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English 9
Miss Lipinski
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Types of Poetry
Ballad: A narrative poem describing a past happening that is sometimes romantic but always ends
catastrophically. The saga described is usually in an impersonal voice with the speaker some
distance from the action. Ordinarily a ballad is written in quatrains.
Concrete Poetry/Shaped Verse: An attempt to supplement (or replace) verbal meaning with
visual devices from painting and sculpture. An example is a poem in the shape of an apple or
bottle.
Dramatic Poetry: A poem in which the lines are spoken by one or more characters to express their
thoughts and feelings, like a drama.
Elegy: A poem, usually personal, of grief or mourning.
Epic: A long narrative poem about a hero, usually starting with an invocation to the muse and
beginning in medias res (in the middle of the story).
Haiku: This form consists of seventeen separate syllables arranged in three lines according to a 57-5 count. It usually has a plain style and everyday language.
Limerick: A type of poem that consists of two lines of rhymed anapestic trimeter, two lines of
rhymed anapestic diameter, and an additional line of anapestic trimeter, the last word of which is
the same as, or rhymes with the last word of the first line.
Lyric Poetry: A rather short poem concerning itself mainly with the speaker’s emotional state,
thoughts, or feeling (in terms of a process). *Poems that are not narrative, didactic, dramatic, or
satiric are lyric.
Narrative Poetry: A poem that tells a story.
Occasional Poetry: This poetry written for a particular event or happening, the event begin usually
ceremonial or horrific.
Ode: This is a longer lyric poem, usually meditative or philosophical. It is oftentimes of
considerable length and has recognizable stanza patterns.
Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet: A fixed form consisting of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. An
Italian sonnet has an octave with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba and a sestet rhyming variously, but
usually cdecde or cdccdc. The octave usually introduces the theme or problem, with the sestet
providing the resolution.
Shakespearean Sonnet: A fixed form of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. The lines are
grouped in three quatrains with alternative rhymes (ababcdcdefef) followed by a heroic couplet
(gg).
Villanelle: A poem with five triplets and a final quatrain; only two rhyme sounds are permitted in
the entire poem, and the first and third lines of the first stanza are repeated, alternately, as the third
line of subsequent stanzas until the last, when they appear as the last two lines of the poem.
Stanzas with x amount of lines:
Couplet- 2 lines
Triplet- 3 lines
Quatrain- 4 lines
Quintet- 5 lines
Sestet- 6 lines
Septet- 7 lines
Octave- 8 lines
Lines with x amount of feet/syllables:
Monometer- 1 foot/2 syllables
Dimeter- 2 feet/4 syllables
Trimeter- 3 feet/6 syllables
Tetrameter- 4 feet/8 syllables
Pentameter- 5 feet/10 syllables
Hexameter- 6 feet/12 syllables
Heptameter- 7 feet/14 syllables
Octameter- 8 feet/16 syllables