poem

couplet

Poetic stanza of two lines in the same meter, and joined by rhyme.

tercet

Poetic stanza of three lines, rhymed or unrhymed.

quatrain

poetic stanza of four rhymed lines

rhyme

correspondence of sounds between words

sestet

Poetic stanza of six lines of poetry, rhymed or unrhymed.

meter

pattern of beats in a line of poetry

ballad

Narrative poems with series of rhyming quatrains with any rhyme scheme

free verse

Poetry without consistent rhyme scheme or meter.

ghazal

Short poem composed of five or more couplets (max 15).  Themes of love or loss of love.

elegy

Free verse poem about death - specifically mourning.

sonnet

Love poem of three quatrains and a couplet.  ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme.

ode

Poem that praises something or someone.  Written in free verse.

villanelle

Specifically about obsessions, 19 lines, five tercets, one quatrain. ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABAA.

pastoral

Can be any rhythm or rhyme scheme, but focuses on the beauty of nature.

narrative

Tells a story using poetic techniques and voices of characters and a narrator.

prose

Written in paragraph form without rhyme or meter.

cinquain

Five-line unrhymed poem, each line with a set of syllables: 2, 4, 6, 8, 2

ekphrasis

a style of poetry that describes and interprets a work of art to create a new work of art; the writer engages with the art