Poetry Types

Poetry Types: Open and Closed Forms

Poetry can generally be categorized into two main forms: open form and closed form.

Open Form Poetry

• Definition: Open form poetry does not conform to any particular predetermined poetic structure, though it may still incorporate rhymes and rhythmic patterns.

• Characteristics: It allows for greater flexibility in terms of line length, stanza division, and rhyme scheme, prioritizing organic expression over strict adherence to traditional rules.

• Example: "A Brief Ode to Brief Poems" by Vancouver’s Poet Laureate, Fiona Tinwei Lam. The poem consists of a single line: "Little splash licks the rocks, carries the moon." This demonstrates the brevity and lack of conventional structure characteristic of open form.

Closed Form Poetry

• Definition: Closed form poetry adheres to a specific poetic structure, which includes defined elements such as the number of stanzas, rhyme schemes, and metrical patterns.

• Characteristics: This form requires poets to work within established conventions, leading to a predictable and often musical quality.

Types of Closed Form Poetry

Limerick

• Structure:

  • Consists of $5$ lines.

  • Follows an $aacca$ rhyme pattern.

  • The $1^{st}, 2^{nd},$ and $5^{th}$ lines typically contain $3$ anapestic feet (anapestic trimeter).

  • The $3^{rd}$ and $4^{th}$ lines typically contain $2$ anapestic feet (anapestic dimeter).

• Tone: Limericks tend to be humorous, often featuring whimsical or nonsensical content.

• Examples:

  • "How awkward when playing with glue" by Constance Levy, from Knock at a Star:
    "How awkward when playing with glue
    To suddenly find out that you
    Have stuck nice and tight
    Your left hand to your right
    In a permanent how-do-you-do!"

  • "There was an Old Man with a Beard" by Edward Lear:
    "There was an old man with a beard,
    Who said, "It is just as I feared!—
    Two owls and a hen,
    Four larks and a wren,
    Have all built their nests in my beard."

Haiku

• Structure:

  • Composed of a $3$-line stanza.

  • Follows a strict $5, 7, 5$ syllable pattern across its three lines.

• Purpose: Traditionally, haikus focus on nature and moments of observation, often evoking a sense of seasonal change or a sudden insight.

• Example: "Haiku" by Etheridge Knight, from The Essential Etheridge Knight:
  "Eastern guard tower glints in sunset;
  convicts rest like lizards on rocks.
  A bare pecan tree slips a pencil shadow down a moonlit snow slope."

Narrative Poetry

• Definition: A poem that tells a story, often featuring a plot, characters, and a setting.

• Form: While not all narrative poetry strictly adheres to closed form conventions, the majority do, employing structured stanzas, rhyme, and meter to advance the story.

• Note: No specific poem example was provided in the transcript for this category, but the definition emphasizes its storytelling aspect.

Ballad

• Definition: A ballad is a type of narrative poem characterized by its musical rhythm and suitability for being sung.

• Characteristics: Ballads often recount dramatic events, folk tales, or historical narratives, usually with a consistent meter and rhyme scheme that facilitates performance as a song.

• Example: "The Other Woman" (1964) sung by Nina Simone.

  • Themes: This ballad explores the stark contrast between the idealized image of "the other woman"—who is perceived as perfect, elegant, and effortlessly charming (manicured nails, French perfume, fresh flowers, never seen with pin curls, always waiting)—and the poignant reality of her loneliness and inability to secure lasting love. She "will always cry herself to sleep" and "will never have his love to keep," ultimately spending her "life alone," highlighting a tragic irony beneath her seemingly desirable facade.

Ode

• Definition: An ode is a lyrical poem, often written for a particular occasion or on a specific subject, expressing elevated or enthusiastic emotion.

• Tone: Odes tend to be dignified and serious in tone.

• Structure: They generally incorporate some form of rhyming pattern, though their structure can be more flexible than other closed forms.

• Example: "Ode to Dirt" by Sharon Olds.

  • Themes and Significance: The speaker offers an apology to dirt, acknowledging a past oversight where dirt was perceived merely as "the background for the leading characters—the plants and animals and human animals." This is likened to loving only the stars but not the sky that provides them space. The poem elevates dirt to a "subtle, various, sensitive" entity, the "skin of our terrain," and metaphorically, "our democracy." The speaker expresses shame for not honoring dirt "as a living equal," recognizing that all beings are "made of the same basic materials—cousins of that first exploding from nothing—in our intricate equation together." The ode concludes with an appeal to understand how to "serve" dirt, recognizing its fundamental role in bringing us forth, feeding us, and ultimately receiving us back into its cycle of rotation and orbit.

Dramatic Monologue

• Definition: A dramatic monologue is a speech delivered by a single character, either to themselves or to one or more silent listeners.

• Purpose: It is crafted to reveal both the immediate situation at hand and, crucially, the character's personality, motivations, values, and psychological state.

• Example: The famous "To be, or not to be, that is the question" speech spoken by Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

  • Analysis: In this profound soliloquy, Hamlet contemplates suicide as an escape from the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and the "thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to." He weighs the suffering of life against the unknown terrors of death, personified as "The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns." The fear of what dreams may come in that "sleep of death" (the "rub") makes individuals "rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet concludes that "conscience doth make cowards of us all," implying that overthinking and the dread of the afterlife paralyze decisive action, causing "enterprises of great pith and moment" to "lose the name of action."

Acrostic

• Definition: An acrostic poem is one in which the first letter (or sometimes the last or a letter within) of each line, when read vertically, spells out a word, phrase, or message.

• Example: "The Colour Of Peace" by Paul McCann.

  • Message: The first letter of each line spells out the word PEACE:

    • Pray for understanding to come

    • Each time and for everyone

    • An end to the hostility

    • Coloured as one in fragility

    • Enter compatibility

Lyric Poetry

• Definition: A short poem, often songlike in quality, whose primary emphasis is not on telling a narrative but on expressing the speaker’s personal emotions, thoughts, feelings, or reveries.

• Characteristics: Lyric poems tend to be subjective and introspective, capturing a specific moment or sensation rather than a sequence of events.

• Example: "TODAY" by Billy Collins, from Poetry Magazine.

  • Themes and Imagery: The poem describes a perfect, uplifting spring day, so idyllic that it inspires a desire for liberation and expansion. The speaker feels compelled to "throw open all the windows in the house," "unlatch the door to the canary's cage" (or even "rip the little door from its jamb"), and metaphorically "take a hammer to the glass paperweight" on the end table. This act aims to release the miniature inhabitants of the snow-covered cottage within the paperweight, allowing them to step out and appreciate the "larger dome of blue and white" of the real day. The poem concludes by affirming that "today is just that kind of day," capturing an immediate, profound emotional response to a beautiful moment.

Sonnet

• Structure:

  • Consists of precisely $14$ lines.

  • Most lines contain $5$ metrical feet (typically iambic pentameter).

  • Adheres to a regular rhyme scheme, most commonly either Petrarchan (abbaabba cdecde/cdcdcd) or Shakespearean (abab cdcd efef gg).

  • Often features a "turn" or volta, which is a shift in thought, emotion, or argument, typically occurring around the $8^{th}$ or $9^{th}$ line.

• Example: "How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  • Themes and Expression: This famous Petrarchan sonnet (though without a clear volta in the provided excerpt) is a passionate declaration of love. The speaker attempts to quantify her love by enumerating the myriad "ways" she loves. She describes a love that reaches to the "depth and breadth and height" of her soul, fulfilling "every day's / Most quiet need," experienced "by sun and candle-light." Her love is characterized as "freely" given, "purely" expressed, imbued with the intensity of past "griefs" and "childhood's faith." It is a love she once thought lost with "lost saints" and one that encompasses all aspects of her life—"breath, / Smiles, tears." The sonnet culminates in the fervent hope that should God choose, her love will only intensify "better after death." This poem is in the public domain.