Poetry - Types and Definitions

I hope you enjoy this little addition to the site. It has taken many months of research to get these pages to where they are now, and will take many more months to complete. I actually can not remember when I started this project. Many of the expanded descriptions (this page contains only a brief outline) do not as yet have examples, so if you wish for your poetry to be displayed here, let me know and I will consider the request.
All expanded descriptions and examples, definitions (linked text) etc. open to a smaller pop up browser to allow for several to be open at once.
If you see an error, or something that is not listed, please email me through the form on the site.

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Abstract: Uses sound, rhythm and rhyme to convey emotion. (More or Example)

Acrostic: A series of lines or verses in which the first, last, or other particular letters read down form a word, phrase, the alphabet in sequence, etc. (More or Example)

Alcaics: A Greek verse form. (More or Example)

Allegorical Poetry:  A poem of the nature of, or containing allegory. Characteristic of, or containing allegory. (More or Example)

Alphabet poem: A poem that uses letters of the alphabet as points of departure for lines. (More or Example)

Aubade: A poem suited to the dawn. A morning love song. (More or Example)

Ballad: A simple narrative poem, often of popular origin, composed in short stanzas. (More or Example)

Ballade: A poem consisting commonly of 3 stanzas having an identical rhyming scheme, followed by an envoy. (More or Example)

Beat poetry: an anti-academic style of poetry. It is fast-paced free verse resembling jazz. (More or Example)

Bucolic Poem: A pastoral poem. (More or Example)

Bush Ballad: A poem in ballad metre dealing with aspects of life in the Australian bush. (More or Example)

Calligrarn: poems whose words on the page form a shape or object related to the poem. (More or Example)

Canzone: A variety of lyric poetry in the Italian style. (More or Example)

Cento Poem: A poem composed wholly of quotations from other authors. (More or Example)

Chanson de Geste: A short epic poem of Old French.  (More or Example)

Chant: A Poem where one or more line is repeated over and over. (More or Example)

Cinquain: A short poem consisting of 5, usually unrhymed lines. (More and Example)

Clerihew: A 4 lined jingle epitomizing a notable character. (More and Example)

Concrete Poetry: Poetry in which the visual appearance is part of the meaning. The poem text itself forms a visible picture on the page. (More and Example)

Diamante (or Diamonte):  A Diamante is a seven-lined contrast poem set up in a diamond shape. (More and Example)

Didactic: A poem intended for instruction or to teach. Instructive poetry. (More and Example)

Dirge: A funeral song, tune or one that expresses mourning. (More or Example)

Dithyramb: A choral song or hymn of vehement or wild character. (More or Example)

Ditty: A short simple poem intended to be sung. (A short simple song). (More or Example)

Eclogue: A short poem, especially pastoral or idyllic. (More or Example)

Elegiac: A poem or poems in such verses. (More or Example)

Elegy: 1. A mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead. 2. Poetry or a poem written in elegiac metre. (More or Example)

Epic: A poetic composition in which a series of heroic achievements or events, usually of a hero, is dealt with at length as a continuous narrative in elevated style. (More or Example)

Epigram: A short poem dealing concisely with a single subject, usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought, and often satirical. (More or Example)

Epitaph: A commemorative inscription or poem on a tomb or mortuary monument.

Epithalamium: A poem in honor of a bride or bridegroom. (More or Example)

Epode: A kind of lyric poem, in which a long verse is followed by a short one. (More or Example)

Epopoeia: An epic poem, epic poetry. (from Greek epopoiia)

Epos: Epic poetry. or. A body of poems, tramsmitted orally, dealing with the traditions of a people. (More or Example)

Erotic Poem: A poem or poetry relating to sexual love; amatory. (And not permitted on this part of the site!)

Fable: A Poetic story usually in prose to teach a moral, often with animals or inanimate objects as characters. (More or Example)

Free Verse: Having no regular beat or rhyme. (More or Example)

Georgic Poetry: A poem on agricultural matters.

Ghazal: usually 5 to 15 lines of long-lined couplets, the couplets are not connected, but separate units. (More or Example)

Haibun: a Japanese form where prose is mixed with verse, specifically haiku, often in diary or travel journal form. (More or Example)

Haiku: A Japanese verse form,  usually containing 17 syllables, and having an allusion to the seasons of the year. (More or Example)  

Heptastich: A strophe, stanza, or poem consisting of seven lines or verses. (More or Example)

Heroic Verse: A form of verse adapted to the treatment of heroic or exalted themes. (More or Example)

Iambic Poem: 1. Relating to the iamb. A satirical poem in this metre. (More or Example)

Idyll: A poem or prose composition consisting of a "little picture", usually describing pastoral scenes or events. (More or Example)

Iliad: A Greek poem describing the siege of Troy. Any similar poem or long narrative.

Ithyphallic: Classical, Denoting or relating to any of several metres employed in hymns sung in Bacchic processions. (More or Example)

Language poetry: attempts to detach words from their traditional meanings so something new arises. (More or Example)

Lay: A short narrative or other poem, especially one to be sung.

Limerick: (((((Limerick: A Limerick is a rhymed humorous, nonsense poem of five lines. (More or Example)

Lune: A three-line poem. (More or Example)

Lyric: Having the form and musical quality of a song. (More or Example)

Madrigal: A lyric poem suitable for musical setting.  (More or Example)

Monody: A poem in which one person laments another's death. (More or Example)

Monologue: Any composition, such as a poem, in which a single person speaks alone.

Monorhyme: A poem in which all the lines have the same end rhyme. (More or Example)

Monostich: A poem or epigram consisting of a single metrical line. (More or Example)

Monostrophe: A poem in which all the strophes or stanzas are of the same metrical form. (More or Example)

Naani: This is one of India's most popular Telugu poems. (More or Example)

Nonsense verse: Poem is consistent, but wacky. (More or Example)

Nursery Rhyme: A short, simple poem or song for children. (More or Example)

Ode: A lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion. (Originally) a poem intended to be sung. (More or Example)

Ode - Regular or Pindaric Ode: A complex poetic type. (More or Example)

Ode - Irregular, Pseudo-Pindaric, or Cowleian Ode: A poetic form in the general style of the regular ode. (More or Example)

Ode - Horatian or Sapphic Ode: An ode in which one stanzaic form is repeated.  (More or Example)

Palinode: A poem in which the poet retracts something said in a former poem. (More or Example)

Pantoum: poem of any length in four-line stanzas with a strict line sequence. (More or Example)

Pastoral Poem: A poem dealing with the life of shepherds, or with rural life generally. (More or Example)

Pentastich: A poem consisting of five lines or verses. (More or Example)

Pindaric: An ode or other poem by or in imitation of Pindar. (More or Example)

Poetry: The art of rhythmical composition. (More or Example)

Prose Poem: 1. A composition written as prose but having many of the characteristics or poetry. (More or Example)

Prothalamion: A poem or song written to celebrate a marriage.

Psalm: (Usually) any of the 150 songs, hymns and prayers which together form a book of the Old Testament (Book of Psalms). A poem of similar character. (More or Example)

Quatrain: A grouping, stanza, or poem of 4 lines of verse. (More or Example)

Renga: A type of Japanese poetry. (More or Example)

Renga Long: image-filled in alternating stanzas of three and two lines. (More or Example)

Rengay: A rengay is a modern 6-stanza form similar to renga. (More or Example)

Renku: Japanese linked verses that originated in the 12th century. (More or Example)

Requiem: Any musical service, hymn, or dirge composed for the repose of the soul of, or in memory of, a dead person. (More or Example)

Rhapsody: An epic poem, or part of such a poem. (More or Example)

Rictameter: A poem whose scheme is similar to haiku. (More or Example)

Romance Poem: A short epic narrative poem, historical Ballad, of tender character.

Romaunt: A romance, or romantic poem or tale.

Rondeau: This poem is much like the rondel. (More or Example)

Rondeaux: A short poem of fixed form, consisting of thirteen (or ten) lines. (see Rondeau) (More or Example)

Rondel: A short poem of fixed form, consisting of fourteen lines. (More or Example)

Rondelet: A short variation of the rondel consisting of one 7-line stanza.  (More or Example)

Rune: A poem, song or verse. (Finnish runo poem or canto)

SciFaiku: A poetry form derived from haiku with a science-fiction theme. (More or Example)

Sedoka: An ancient Japanese poetry form that predates haiku. (More or Example)

Senryu: is structurally identical to haiku, but has a much more flexible content. (More or Example)

Sestina: A strict poetry form of six unrhymed stanzas of six lines each followed by a 3 line envoy. (More or Example)

Shape Poetry: SEE Concrete Poetry

Sijo: This is is Korean Poetry form of 3 (or 6) lines containing 44 to 46 syllables. (More or Example) 

Skeltonic verse: short variable-length stanzas reusing a small number of rhymes. (More or Example)

Sonnet: A poem of 14 lines with rhymes arranged according to one of certain definite schemes. (More or Example)

Tanka: A form of Japanese poetry, longer than Haiku. (More or Example)

Telestich: A poem in which the last letters of successive lines form a meaningful item. (More or Example)

Tetractys: A poem of fixed form, consisting of 5 lines. (More or Example)

Tongue Twister: A poem is made up of lines or verses that are hard to say fast. (More or Example)

Triolet: A short poem of fixed form, consisting of eight lines using two rhymes. (More or Example)

Tyburn: A strict form six line poem consisting of 26 syllables. (More or Example)

Villanelle: A short poem of strict fixed form written in 5 tercets with a final quatrain, all based on two rhymes. (More or Example)

Virelay: A French form of short poem. (More or Example)

Waka: Usually refers to pre-modern poems of the tanka form..(More or Example)