Figuring out how to start writing poetry can sometimes be harder than actually putting words onto the page. Like any craft, writing is not only a time consuming and emotional endeavour, but also something with lots of variation in forms and rules.
This page will go through a number of poetry forms, with instruction on how to write them.
It also aims to share some activities that might help you clear your head and get into that writing mentality.
How-To's
How-To's
Before you write...
Inspiration's hit! You suddenly have the urge to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, but when you finally start writing... nothing works.
So what do you do?
In this classic instance of heart and brain colliding — the heart is ready to be creative but the brain just isn't quite there yet — there are a few activities that I do to help me get ready to write.
- Set yourself up for writing, physically with paper and pen is best, but only if you're able.
- Set a timer for 3-5 minutes.
- Then write continuously until the timer stops.
- Go onto Pinterest (or a Pinterest equivalent)
- Search for a genre + noun e.g. sci-fi forest, fantasy cat, etc
- Try to choose something that isn't overly complicated so it's easy to focus on certain details.
If you have trouble picking an image then have someone else choose a few for you to pick from. - Set a timer for 5-10 minutes.
- Pick an item from your pantry.
- Pick an item from your fridge.
- Look out the window and write about the first thing you see/hear/smell.
- Walk into a store, choose a random isle and pick something from the shelf.
- Find a spot to sit outside or by a window where people are walking past.
- Spend some time watching them go by.
- Pick a person that catches your eye.
- Write about them and a day in their life.
Remember, the aim for these isn't to create a masterpiece. It's to stimulate the mind.
If you find that even after doing all these exercises your brain still refuses to cooperate with you, then go outside. Literally touch grass. Go for a walk, a run, a swim. Stand still on the driveway with your arms stretched out like an oversized lizard under the sun. Anything, as long as it is not staring at the page.
And if that still doesn't work, come back tomorrow. The act of trying is not something that can expire.
Poetry Forms:
An abstract poem is where the words are chosen for the way they sound when spoken aloud rather than specifically for their meaning, they are to extend a sense of feeling to the reader.
Common themes are often related to nostalgic moments.
For this form, it can be easier to write an abstract poem about an abstract, intangible thing, rather than something physical and turning it abstract.
This poetry style is thought to have originated in 20th century Britain.
Abstract Poetry
Abstract Poetry
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Britannica
A ballad is a traditional style of poetry that focuses on a story and was spoken with music. Some ballads follow 4-line stanzas but others treat stanzas like paragraphs in a book with no limit to number, only breaking when there’s a transition. There is no set scheme either, but it is common to follow an ABCB rhyme and use blank verse meter.
Common themes are romance, spirituality, the supernatural, death, myth and legends.
This poetry style originated Ancient Greece.
Ballads
Ballads
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- EBSCO
- Britannica
A blank verse poem is one that does not necessarily need to rhyme but must always have iambic pentametre (5 iambs/10 syllables per line). This metre is often used for monologues and ballads.
Common themes are introspection, complex narratives, or philosophical musings.
This poetry style originated in 16th century Italy.
Blank Verse
Blank Verse
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Poets.org
A common metre poem is alternating lines of iambic trimetre (3 iambs/6 syllables) and iambic tetrametre (4 iambs/8 syllables).
There are no common themes but this form is used for a lot of songs.
This poetry style is thought to have originated in Ancient Greece.
Common Metre
Common Metre
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Lit Charts
- Britannica
An ekphrastic poem is something that uses an already existing piece of physical media as stimulus for the written word. It exists as a response to the art, utilising aspects of the art's history, colours, tone, as well as any abstract interpretations.
Common themes are anything related to the piece that is being examined.
This poetry style originated Ancient Greece.
Ekphrastic Poetry
Ekphrastic Poetry
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- MasterClass
- Getty Museum
A free verse poem is a poem that does not rhyme or have metre, it also does not follow conventional lines on the page, with the lines ‘floating’ around and random in terms of alignment on the page.
There are no common themes as this form is very popular.
This poetry style originated 19th century France but was very popular in England.
Free Verse Poetry
Free Verse Poetry
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Read Poetry
A ghazal poem is a short poem consisting of rhyming couplets or a repeated refrain, called bayt or sher (AA BA CA DA EA FA GA HA). For a poem to be considered a true ghazal, it must have no fewer than 5 couplets and no more than 15. Most ghazals have between 7 - 12.
Common themes are often related to love, longing, pain, and Sufism – which is the Islamic belief and practice of seeking the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God.
This poetry style originated in the 7th century in the Arabia regions in West Asia.
Ghazals
Ghazals
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Duke University Press
- ipassio
- darbar
A standard haiku is a 3 line poem in an alternating syllable count of 5, 7, 5.
Common themes are often related to natures, the seasons, wildlife and emotions.
This poetry style is said to have originate in 14th century Japan.
Haikus
Haikus
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- SPICE Stanford University
- IAFOR Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award
An imagist poem focuses on simplicity and clarity, where one image is expressed in sharp and clear. The aim is to treat the 'thing' directly, whether subjective or objective. To only use words that contribute to the presentation of the 'thing', and to compose in a sense of musicality of language rather than to the beat of a metronome (basically no metre is used, just the natural flow of speech.
Common themes are often related to animals and landscape but aren't particularly limited.
This poetry style originated in 20th century England and America.
Imagist Poetry
Imagist Poetry
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Britannica
- Readable
- Des Imagistes: An Anthology
A monologue is a theatre device that is used to give the audience more details about the character that's speaking or about the plot of the play. Because their origin is in theatre, most monologue poems are in iambic pentametre (5 iambs/10 syllables per line) but the metre isn't as important, as long as the poem flows when you speak. Monologues (as with all poems in my opinion) are meant to be spoken aloud rather than read flatly on the page.
There are no common themes as the focus is more on introspection—a single speaker speaks throughout the poem on some specific issue.
This poetry style is originated in Ancient Greece.
Monologues
Monologues
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- MasterClass
- StudioBinder
A narrative poem functions similarly to a novel where there is a progression of plot and a narrator that is either a character within the story or a separate individual no directly connected. Often there is a rhyming and repetition to make it memorable, as well as an easy to follow vocal rhythm (I cannot stress enough how important it is to read poems aloud). Epics and Ballads are another version of narrative poetry. In the modern sphere, Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss are classified as narrative poets.
There are no common themes as the focus is on the storytelling, though depending on the style of narrative poetry, there may be more focus on supernatural or fantasy elements.
This poetry style has no single origin as it stems from oral storytelling traditions.
Narrative Poetry
Narrative Poetry
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Go Teen Writers
- Family Friend Poems
A nonet is a a 9 line poem with the first line starting at 9 syllables and every line that follows decreases by 1 syllable. For a more advanced version, it can consist of 9 stanzas, with the first stanza having 9 lines at 9 syllables each, the second having 8 lines at 8 syllables each, et cetera, decreasing until the final stanza at 1 line with 1 syllable.
There are no common themes as the focus is more on the form rather than content.
This poetry style is thought to have originated in 19th century Europe.
Nonets
Nonets
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Writers Digest
An ode is a traditional poem used to express sincere reflections of the writer's feelings using rich, descriptive language. There are 3 parts to writing an ode; the strophe which is a few lines that come together to create a strict unit, the antistrophe which has the same structure both has a thematic counterbalance, and the epode which has a different structure from the previous parts and serves to summarise the central ideas.
Common themes are often related to love, remembrance, grief, and the act of writing.
This poetry style originated in Ancient Greece.
Odes
Odes
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Westminister International University
- New World Encyclopedia
An ottava rima is an 8 line poem, usually in 10-11 syllable lines with a very simple rhyming scheme (ABABABCC).
Common themes are often related to nature with a blend of serious, comic and satiric attitudes, mingling narrative and discursive modes.
This poetry style originated in 13th/14th century Tuscany.
Ottava Rima
Pantoums
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Poem Analysis
- Britannica
A pantoum is series of 4 line stanzas where the second and 4th lines are repeated as the first and third lines in the following stanza (ABCD BEDF EGFH GIHJ etc).
Common themes are often related to explorations of time, loss, love, habits, routines, anxiety, obsession, and mental health.
This poetry style originated in 15th century Malaysia.
Pantoums
Pantoums
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Poets.org
- The Hyacinth Review
A prose poem is an imaginative piece of writing that does not follow a specific pattern but has poetic qualities to it such as a word play, rhythmic and symbolic qualities.
There are no common themes as this form is very popular.
This poetry style thought to have originated in 19th century France.
Prose Poetry
Prose Poetry
Professional Examples:
Sources:
- Poetry Foundation
- Wikipedia
Renoops Examples:
A sestina is one of the more complicated forms consisting of 6 stanzas of 6 lines and a final triplet. All stanzas have the same 6 words at the ends of each corresponding letter line in 6 different sequences . The final triplet doesn’t have a sequence but must include every ending word.
ABCDEF 1 2 3 4 5 6
FAEBDC 6 1 5 2 4 3
CFDABE 3 6 4 1 2 5
ECBFAD 5 3 2 6 1 4
DEACFB 4 5 1 3 6 2
BDFECA 2 4 6 5 3 1
(FB)(AD)(EC) (6 2) (1 4) (5 3)
Common themes are often related to love and other nostalgic emotions that take over such as the home, mortality, art, and contemplation.
This poetry style originated in 12th century France.
Sestinas
Sestinas
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Britannica
- Poetry Foundation
A standard sijo is a 3 line poem with each line being 14 - 16 syllables.
Common themes are often related to living in nature, philosophical musings, and elements of reality which are not easily discovered or experienced in our everyday life.
This poetry style originated in 10th century Korea during the late Koryŏ dynasty.
Sijos
Sijos
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Sejong Cultural Society
- Association for Asian Studies
Sonnets are often connected to a certain famous playwright and are, therefore, not a form that interest a lot of people. However, there is more to sonnets than just the Shakespearean style — sonnets are always a 14-line poem with each line usually in iambic pentametre (5 iambs/10 syllables per line) but each style has a different rhyming scheme.
Sonnets
Sonnets
Petrarchan sonnet has a rhyming scheme of:
ABBAABBA CDD ECE or ABBAABBA CDECDE or ABBAABBA CDCDCD.
Common themes are often related to love, faith and beauty.
This poetry style originated in 14th century Italy and is often called the Italian sonnet.
Petrarchan
Petrarchan
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
A Shakespearean sonnet has a rhyming scheme of: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
Common themes are often related to emotions such as love, beauty, infidelity, and jealousy, as well as moments involving the passage of time and mortality.
This poetry style originated in England, and can be known as the English Sonnet.
Shakespearean
Shakespearean
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
A Spenserian sonnet has a rhyming scheme of: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.
Common themes are often strong emotions relating to self-identity, such as love, passion, anger, religion, nationality, and politics.
This poetry styles originated in England, but can be referred as the Scottish Sonnet.
Spenserian
Spenserian
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- MasterClass
- Australian Poetry Hall of Fame
- Poem Analysis
A standard tanka is 5 lines with syllable counts of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7.
Common themes are love, passion, courting, nature, natural beauty, life and death, and the affairs of ordinary men and women.
This poetry styles originated in 7th century Japan.
Tankas
Tankas
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- BBC Maestro
- Poetry Foundation
A terza rima is a stanzaic form consisting of 3 line stanzas with interwoven rhymes and a concluding couplet rhyme with the penultimate line of the last tercet:
ABA BCB CDC DED EFE FF/AA.
Common themes are usually involving forward movement and continuity, love, journey, loss, life issues, it suggests processes without beginning or end.
This poetry style originated in 13th century Italy.
Terza Rimas
Terza Rimas
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Writers Digest
A triolet is a short poem consisting of a mix of repeated lines and new rhymes, only eight lines with two rhymes (ABaAabAB).
Common themes are usually humorous involving relationships and human folly.
This poetry style originated in 13th century France.
Triolets
Triolets
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
Sources:
- Britannica
A villanelle is a poem consisting of a mix of repeated lines and new rhymes in the form of five 3-line stanzas and one 4-line stanza to finish (ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA).
Common themes are often related to death, loss or love.
This poetry style originated in 16th century France.
Villanelles
Villanelles
Sources:
- Lit Charts
Professional Examples:
Renoops Examples:
I hope you have fun trying out each of these forms, and if you don't, that's okay!
These are only forms that I have done/am interested in at this time. There's plenty of other kinds of poetry to explore, and it's completely fine to stick with just a few forms that you like best. However, I strongly encourage experimentation. Sometimes you have to learn the rules before you can figure out the best way to break them.
If you're still curious about new forms, check out these glossaries:
