Twenty established poetic forms, from blank verse and the haiku to the villanelle, sestina, and pantoum. Each entry gives the rules that define the form and a representative example. This covers forms, whole-poem shapes, rather than the devices used inside them.
Poetry with a strong, regular meter but no rhyme; often written in iambic pentameter (ten syllables per line with every other syllable stressed).
Example: Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet: “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East and Juliet is the sun!”
A Japanese form of three unrhymed lines with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern (five in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third).
Example: Matsuo Basho: “An old silent pond / A frog jumps into the pond— / Splash! Silence again.”
Poetry that focuses on rhyming words at the end of each line or couplet; it also carries meter, but rhyme is the primary feature.
Example: Shakespeare, “Sonnet 14”: “Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck / And yet methinks I have astronomy...”
A long narrative poem telling a story, typically about great heroes—real or fictional—who perform impressive feats or undertake grand adventures. May or may not rhyme.
Example: Homer’s “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.”
Poetry that does not rhyme or hold a strong meter, identified by its short lines and stanzas.
Example: Walt Whitman, “A Noiseless, Patient Spider”: “A noiseless patient spider, / I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated...”
A 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme and meter, typically ten syllables per line. Forms include the Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnet.
Example: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnet Number 43”: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...” (form: ADDA ADDA CDECDE)
Poems that tell a story, similar to epics but shorter and often not heroic.
Example: Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”: “Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by...”
A poem with themes of mourning and loss.
Example: Walt Whitman, “O Captain! My Captain!” mourning the death of Abraham Lincoln: “My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still...”
A poem that pays homage or tribute to a subject, often less serious than an elegy.
Example: John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”
Traditionally a song, a poem that uses rhymed quatrains (four lines grouped together) to tell a story.
Example: Bob Dylan, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” and “Hurricane.”
A highly specific 19-line poem made of five tercets and a closing quatrain.
Example: Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”
A poem that shows feelings and emotions; it may rhyme or be free form, but focuses on a feeling rather than a story.
Example: Most Shakespearean sonnets.
A humorous five-line poem using an AABBA rhyming pattern; lines one, two and five have seven to ten syllables and rhyme, while lines three and four have five to seven syllables and rhyme.
Example: Edward Lear, “There was an Old Man with a Beard”: “There was an Old Man with a beard, / Who said, ‘It is just as I feared!...’”
A short, witty poem that is no more than a couplet or quatrain.
Example: Benjamin Franklin: “Little strokes fell great oaks.”
A complex French verse poem, typically unrhymed, with seven groups of lines: six sestets of six lines and a final three-line group. The last word of each line in the first sestet is repeated as a line-ending word throughout, and all six recur twice per line in the closing tercet.
Example: Elizabeth Bishop, “A Miracle For Breakfast”: “At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee...”
A poem in which the first letter of each line, read vertically, spells out a name, word, or phrase.
Example: John Keats’ poem for his sister Georgiana, spelling GEORGIANA: “Give me your patience, sister, while I frame...”
A poem that uses a visual image or work of art as inspiration; it has no set form and focuses on the link between poetry and art.
Example: Anne Sexton, “The Starry Night,” reflecting Van Gogh’s painting: “The town does not exist / except where one black-haired tree slips...”
A form in which you take an existing text and black out large portions to create a new poem from the remaining words. Can be made from books, magazines, newspapers, and more.
Poetry that repeats the end syllable of each line, either at the end of the same line or on a new line directly beneath it, creating an “echo” effect. It follows no rules other than this repetition.
A complex form of any length composed of quatrains (four-line stanzas), often with alternate rhymes. The last line of the poem is commonly the same as the first, creating a full-circle moment.
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Looking for the techniques used within a poem rather than the form itself? Browse thepoetic devices hub.
Knowing the forms above is the groundwork. A few habits turn that knowledge into finished poems:
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