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Texas ISD School Guide
Texas ISD School Guide







Short Stories for Teachers

List of Poem Types
By:Kenny Leones

As poetry is as old as civlization itself, it is amazing to think that in all that expanse of time, poets have not run out of things to say and ways to play with words. As this list of poem types will show, this literary genre has undergone numerous permutaions throughout the ages.

ACROSTIC

An acrostic is a form of poetry wherein the first letters of every line spell out a word or message when read together. For instance, in Edgar Allan Poe's "An Acrostic," the first letters of each line form the name "Elizabeth."

BALLAD

Originally meant to be sung to music, ballads are folk tales in narrative poem form. Many of these are about heroic legends, but there are also ballads about love and others that are meant to be humorous.

BLANK VERSE

A blank verse is a poem whose lines do not rhyme and is written in a form of iambic pentameter that is similar to the rhythmic pattern of speech. An example of this poem type is Robert Frost's "Mending Wall."

COUPLET

A couplet consists of a pair lines which rhyme at the end. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales" in rhyming couplets.

ELEGY

Generally meant as a poem for mourning the dead, an elegy is a type of poem that is sorrowful and solemn in nature. One such lament is Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!"

EPIC

An epic is a narrative poem that relates the life and adventures of a mythical hero. Among such legendary heroic sagas are the mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh and the Anglo-Saxon tale of Beowulf.

EPIGRAM

An epigram is a short, witty poem made up of two lines, as in a couplet. An example by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;/ Its body brevity, and wit its soul."

FREE VERSE

Also called "vers libre," free verse is a poetic form with no fixed style; that is, they can either be in rhyme or not. Author Robert Louis Stevenson had written poems in free verse, such as "The Light-Keeper" and "The Cruel Mistress."

HAIKU

Usually dealing with nature themes, the haiku is a Japanese poem type made up of three unrhymed lines; the first line having five syllables, and the next two being of seven and five syllables respectively.

IDYLL

Nostalgic in nature, an idyll is a brief poem that tells of an ideally peaceful life in the country. An example is Lord Alfred Tennyson's "Idylls of the King."

LIMERICK

Made famous by English writer and artist Edward Lear, a limerick is a (sometimes obscenely) humorous poem consisting of five lines. An example from Lear: "There was a young person of Smyrna/ Whose grandmother threatened to burn her;/ But she seized on the cat, and said 'Granny, burn that!/ You incongruous old woman of Smyrna!"

LYRIC

A lyric a type of poetry that conveys the poet's personal feelings, such as in Emily Dickinson's "Dying." Odes and sonnets (see below) are forms of lyric poems.

ODE

An ode is a long lyric poem that is somber and contemplative in nature.

SONNET

From the Italian word "sonetto" (little song), a sonnet is a lyric composed of 14 lines in iambic pentameter. William Shakespeare is known for having written 154 sonnets.

We can only expect this list of poem types to grow longer as time stretches on. For as long fickle young minds are continually inspired to put down their thoughts into words and to mold these as artfully as they see fit, the evolution of poetry has yet to cease.

Please click these links if you want to know more about list of poem types or list of poems of rizal in general http://www.thelists.org/.






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