are about death. Generally, elegies are reflective and written to mourn an individual or group.
- Epic. There’s a reason the adjective epic refers to things that are huge, complex, and/or over-the-top: Epics are long, detailed poems that tell fantastical stories of larger-than-life characters.
- Sonnet. The invention of the sonnet is first accredited to the thirteenth-century Sicilian poet Giacomo da Lentini, who crafted the form as an ideal way of expressing ‘courtly love’.
- Ode. Ever get so excited about that new book you’ve been waiting to get your hands on, or that new game with amazing graphics, that you just want to tell everyone about it?
- Ballad. While most modern readers may be more familiar with 80s power ballads than the works of middle-English poets — poetry, culture, and music as we know it today will owe a lot to this form.
- Elegy. An elegy is a mournful poetic form, the origins of which can be traced back to a combination of Ancient Greek poetics and Old English scriptures from the 11th Century, written to lament a death.
- Sonnet. Sonnets are practically synonymous with Shakespeare, but there are actually two different kinds of this famous poetic form. Having originated in 13 century Italy, the sonnet usually deals with love and has two common forms: the Petrarchan (named for its famous practitioner, the poet Petrarch) and the Shakespearean (also known as the English sonnet).
- Villanelle. Villanelles have even more specific rules than sonnets. Luckily, many of the lines are repetitions, but this means you’ll have to take care to make those lines meaningful.
- Haiku. You might remember writing a few of these back in grade school, because not only are these poems short, but they can be very fun to write. The haiku originated in 17 century Japan.
- Ekphrastic Poems. Ekphrastic poems don’t really have specific rules, but they do speak of another work of art. Ekphrasis comes from the Greek word for “description,” and that’s exactly what this poem should do: vividly describe a painting, statue, photograph, or story.
Aug 31, 2022 · Poetry has been around for almost four thousand years. Like other forms of literature, poetry is written to share ideas, express emotions, and create imagery. Poets choose words for their meaning and acoustics, arranging them to create a tempo known as the meter. Some poems incorporate rhyme schemes, with two or more lines that end in like-sounding words. Today, poetry remains an important ...
Jul 2, 2023 · Stepping out of Western poetry, a haiku is a traditional Japanese poem consisting of three non-rhyming lines. It typically follows a 5-7-5 syllable pattern, with the first line containing five, the second seven, and the third five syllables. Each poem captures a single observation, impression, emotion, or thought.
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Jan 10, 2023 · Acrostics are often one of the first types of poetry kids learn, by writing a poem using the letters of their own name. Example: A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky, by Lewis Carroll. Ballad. This is one of the oldest types of poetry, with ancient examples that were passed down orally through the centuries. A ballad tells the story of a person or event.
