Poetry Crash Course

Dramatic Monologue

Speaking directly to an imaginary audience, feels like from a play

Content and language

Elegy

About loss (death usually), sad then inner peace

Content and language

Epic

Heroic journey story tied to culture History, superhuman deeds, formal and stylized

Content and language

Mock Epic

Heroic journey story tied to culture History, superhuman deeds, formal and stylized YET SATIRED

Content and language

Ode

Generally short, praises people, nature, or ideas, focuses on serious subjects, written with a serious tone, no sets of rules.

Content and language

English Sonnet

14 lines 3 quatrains and a couplet

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Italian Sonnet

14 lines octave and sestet abba abbba and sestet varies

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Free Verse

All free baby

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Concrete poem

takes shape on page of something described in poem

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Sestina

39 lines 6 stanzas of 6 and 3 line envoy words at end of first six are at end of all other lines (in envoy 3 appear in the middle)

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Pantoum

2nd and 4th lines of each stanza become 1st and 3rd of next (final repeats 1dt and 3rd of stanza 1)

ABAB rhyme scheme

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Rondeau

15 lines total, 8-10 syllables per line, quintet, quatrain, and a sestet

AABBA AABR AABBAR

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Villanelle

19 lines total, 5 tercets and a quatrain

A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Ghazal

5-15 couplets that are autonomous from one another, yet around same length, 1st couplet introduced rhyme and refrain that later repeat

Structure, Rhyme, Meter

Haiku

3 lines, 17 syllables 5-7-5

Content and Structure

Ballad

Tells story, ballad stanzas (4 lines 1st and 3rd with 8 syllables; 2nd and 4th with 6 syllables)

ABCB DEFE rhyme often

Content and Structure

Limerick

Humorous subject, 5 lines total AABBA

Content and Structure