The Basic Forms of Poetry

Click here to begin: Where Do Poems Come From?

Walk by any playground and you will be instantly struck by how much children love rhythm and rhyme.

Listen to their games of jump rope, hopscotch, one-potato-two-potato, and Red Rover and you will hear a lyrical litany of joyful patterns of poetic rhythm and rhyme.

Those sounds are a natural part of a child’s world and of their early celebrations of life.

It is no wonder then, why children prefer poetry that contains those musical elements. From nursery rhymes to the longer ballads, patterns of rhythm, meter and rhyme are essential ingredients in poetry for kids ...and adults.

Couplet

One of the most basic patterns of poetry is the couplet.

Couplets contain two lines that rhyme.

Here are five couplets from five different poems from

TICKLE DAY: POEMS FROM FATHER GOOSE (Disney/Hyperion).

from Little Daddy Longlegs

Little Daddy Longlegs played in the sun,

Climbing up the front steps just for fun.

from Turtle Trouble

Tell me if you think you know

How to make a turtle go.

from Tomorrow's My Birthday

Tomorrow's my birthday and I'll be four

And I won't have to stay home anymore.

from Nature's Shows

Nature puts on little shows

Every time it rains or snows.

from It's Snow Wonder

It's snow wonder that we cheer

Snowflakes when they fall each year.

Here is a poem that has four couplets from

HALLOWEEN NIGHT: TWENTY-ONE SPOOKTACULAR POEMS

(Running Press/Scholastic).

Pumpkins On Guard

Look at all the pumpkin faces

Lighting up so many places.

On the porch and in the yard,

Pumpkin faces standing guard.

Looking friendly, looking mean,

With a smile or with a scream.

Orange faces burning bright

In the cool October night.

Tercet

Tercets are another popular pattern. Tercets have three lines.

Here is a poem with two tercets from Halloween Night.

Witch Way

With warts on her nose

And sharp pointy toes,

She flies through the night on her broom.

With covers pulled tight

In the shadows of night,

I hide in the dark of my room.

Ballad

The ballad stanza is also a popular form of poetry for children.

A ballad stanza is a group of four-lines.

That group of four lines is called a quatrain.

Lines two and four rhyme.

Here are three poems that contain ballad stanzas.

This poem from Tickle Day has three ballad stanzas.

The Bee Poem

A poem is a busy bee

Buzzing in your head.

His hive is full of hidden thoughts

Waiting to be said.

His honey comes from your ideas

That he makes into rhyme.

He flies around looking for

What goes on in your mind.

When it's time to let him out

To make some poetry,

He gathers up your secret thoughts

And then he sets them free.

This poem from Tickle Day has two ballad stanzas.

A Poem Is A Little Path

A poem is a little path

That leads you through the trees.

It takes you to the cliffs and shores,

To anywhere you please.

Follow it and trust your way

With mind and heart as one,

And when the journey's over,

You'll find you've just begun.

This poem from Halloween Night has two ballad stanzas.

Happy Halloween!

I'd rather be foolish than ghoulish,

I'd rather dress up as a clown;

I'd rather wear clothes with polka dot bows,

I'd much rather smile than frown.

I'd rather be kooky than spooky,

I'd rather be friendly than mean;

I'd rather go greeting than tricking and treating,

I'd rather have fun Halloween!

The If-You-Were Poem

I created the If-You-Were poem many years ago

to help introduce children to the magic of metaphor.

The If-You-Were poem is simple and fun.

It invites you to compare yourself to some thing

and to compare your friend to some thing else.

Here are three If-You-Were poems from

IF YOU WERE MY VALENTINE (Simon & Schuster).

If you were a shining star

And I were your midnight,

I'd let you shine above me,

You'd be my only light.

If you were a grand piano

And I were a sweet love song,

I’d let your keys tickle and tease

My melody all day long.

If you were the pages of a book

And I were reading you,

I'd read as slow as I could go

So I never would get through.

Riddle Rhymes

Kids love riddles and riddles love kids!

Riddle rhymes are poems that have a riddle.

The answer to the riddle is at the end of the poem.

These riddle poems are created by using the ballad stanza.

Here are three of riddle rhymes from

RIDDLE RHYMES (Disney/Hyperion).

High Flyer

I fly above the tallest trees.

I'm not a bird or plane.

I have no wings or feathered things.

I do not like the rain.

I play among the passing clouds.

I like to rise and sail.

I am a friend who loves the wind.

I'm big and have a tail.

I like the gusty month of March.

I soar way out of sight.

My shape is like a diamond.

I am a brand-new kite.

The Everlasting Light

I shine forever free.

I do not cost a cent.

I need no bulb or battery.

My light is permanent.

You'll find me way up in the sky,

When each new day's begun,

But do not look me in the eye --

I am the shining sun.

Your Highness

I am a free and open field

That's never out of bounds,

Where kites and planes and boomerangs

Can do their ups and downs.

I am the biggest yard of all,

Where birds begin their play

Of hide-n-seek among the clouds

At each new break of day.

I am the place called outer space,

Where nothing is too high.

I am the home of all the stars --

I am the endless sky.

Haiku

Haiku contains three lines of five, seven, five syllables.

The haiku is often about nature, time and the seasons.

HAIKU: TRAVELERS OF ETERNITY (River City Publishing).

September

Shadows bow to the

setting sun, pray to the sky

for blessings of light.

October

Artist Autumn comes,

paints her blush across each tree,

drops palette, and leaves.

Clerihew

The clerihew is a clever, rhymed four-line poem about a famous person.

These three examples are from LIGHT: A QUARTERLY OF LIGHT VERSE

Monet

The water lilies of Monet

Drift upon a canvas bay.

A master of his profession,

He made a good Impression.

Edison

Thomas Alva Edison

Invented the bulb with discipline.

Without the Wizard of Menlo Park

We’d all be living in the dark.

Einstein

Albert Einstein

Had a relatively brilliant mind.

If you doubt or even dared to

He could simply mc² you.

Cinquain

The cinquain is a simple five-line poem.

The first line is the subject (noun).

The second line contains two adjectives.

The third line contains three verbs.

The fourth line is a short phrase about the subject.

The last line renames the subject with a synonym.

School

Fun, Exciting

Reading, Writing, Playing

A society of seekers

Class

Verse

Short, clever

Thinking, dreaming, rhyming

A package of well-placed words

Poem

Limerick

The limerick is a humorous, five-line poem.

The rhyme scheme is aabba.

Gravity

We should never take gravity for granted.

Without it we'd float off the planet.

Nothing would fall.

We couldn't play ball.

It's so cool I wish we could can it!

Diamonte

The diamonte is a seven-line poem that is shaped like a diamond.

It is similar to the cinquain.

Caterpillar

Green, hairy

Crawling, eating, hiding

She crafts a cool cocoon

Emerging, stretching, flying

Delicate, ethereal

Butterfly

This diamonte begins with one subject and ends with its opposite!

Books

Thick, heavy

Opening, reading, closing

Backpack full, backpack empty

Logging on, reading, logging off

Thin, light

Kindle

Acrostic

The acrostic is an unrhymed poem

with the first letter of each line

spelling out the name of someone.

Friend to students

And

Teachers

He performs

Exciting poems and

Rhymes

Goes

Out

On

School visits

Everywhere!

Pun Poem

The pun poem is an unrhymed poem of any number of lines.

It uses clever word play in the from of unexpected homonyms

like this silly Valentine that uses animals in the place of other

lovey dovey words. Here is an example from

ANIMAL TRACKS: WILD POEMS TO READ ALOUD (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)

Wild Romance

I love EWE.

I'm not LION.

I really GOPHER you.

I never GNU this would happen.

You are so DEER to me.

It's more than I can BEAR.

Let us SEAL our love with a kiss.

I will always BEE yours.

I will never have any EGRETS.

You are my one and only GULL.

OWL always love you.

Sonnet

Sonnets contain fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.

Each line is ten syllables long with every other syllable accented.

The two major kinds of sonnets each have a different rhyme scheme.

English Sonnet (Shakespearean) is abab cdce efef gg

Italian Sonnet (Petrarchan) is abba abba cde cde

Blank Verse

Blank verse poems are also written in iambic pentameter,

but they are unrhymed poems.

Here is an example of a blank verse sonnet from

SPEAKING IN TONGUES: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS 1974-1994

(The University of West Alabama, Livingston Press.)

Hunting the Cotaco Creek

His hand in hold so trigger tight its blood

believes in ghosts. It clings with finger set

on steel and waits inside a dream of ducks.

The twilight burns into a rising arc

of eastern sky as sun reveals herself

too proud and instantly receives full-face

a splash of mallard flock. A shotgun blasts

the yellow into streaming pinks and gives

the creek its new-day taste of echoed blood.

Two green head ghosts fly through the pulse of dawn

upon a trigger’s touch. The creek empties

of sound. In silence human fingers find

wet feet of web and carry in each hand

a bird whose only cry comes in color.

Villanelle

The Villanelle is a poem of nineteen lines

consisting of five tercets and a concluding quatrain.

The rhyme scheme of the tercets is aba.

Line one is repeated as lines six, twelve and eighteen.

Line three is repeated as lines nine, fifteen and nineteen.

Here are two examples of the Villanelle.

The first is a poem about Van Gogh from

Speaking in Tongues: New and Selected Poems 1974-1994.

The other is an unpublished love poem for my wife.

A Villanelle for Van Gogh

You saw beyond the blue that filled your eye

And like a child lost in evening prayer,

You brushed against the stars as you passed by.

You spun nocturnal truths out of the sky

In waves of rolling flame upon the air.

You saw beyond the blue that filled your eye.

Your steeple still transcends the hills that try

To touch the golden dreams that held you there.

You brushed against the stars as you passed by.

You searched the other side where shadows lie

In swirling pools of night upon your stare.

You saw beyond the blue that filled your eye.

But Theo and Gachet could only try

To pull you from the depths of your own glare.

You brushed against the stars as you passed by.

Your final stroke fell on a canvas sky

Where dreams once prayed upon the evening air.

You saw beyond the blue that filled your eye.

You brushed against the stars as you passed by.

Angel Hands

A villanelle for Debra

You make our morning bed with love each day.

A simple task, you ask for nothing more.

You are the only prayer I ever pray.

Your angel hands prepare a soft bouquet

Of pillows wrapped in handmade lace decor.

You make our morning bed with love each day.

This moment captures more than I can say

About all that I cherish and adore.

You are the only prayer I ever pray.

Out of a dream your gentle hands obey

A sunbeam spread across your daily chore.

You make our morning bed with love each day.

How could I ever turn and walk away?

My heart belongs to you forevermore.

You are the only prayer I ever pray.

Like lacy pillows side by side we stay

As evening shadows dance across the floor.

You make our morning bed with love each day.

You are the only prayer I ever pray.

Free Verse

Free Verse poems contain no set pattern of rhythm, meter or rhyme.

The poet designs the layout of the poem with as many (Whitman)

or as few (e.e. cummings) words per line as the poet desires.

Here are two examples from

Speaking in Tongues: New and Selected Poems 1974-1994

“The Alabama Wiregrassers” first appeared in

Harper’s Magazine, Sept., 1974.

The Alabama Wiregrassers

Dry-rooted in penny coated clay,

the wiregrassers come

suntan tamed in drawl

through the mire faster.

Machetes high-aimed for home,

they carry the clues of day

across their open, flying clothes.

Blade for blade,

steel for grass,

they flog the wire

with a hungry denim run.

Black shin hair stares

boar-bristled red out

from rips of hinged-tight jeans.

Tobacco spittin’ voices

seep coarse through gapped teeth

like hot wax from upside-down brown candles.

An evening shadow sinks itself

in the open field,

closing it for night.

The copper cold dust

from spun home trucks

relaxes into dew

and paints itself across the wiregrass

that sleeps in rust

beneath a hush of moon.

Divers

We were different when we returned to earth.

Too alone in our fall to forget,

we lost all trust in the touch of gentle hands.

The dropped baby in us grew.

We listened too long to a thinner wind,

climbed too close to a hollow sun,

stood one by one in the cockpit’s open door,

left our mothered souls in the fading steel

of a Cessna’s shaking belly,

stepped into a handless world,

stretched the corners of our eyes until they spit,

watched an anvil earth fly up at us,

took our own umbilical cord in hand and ripped,

and fell like frightened spiders

who spin out frantic silk that clings to only air.

Our jarred bodies lay on a sudden fist of clay,

unwound themselves from web and line

and carried the dead fish in our feet

away to dreams of distant seas.

Prose Poem

The prose poem is a poetic narrative similar to a very short story.

These two examples are about a fictional character named Howard

and are part of an unpublished episodic novella of prose poems titled

HOWARD BE THY NAME. Both of these examples are from

Speaking in Tongues: New and Selected Poems 1974-1994

Art Lesson

Summer vacation was over and soon

our third grade paintings hung in a parade

above Mrs. Barron’s blackboard,

each one with its house, its car,

its regulation tree that no one climbed.

By Christmas vacation our painted parade

had grown into a giant rainbow snake

whose art board body wrapped around

the upper edges of our room.

It was that paper snake,

those quickly chosen paints

that shaped our need for color,

that showed us how we felt

and why our sky was never simply blue.

Once during Friday’s time for art

when we all had dipped our brushes

into our separate jars,

it was Howard’s hand

that mixed two colors into one,

that learned to paint

with every shade and hue,

the pastel pinks of dawn,

the brighter skies of blue.

We needed him to show us how,

needed to sample with our brushes

his new colors that would not fit our jars,

needed him to fill our room

with all his painted people

who were already bright and climbing

beyond the subtle shade

of all our blackboard trees,

beyond the hand of color

to paint the summer breeze.

When Howard Became Jesus

No one in the huddle laughed

when Howard said he was Jesus,

that if we did not believe him

we were all sinners doomed to hell.

The next play was a hand-off to Howard.

Everyone, even our team, piled on,

grabbing for Howard, for the ball,

for the chance to cling to something solid.

When our boyhood heap had finally become still,

a pointed shadow drew our eyes way down the field

and there against the goal post leaned Howard,

the warm ball in his arms like a baby,

his eyes round and deep like the barrels of a gun.

Walking home, everyone was silent but Howard.

He said he had wanted to tell us about it before,

but was not sure we were ready to listen,

not sure we were ready to believe.

He said for the last year and a half

as he lay each night on his back,

his arms stretched out in a cross,

his feet so neatly together,

he was sure he had been chosen to lead us

in the path of righteousness for his namesake.

He said it was not luck that he had aced every test,

that the bookcase and birdhouse he built in shop class

won ribbons at the county fair.

He said that was just his way of being Jesus,

that we must learn to trust his perfect ways

and regard his saintly airs with adulation.

But we walked on in silence, each new step

so tight and full of fear we could not breathe,

could not break away and run on home alone.

At his house we stopped and watched him enter,

his eyes releasing us at last behind the door.

That night beside our beds we fell to prayer

and prayed that all that afternoon was just a dream,

that we would wake up in the morning and find Howard

in the huddle telling lies just like before.

©Charles Ghigna