types of poetry

didactic poem

a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson.

dramatic poem

a poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends.

elegy

a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditation upon death or another solemn theme

lyric poem

any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings.

narrative poem

a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short.

ode

a lyric poem of some length, usually of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure.

satire

writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by ridicule. Exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly

sonnet

normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem. The conventional Italian, or petrarchan sonnet is rhymed.

villanelle

a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain.