Welcome

Welcome to Poetry Forms!

This site is for anyone who is interested in learning new forms of poetry, or even brushing up on some old ones. Right now I'm fighting with the navigation system, so you'll just have to keep scrolling down if you want to be able to see more. Fancy navigation will be up soon.

All poetry examples belong to me (angiesweet23) unless otherwise stated, and I would not encourage you to steal them.

Haiku

The haiku is a Japanese style of poetry which consists of three lines. The first line contains five syllables, the second contains seven, and the third contains five. There is no rhyme scheme in a haiku. Traditionally, they are on the theme of nature, but they don't necessarily have to be.

Example:

Rain falling downward
Beats against the trees outside
Soothing to my ears

Cinquain

The Cinquain was developed by Adelaide Crapsey in the early 1900s. It is based off of Japanese poetry styles. There are two different kinds of Cinquain generally used today.

First, there is the kind that Adelaide origionally created. This consists of five lines with two, four, six, eight, and two syllables respectively. The lines don't need to rhyme.

Example:

I know
A lot of things
But the thing I know most
Is that I am always true to
Myself

The second type is called a didactic cinquain and is similar to the first. The first line is one word, the title and subject of the poem. The second line contains two adjectives describing the subject. The third line is a three-word phrase that gives more information about the subject. The fourth line is four words describing feelings related to the subject. The last line is one word referring back to the title or a synonym of the title.

If you would be interested in writing an example of the didactic cinquain, contact Jackie here!

Sestina

The sestina is a French form of poetry and is mildly difficult to pull off. It starts out with a sestet (stanza with six lines) and continues with five more of them, finishing in a three-line stanza called the envoi. The tricky part of this is that the end words of all the lines in each sestet are the same. To complicate matters, there's a certain order in which the words need to appear. This part takes a little explaining, so stay focused.

Let's say that in your first sestet, the words at the ends of the lines are, in order: Sun, gave, grass, lake, took and flower. Now let's put numbers to each of these words. Sun (1), gave (2), grass (3), lake (4), took (5), and flower (6). The order of the words in the first sestet, then, is 123456. In the second sestet, you would change the order of the ending words around. There is a specific pattern to this, as stated above. The first line would end with the word flower (6), the second would end with Sun (1), the third with took (5), then gave (2), lake (4) and grass (3). So the order of the words in the second sestet is: 615243. The next sestets would have the ending words like this: 364125, 532614, 451362 and 246531. The three-line stanza also has the six ending words put in there. Different websites are suggesting different ways to arrange the words, but we'll go with the following because I found it multiple places. Word 6 is in the middle of the first line, which ends with word 2. The second line has word 1 in the middle, ending with word four, and the last line has word 5 in the middle and ends with word 3. Of course, it's not like you need to put more pressure on yourself by making these rhyme. The sestina is also generally going to read more like a short story than a poem.

I understand that this form can be pretty confusing, so if you still don't understand after reading this over again, feel free to contact me here with your questions.

Example:

The blue-eyed girl flew into the night
Feet pounding, pounding, pounding lest
They catch her before she'd begun.
She turned and looked behind her as she ran
Her blue eyes reflecting the light
Of her old village as she escaped west.

West, the only thought in her mind, west
Where she ran to on that coldest night
The moon sparkled, the only beam of light
While she fled from her master, fled lest
He catch her and yell at her as he ran
Her back to the place her life had begun

For that was also where her sadness had begun
And was why she flew away, toward the West
With the promises of a better life. She ran
to escape that bitter time, that night
that was her life, she ran to escape lest
She never become happy, and never see the light

Light, she was searching for, warmth and light
Unlike that cold, dark place where she'd begun
To never think cheerful thoughts, lest
She be disappointed, for it was dark. West,
she was close, West, with it's only finite night
was getting closer with every step she ran.

Closer to her freedom, closer as she ran
Toward the nearing promise of hope and light
Away from her past and the fleeing night
Then she arrived, happier than when she'd began
And she met a boy like herself in the West
He'd fled from the east. His name was Lester.

And now a blue-eyed woman keeps watch lest
Her two blue-eyed children run, as they ran
Around last week, and the week before. West,
Where she lives, a free woman basking in light
She's different from when this story had begun,
And she was a girl running away from the night.

And in the West her family stays, lest
They see Night again, and the race she ran
away toward Light ends as it had begun.

If you have a poetry form that you would like to recommend for this page, please neomail it to me! You can do so here!

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