Mayes: Traditional and Open Forms

Concrete Poetry

Also “Shape Poetry,” poems whose forms graphically portray their subjects.

Open-Form Poetry

Also “Nonce Form,” poem whose shape is unique to that particular poem.

Couplet

Two metered lines, rhyming AA.

Heroic Couplet

Two lines of rhymed Iambic Pentameter.

Tercet

Also “Triplet,” three metered lines, often rhyming AAA or ABA.

Terza Rima

The use of Triplets which have an interlocking rhyme scheme (ABA BCB CDC).

Quatrain

Four metered lines, no prescribed rhyme or meter.

Common Measure

A form of Quatrain that:

1. Alternates between a four-foot iambic line and a three-foot iambic line.

2. Rhymes ABCD

Quintet

Five metered lines, no prescribed rhyme or meter.

Sestain

Also “Sestet,” six metered lines, variously rhymed or unrhymed

Septet

Seven metered lines, no prescribed rhyme or meter.

Chaucerian Stanza

Also “Rhyme Royal,” seven metered lines with the rhyme scheme ABABBCC, famous for its use by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales

Octave

Eight metered lines, no prescribed rhyme or meter.

Ottava Rima

Eight metered lines with the rhyme scheme ABABABCC.

Spenserian Stanza

1. Nine lines

2. ABABBCBCC

3. Eight lines in Iambic Pentameter, final line in Hexameter