Types of Poetry
- Ballad is a relatively short narrative poem with a simple dramatic action. Ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural or a combination of these. Two characteristics of a ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza.
- Blank Verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter.
- Carpe Diem translated means "Seize the Day." Carpe Diem poetry encourages readers to make the most of the immediate, to enjoy life.
- Concrete Poetry is poetry in which the shape or pattern is essential to the conveying the intended effect or meaning.
- Didactic poems which are usually written to teach or to state an informative lesson. These poems can be somewhat moralistic.
- Elegy is a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos, a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally - which is a form of lyric poetry.
- Epic is a long narrative poem recounting the deeds of heroic figures.
- Epigram is a short, witty poem or statement
- Epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively.
- Extended Metaphor is a poem in which the metaphor continues throughout the poem.
- Found Poetry is the rearrangement of words, phrases , and sometimes whole passages that are taken from other sources and reframed as poetry by changes in spacing and/or lines (and consequently meaning), or by altering the text by additions and/or deletions.
- Free Verse is a term describing various styles of that are written without using strict meter or rhyme, but that still are recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will perceive to be part of a coherent whole.
- Lyric is a short poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who expresses thought or feeling.
- Sonnet is a lyric poem consisting of fourteen lines, a set rhyme and rhythm. In English, the two basic sonnets are the Italian or Shakespearean.
- Narrative is a form of poetry that tells a story.
- Ode is a longer lyric poem having a serious subject and dignified style, often addressed to some person.
- Pastoral is a brief poem that focuses on scenes from rural or pastoral life. It often contains descriptions of shepherds and idealized views of life.
Links for more information
Poetry Ideas to Get You Started and Examples
These can form the basis for many writing activities. Below are several ideas that use list words to create poetry in a variety of forms.
Create lists from your reading
Select a category and write it as a title for your list. Or come up with a category of your own.
- people, places, things, names
- words: long, short, new, funny, hard to read, words with th, words with long vowels...
- new vocabulary words
- describing words, action words, words with pre-fixes, words with suffixes. words with blends
- words I can spell, words I can’t spell
- words with more than 6 letters, words with less than 8 letters...
- specific words and general words (cedar : tree)
- phrases: over the fence, past the house, under the couch, by the trail
- words that rhyme (cat, hat; tangle, wrangle; restricted, constricted...)
- what happened (went to school, lost my pencil, lost my tooth! got a gap, got a smile from Mom)
- plants: make a general list of those in the story or sort by characteristic such as plant names, plant categories (domestic or wild, garden or field, tree or shrub or grass or herb...)
- land forms
- character traits
- examples of technology (simple machines, examples of work, tools, inventions...)
- transportation
- animals: make a general list or a list selected according to specific chosen characteristics (appearance, habitats, behaviour, life cycles...)
Use words from lists to create couplets
Two words or two lines that rhyme. Write them in poetry format. Make them as simple or as complex as you like. Write one couplet or write several.
|
Bee, Tree. |
Royal sleep, Farmyard sheep. |
Elephant near water, Bird on Noah’s daughter. |
Arrange words from your lists in poetry forms. (If you need to use words that are not on your list, please do! You don’t have to use up all the words on a list.) Use one of the formats below, choose a poetry form from a book, find poetry forms online, or create a poetry form of your own. You may or may not use rhyming. That part is up to you.
| Trees | "ing" Words | Making a Cloak | Ida’s "er" Words | Silly Sayings From Five Letter Words |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Huge, Lofty, Cedar trees. Use a thesaurus to help replace ordinary words with grand words. Example: big = huge tall = lofty |
Running, Walking, Skipping, Talking. |
Shear, Card, Spin, Weave, Sew, Wear the cloak. |
Mother, father, Sister, brother, Summer, smuggler, Nearer, nearer..., Closer..., clever , Better, butter. |
After every berry juice, Shear sheep! |
Writing free verse using your senses.
Note: The following examples mention specific content. Please alter the content to suit your personal study focus.
- Identify the pattern in the examples.
- Select a geographic region in North America that relates to your History study.
- With this region in mind, write, following the pattern.
- Add an interesting title.
- Be ready to explain how your choices follow the pattern.
You may want to tackle a specific topic like
- the geography of the area
- the native plants
- the cultivated plants
- the inside of a home
- the weather
- or a combination
Make your work more interesting by writing from a specific perspective such as a soldier, a farmer, a mother, an animal, a plow, a skiff...
Be very specific. Use interesting words and creative modifiers.
| Metis Buffalo Hunter | Black Crow | Settler |
|---|---|---|
|
I see the herd. I feel the tense horse under me. I hear the thunder of hooves. I smell the sweat of a thousand bodies. I taste the dust. |
I see the wide, open sky. I feel the rustle of wind through my wingtips. I smell the bodies of running children. I hear the flap of a girl’s apron. I taste fine, ripened grain. |
I see the flat summer prairie. I feel the intense heat of the sun. I hear the ever-present wind. I smell the dryness of the grass. I taste the bounty of the garden. |
Music Patterns
Folk songs often developed to express personal experience. Think of all that happened during the 1700’s. The Acadians were sent away. The American Colonists gained independence. The Loyalist came to Canada bringing with them the ideals of self-government. The industrial revolution was beginning to change the face of the North American Nations. People were moving ever westward.
Some people would have been happy with these events. Others wouldn’t have been happy at all.
- Choose a tune that someone in this time period may have sung.
- Become very familiar with the rhythm-pattern of the song. (the meter)
- Write your own set of words to fit this tune.
- Express your pleasure or displeasure over a particular situation, event, or item of the 1700’s.
- Don’t forget to use the rhyming dictionary.
- Be ready to sing the tune by yourself or with a helper.
This example is sung to the tune of Frere Jacques (Are You Sleeping)
Ballad of an Acadian
We came from old France,
This was our new chance,
To have a home,
Of our very own.
Farms and shops and orchards,
Seas and Capes and songbirds.
We love our home,
By the sea.
France and England,
Have eyes on our land.
Each wants our home,
For their very own.
Neutrality is what we plea,
Politics is what they see,
So they sent us away.
Sent us away.
Creating a 4-Sentence Poem
- Copy the first line and fill in the blank(s) using as many words as you like. Remember to begin each sentence with a capital letter.
- Complete the next two sentences by filling in the blank. This is a poetry form so begin a new line for each statement. Make lines 2 and line 4 rhyme. (Hint: figure out your rhyming words before you start writing.)
- Write a final sentence that draws a conclusion, gives an opinion, or states a related fact.
If I were a dinosaur, I would eat __________ and _________ .
I would walk on __________ and _________ .
I would sleep on __________ and _________ .
But I’m not a dinosaur so I will __________________.
Visual Pattern Poems
a
b e
l e t
b e s t
c r e s t
f o r e s t
- Identify the structure. (see below)
- Is there a rhyming pattern? Yes or No If yes, identify the rhyming pattern.
- Write your own piece following the pattern of the example. Your base word must be related to Canada or Acadia in some way.
- Be ready to explain how your choices follow the pattern.
You may change the order of the letters in each line but you do not have to.
- Begin at the _____________.
- Choose a _______________ and write it.
- Subtract one ____________ and change one _____________ to make a new word.
- Write that word.
- Move up to the next line and repeat the steps.