{"id":32,"date":"2015-10-15T10:43:19","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T18:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.annhuang.com\/blog\/?p=32"},"modified":"2017-12-11T12:37:36","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T20:37:36","slug":"understanding-poetry-forms-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/15\/understanding-poetry-forms-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Poetry Forms & Structure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"reading<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poems are like maps. All poetry styles have some type of form, a physical structure that makes it markedly distinguishable from prose. Reading poetry is about more than taking in the words. It\u2019s also about using the arrangements of lines, sounds and rhythms to get to the meaning of the words. The relationship between sounds, repetition and movement push words beyond their literal meanings, making a work larger than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n

Common Poetry Styles<\/h3>\n

Acrostic<\/strong>: A poem that uses the first letter in each line to spell a word or phrase<\/p>\n

Ballad<\/strong>: A poem that tells a story<\/p>\n

Cento<\/strong>: A poem that uses lines from other poems<\/p>\n

Double-dactyl<\/strong>: An eight-line poem in which each line contains two dactyls, a long syllable followed by two shorter syllables (e.g. Roger L. Robinson wrote in \u201cDouble-Dactyl\u201d: \u201cLong-short-short, long-short-short\/ Dactyls in dimeter\/\u2026One sentence (two stanzas)\/Hexasyllabically\/ Challenges poets who\/ Don\u2019t have the time.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Elegy<\/strong>: A sad and thoughtful poem, often about an individual who died<\/p>\n

Epic<\/strong>: Long narrative poem<\/p>\n

Ghazal<\/strong>: A type of classical Middle Eastern poetry with 5 to 15 rhyming couplets and a shared refrain at the end of the second line<\/p>\n

Haiku<\/strong>: Traditional Japanese poem with three lines; the first and third lines have five syllables, the second line has seven syllables<\/p>\n

Lyric<\/strong>: A poem about the speaker\u2019s feelings, moods or thoughts<\/p>\n

Narrative<\/strong>: A poem that recounts a story<\/p>\n

Ode<\/strong>: A three-part poem about a serious subject<\/p>\n

Pantoum<\/strong>: A poem with two or more four-line stanzas; the second and fourth lines in one stanza are also the first and third lines of the next stanza<\/p>\n

Sonnet<\/strong>: A 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter; common forms include English sonnets and Italian sonnets<\/p>\n

Shi<\/strong>: Classical Chinese poems in which the even lines rhyme<\/p>\n

Tanka<\/strong>: Similar to a haiku, but follows a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern<\/p>\n

Terza<\/strong> rima<\/strong>: A poem with stanzas that follow an aba, bcb, cdc, ded<\/em>\u2026 rhyming pattern<\/p>\n

Structural Elements in Poetry Styles<\/h3>\n

Stanza<\/strong>: A group of lines in a poem<\/p>\n

Line<\/strong>: Individual line in a poem; it does not have to complete a sentence or thought<\/p>\n

Couplet<\/strong>: Stanzas with two lines<\/p>\n

Quatrain<\/strong>: Stanzas with four lines<\/p>\n

Enjambment<\/strong>: When an idea in one line carries on to the next<\/p>\n

Caesura<\/strong>: Punctuation that doesn\u2019t occur at the end of a line<\/p>\n

Feet<\/strong>: The type of two- or three-syllable unit on which a meter is based; a foot is the number and type of syllables in a meter; an iambic foot, for example, has an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable (e.g. the word \u201cdestroy\u201d); types of meters include iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee and pyrrhic<\/p>\n

Meter<\/strong>: Patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, or feet, in a poem; types of meters include monometer, dimeter, trimester, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter and octameter<\/p>\n

Metrical<\/strong> patterns<\/strong>: The type of dominant foot in a poem and the number of times it appears in a line, such as iambic pentameter, a line with five iambic feet<\/p>\n

Rhythm<\/strong>: The rhythmical sounds in a poem because of accented and unaccented syllables in words<\/p>\n

Rhyme<\/strong> schemes<\/strong>: The pattern of rhymes at the end of the lines in a poem, indicated using letters; lines with the same letters rhyme with each other<\/p>\n

Knowing about different poetry styles and the elements that make up a work is like having the legend to a map. Incorporate these elements into your own work to give yourself a challenge and to diversify your writing.<\/p>\n

[Photo from Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York<\/a> via CC License 2.0<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Poems are like maps. All poetry styles have some type of form, a physical structure that makes it markedly distinguishable from prose. Reading poetry is about more than taking in the words. It\u2019s also about using the arrangements of lines, sounds and rhythms to get to the meaning of the words. The relationship between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,22,26],"tags":[31,3,39,5,6,23,14],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experimental-poetry","category-poetry-language","category-poetry-translation","tag-ann-huang","tag-essential-poetry","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-form","tag-poetry-structure","tag-poetry-translation","tag-surrealist-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}