Poetry Forms

1. Poetry Forms

2. Dramatic Monologue • A poem in which a single fictional or historical character other than the poet speaks to a silent audience of one or more persons. - delves into the psychology of the character, whose personality is revealed (sometimes unwittingly) https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/ulysses

3. Elegy • In traditional English poetry, it is often a melancholy poem that laments its subject's death but ends in consolation. http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/175749

4. Epic An epic is a long, often book-length, narrative in verse form that retells the heroic journey of a single person, or group of persons. Elements that typically distinguish epics include superhuman deeds, fabulous adventures, highly stylized language, and a blending of lyrical and dramatic traditions. The Iliad, The Odysseus, Beowulf

5. Epigram A pithy, often witty, poem. “Fleas” Adam Had ’em

6. Epistle A letter in verse, usually addressed to a person close to the writer. http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/177163

7. Free Verse Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition. http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/175779

8. Imagist An early 20th-century poetic movement that relied on the resonance of concrete images drawn in precise, colloquial language rather than traditional poetic diction and meter. http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/174503

9. Ode A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. Its stanza forms vary. http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/237310 https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/ode-intimations-immortality-recollections-early-childhood

10. Pastoral Poets writing in English drew on the pastoral tradition by retreating from the trappings of modernity to the imagined virtues and romance of rural life. Its themes persist in poems that romanticize rural life or reappraise the natural world. http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/173941 http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/174205

11. Sestina • A poem is six 6-line stanzas and a 3-line envoi (a half-stanza) linked by an intricate pattern of repeated line endings; it uses only 6 end words (also called terminations) that are usually unrhymed. • 1. ABCDEF2. FAEBDC3. CFDABE4. ECBFAD5. DEACFB6. BDFECA7. (envoi) ECA or ACE • https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/operation-memory

12. Sonnet A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme. Literally a “little song,” the sonnet traditionally reflects upon a single sentiment, with a clarification or “turn” of thought in its concluding lines. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-sun-sonnet-130 https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/what-lips-my-lips-have-kissed-and-where-and-why-sonnet-xliii http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/175903

13. Villanelle A French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night