Poetry Forms

Form

Acrostic

A hidden spine within the lines. It's like a secret shared in plain sight, where the first letters spell out the heart of the subject.

Form

Aubade

The sound of the world waking up. These are songs for the dawn, often capturing the bittersweet moment of leaving a loved one as the sun rises.

Form

Ballad

The pulse of a story. Built for the rhythm of the voice, it carries tales of adventure, tragedy, and folklore from one heart to another.

Form

Blank Verse

The natural heartbeat of English speech. It doesn't need to rhyme to feel poetic; it relies on a steady rhythm to tell its truth.

Form

Canzone

An intricate, song-like dance of words. It's an Italian tradition that weaves stanzas together with a slow melody.

Form

Cinquain

A sudden build of energy. Five lines that expand and contract, capturing a vivid image with the precision of a snapshot.

Form

Concrete

When the poem becomes a sculpture. The words themselves take the shape of the subject, blurring the line between literature and art.

Form

Couplet

A perfect pairing. Two lines that lean on each other, often ending a thought with a sharp, memorable finality.

Form

Dirge

A quiet, heavy hymn. It is the sound of grief in its simplest form—short, mournful, and deeply respectful.

Form

Elegy

A letter to the departed. It is a reflective space where we navigate the weight of loss while searching for a way to say goodbye.

Form

Epic

The grand tapestry of a journey. These are long, sweeping narratives that celebrate the legends of heroes.

Form

Epigram

A short, sharp spark. It's meant to be witty and surprising—a tiny poem that leaves a lasting sting.

Form

Free Verse

Poetry in its most honest, naked state. It rejects the rules of rhyme to follow the natural flow of thought.

Form

Ghazal

An ancient echo of longing. Composed of independent couplets, it circles around themes of love or spiritual desire.

Form

Haiku

A single breath captured in ink. It notices one small, beautiful thing about the world right now.

Form

Idyll

A peaceful window into the countryside. An escape into a simpler, pastoral world connected to the earth.

Form

Limerick

A mischievous skip and a jump. These five lines are pure play—built for humor and the joy of rhyme.

Form

List Poem

Finding the sacred in the ordinary. By gathering items or memories into a list, we reveal hidden beauty.

Form

Lyric

The voice of the individual soul. It prioritizes the music of the heart over the events of a story.

Form

Narrative

The campfire tradition. These are poems that lead us through a story, from the first word to the resolution.

Form

Ode

An act of sincere celebration. A poem that looks at something and says: "You are worthy of being seen."

Form

Pantoum

A cycle of recurring thoughts. As lines return, it creates a haunting sense that we are circling a memory.

Form

Pastoral

A love letter to the wild and the green. It idealizes the quiet life of the fields away from the modern world.

Form

Prose Poem

A poem in disguise. It looks like a paragraph, but underneath, it carries fire, imagery, and rhythm.

Form

Quatrain

The fundamental unit of poetry. Four lines that can be anything from a song to a philosophy.

Form

Sestina

A persistent obsession. Repeating six words in a rotating pattern to look at a subject from every angle.

Form

Sonnet

A fourteen-line room for an argument. It begins with a problem and ends with a resolution.

Form

Tanka

A deeper look at the moment. Similar to a haiku but with more room to explore emotional fallout.

Form

Terza Rima

A chain of interlocking rhymes. It pulls the reader forward like a river flowing toward the sea.

Form

Villanelle

The beauty of the refrain. Two repeating lines create a circular, musical echo that refuses to fade.