Types of Poems

Types of Poems

Poetry is like all international art forms. It crosses all borders, language barriers, age groups, and eras. In other words, the British have their sonnets, the Japanese have their haikus, and children have mother goose.

Some types of poetry and include excerpts from notable poets who wrote within these genres. There are many more types of poems, but these are among the most common.

1.    Ballad

A ballad is a story told as a narrative, rhythmic saga that happened in the past. Occasionally, the themes are heroic, satirical and romantic. Mostly, the ballad has unhappy ending.

2.    Cinquain

Influenced by Japanese poetry, the cinquain was developed by American poet Adelaide Crapsey. It’s a short, non rhyming poem that consists of 22(twenty two) syllables with certain of syllables per line.

3.    Elegy

An elegy is a poem that is written to mourn the death of someone. It’s a reflection either upon death or some other great sadness.

4.    Epic

This type of poetry has a very broad definition. An epic is a continuous narrative of the life or lives of a heroic person or persons. These heroes can be fictional, historical or mythical. The longest epic is the great Indian mythical poem Mahabharata, which contains more than 100.000 verses-making it four times the size of the Bible.

5.    Haiku

This is a short poem from Japan that consists of no more than three lines, with the first line consisting of five syllables, the second line consisting of seven syllables, and the third line consisting again of five syllables.

6.    Limerick

Limericks are poems that consist of a strict meter. In fact, without the structure of the lines and the rhyming, the limerick would simply be just another poem.

7.    Lyric

A lyre is Greek musical instrument often used to accompany someone singing a song. Academic commonly use of lyric, as a poetic form, means a poem that expresses a subjective point of view. Type of lyric poetry is a love poem.

8.    Nonsense verse

It’s often used for comic effect or children’s verse; a nonsense poem can be silly and witty, but it can also have a serious meaning beneath and the surface.

9.    Ode

An ode is a long form poem usually of a serious nature on an exalted subject matter.

10. Quatrain

A quatrain is a poem or stanza of a poem that contains four lines of verse.

11.  Rondeau

A form of poetry that makes use of song-type lyricism. It’s based on a strict rhythmic meter and contains refrains repeated in specific style.

12.  Sonnet

The word sonnet comes from the French word meaning song. It’s a poem consisting of fourteen lines within a strict rhyming pattern.