Types of Poems

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.
~ William Butler Yeats

If you've never felt a rush of awe when reading the lines "...The woods are lovely dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep." from Robert Frost's Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening and wondered at the subtle allusions towards the fact that one must carry on with life and not get tempted to laze around for too long at the cost of neglecting one's duties, then you probably aren't human enough! Indeed, this and many other poetic treasures left behind by great poets like Keats, Shelley, Frost, etc. make us sigh over the verbal aesthetics and marvel at the sheer brilliance of expression of these literary geniuses who allowed themselves to distort the sublime facets of life such that the message that got conveyed was bejeweled with vocabulary gems of poetry, sprinkled with tinseled figments of imagination! Let us look at the different types of poems to witness the kaleidoscopic grandeur of literary expression in its full glory!

Different Types of Poems

The following different types of poetry mark many different types of poetry styles and genres. Let us look at the various different classes of poems and examples of each type.

Acrostic: This type of poetry usually has five lines with the first letter of the first word of each line spelling a distinct word or message when put together. For example:

People need love care and friendship.
Every word that we let slip.
All the prayers that come from our heart
Could be the sign for peace to start
Everyone must play their part. ~ Paul McCann
If you look carefully, taking the letters P, E, A, C and E (1st letters of 1st words of each line) we get the word PEACE!

Ballad: Ballads are among the most basic types of poems and usually have popular local legends, folk tales or heroic accounts as their subject. These types of poetry often repeat a common refrain. A very good example is "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Blank Verse: A blank verse is a type of poetry in which the poem is structured as an unrhymed iambic pentameter and flows unobtrusively. For example:

You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into entrails of yon labouring clouds,
That when they vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from their smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to Heaven. ~ Christopher Marlowe (Dr. Faustus)

Burlesque: A poetic parody of a serious topic is known as a burlesque. It is the poets way of poking fun at the somber aspects of life in an absurd manner.

Canzone: This poetry technique originated in medieval Italy and is structured in the form of lyrics.

Cinquain: A cinquain is usually a five-line piece with each line having one word more than the preceding line and then the word count decreases as the lines progress towards completion, ending at one word. The first line is the title and has one word, the second line has 2 words, the third has 3 words, fourth line has two words and the fifth ends in just one word. For example:
Sunflower
Bright yellow
Facing the sun
Looking happy
Pretty
It's like a word rhombus, if you get what I mean!

Classicism: These kinds of poetry reflect the classic style of poetic ode to beauty and descriptive imagery of arts, sculptures, architecture and literature.

Couplet: As the word says it, a couplet is made up of stanzas each having two, or a couple of, lines. For example:

True wit is nature to advantage dress'd;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. ~ Alexander Pope

Elegy: A sad poem, especially mourning loss or death is known as an elegy. For example:

Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer ~ John Milton (Lycidas)

Epic: A minutely descriptive literary work chronicling the exploits of historic and heroic figures is known as an epic. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are perhaps the most prominent examples of epic.

Epigram: An epigram is a very brief, sardonic poem full of wit, sometimes sarcasm, often written in the form of a short couplet or quatrain. For example:

Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
Now she's at rest - and so am I. ~ John Dryden

Epitaph: An epitaph is a poetic inscription engraved upon the grave of a deceased person, often briefly commemorating his / her life or expressing affection or fondness for him / her. For example:

Good frend for jesus sake forbeare to
Digg the dust encloased heare.
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones and
Curst be he yt moves my bones ~ William Shakespeare (on his grave)

Epithalamium: Epithalamiums are special kinds of poems written for the occasion of a wedding, usually in honor of the bride and the groom.

Ghazal: A ghazal is a lyrical poem written in Urdu, often sung to a melody, usually consisting of 5 - 15 couplets.

Haiku: A haiku poem is a form of Japanese poem being three lines long, usually consisting of five, seven and five morae along with at least one word which denotes a climatic element. Below is an example of a haiku:

How many gallons
of Edo's rain did you drink?
Cuckoo ~ Kobayashi Issa

Iambic Pentameter: The structure of an iambic pentameter is such that the sound, when read, is that of a brief syllable followed by a long one in a set of five. For example:

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells ~ John Keats (Ode to Autumn)
Read it this way: To swell | the gourd, || and plump | the ha- | zel shells
Get the point?

Sonnet: A sonnet is a poem consisting of two parts - an octave (eight lined rhyme) and a sestet (six lined rhyme). For example:

When I consider how my light is spent (a)
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
And that one talent which is death to hide, (b)
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a)
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a)
My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d)
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e)
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c)
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
They also serve who only stand and wait." ~ John Milton (On His Blindness)

Ode: An ode is a lyrical address and dedication to any person, thing or element and is usually lengthy, serious and has a meditative tone. The writing style is elevated with formal structure of stanzas. For example:

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flow'ry tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? ~ John Keats (Ode on a Grecian Urn)

Limerick: Limericks are humorous and light poems, often fantastic and absurd in nature, having five anapestic lines. The first, second and fifth lines contain similar rhyme and rhythm, each line having about 7 - 10 syllables. For example:

There was a Young Person of Smyrna
Whose grandmother threatened to burn her;
But she seized on the cat,
and said 'Granny, burn that!
You incongruous old woman of Smyrna!' ~ Edward Lear

Lyric: A poem that expresses the poet's innate feelings and emotions via eloquent use of words is called a lyric.

Pastoral: A pastoral is a poetic description of the peaceful, rural life and bucolic scenic beauty.

Quatrain: A quatrain is a poem or a stanza having four lines in which the second and fourth lines must rhyme with each other.

Rhyme: A rhyme is a piece of literary work in which the same sound is repeated either consecutively or alternatively, usually at the end of each line.

Rondeau: A French poetry form, Rondeaus are characterized as being 10, 13 or 15 lines long having two rhymes. Also, the first line must be repeated as many times as the refrain. For example:

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
~ Paul Laurence Dunbar (We Wear The Mask)

Sestina: A sestina is a poem composed of six stanzas having six lines each along with a three-line envoy.

Tanka: A tanka is a Japanese five-line long poem with the first and third lines having five syllables and the rest of the lines having seven syllables.

Verse: A verse is a single line which is part of a bigger metrical composition such as a poetry.

Villanelle: A villanelle is a poem which is 19-lines long and which has five tercets and the final quartet of which is composed of two rhymes. For example:

They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill.
They are all gone away.
Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.
Why is it then we stray
Around the sunken sill?
They are all gone away,
And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.
There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson (The House on the Hill)

Those were the most prominent categories of poems. Other than these, there are many other classes of poems such as Terza Rima, Shape, Senryu, Romanticism, Rhyme Royal, Pindaric Ode, Dramatic Monologue, etc. which, although not that common, are interesting styles and structures of writing poetry nonetheless. On a parting note, I'd like to quote Thomas Hardy to emphasize the power subtle verbal eloquence can have, as opposed to prosaic facts, when it comes to conveying your conviction:

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.