15 Types of Poetic Forms

1. Blank verse. Blank verse is poetry written with a precise meter—almost always iambic
pentameter—that does not rhyme.

Example: Like to an almond tree y-mounted high Upon the lofty and celestial mount
Of evergreen Selinus, quaintly deck’d With blooms more white than Erycina’s brows,
Whose tender blossoms tremble every one At every little breath that thorough heaven
is blown. - Tamburlaine, Part II

2. Rhymed poetry. In contrast to blank verse, rhymed poems rhyme by definition,

although their scheme varies.

Example: Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;—A

And yet methinks I have astronomy,—B
But not to tell of good or evil luck,—A
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;—B - Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 14”

3. Free verse. Free verse poetry is poetry that lacks a consistent rhyme scheme, metrical
pattern, or musical form.

Example: “Portrait of a Lady”

Your thighs are appletrees whose blossoms touch the sky. Which sky? The sky where
Watteau hung a lady's slipper. Your knees are a southern breeze--or a gust of snow.
Agh! what sort of man was Fragonard? --as if that answered anything. Ah, yes--below
the knees, since the tune drops that way, it is one of those white summer days, the tall
grass of your ankles flickers upon the shore-- Which shore?-- the sand clings to my
lips-- Which shore? Agh, petals maybe. How should I know? Which shore? Which
shore? I said petals from an appletree.

4. Epics. An epic poem is a lengthy, narrative work of poetry. These long poems
typically detail extraordinary feats and adventures of characters from a distant past.

Example: The  Mahābhārata  is an ancient Indian epic composed in Sanskrit. The text
as we know it appears to date back to 400 BC, but scholars suspect its subject matter
is thousands of years older—perhaps dating back to the eighth or ninth centuries BC.
At over 200,000 lines, it is considered the longest poem ever written, and also contains
prosed mixed in with poetry.

5. Narrative poetry. Similar to an epic, a narrative poem tells a story. Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” exemplify this form.
 Example: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" is narrated by a grieving man who, over the
course of 18 stanzas, describes his mysterious confrontation with a raven and his
descent into despair.

6. Haiku. A haiku is a three-line poetic form originating in Japan. The first line has five
syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and the third line again has five
syllables.

Example:
An old pond!
A frog jumps in –
The sound of water. - Matsu Basho’s Haiku

7. Pastoral poetry. A pastoral poem is one that concerns the natural world, rural life, and
landscapes. These poems have persevered from Ancient Greece (in the poetry of
Hesiod) to Ancient Rome (Virgil) to the present day (Gary Snyder).

Example: Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That
Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks, Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow
Rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers,
and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle; - Christopher Marlowe’s “The
Passionate Shepherd to His Love,”

8. Sonnet. A sonnet is a 14 line poem, typically (but not exclusively) concerning the topic
of love. Sonnets contain internal rhymes within their 14 lines; the exact rhyme scheme
depends on the style of a sonnet.

Example: “Sonnet 18”

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short
a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion
dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing
course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that
fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal
lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives
this and this gives life to thee.

9. Elegies. An elegy is a poem that reflects upon death or loss. Traditionally, it contains
themes of mourning, loss, and reflection. However, it can also explore themes of
redemption and consolation.
 Example: Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy, Until I labor, I in labor lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, Is tired with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering, But a far fairer world
encompassing. Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear, That th' eyes of busy
fools may be stopped there. - Donne’s “Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going To Bed”

10. Ode. Much like an elegy, an ode is a tribute to its subject, although the subject need
not be dead—or even sentient, as in John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”.

Example: Row after row with strict impunity

The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves

Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament

To the seasonal eternity of death;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath,
They sough the rumour of mortality. - Allen Tate’s “Ode to the Confederate Dead,”

11. Limerick. A limerick is a five-line poem that consists of a single stanza, an AABBA
rhyme scheme, and whose subject is a short, pithy tale or description.

Example: There once was a man from Nantucket Who kept all his cash in a bucket. But
his daughter, named Nan, Ran away with a man And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

- Nantucket by Dayton Voorhees

12. Lyric poetry. Lyric poetry refers to the broad category of poetry that concerns feelings
and emotion. This distinguishes it from two other poetic categories: epic and dramatic.

Example: Flower of this purple dye,

Hit with Cupid's archery,
Sink in apple of his eye.
When his love he doth espy,
Let her shine as gloriously
As the Venus of the sky.
When thou wakest, if she be by,
Beg of her for remedy. – Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

13. Ballad. A ballad (or ballade) is a form of narrative verse that can be either poetic or
musical. It typically follows a pattern of rhymed quatrains. From John Keats to Samuel
Taylor Coleridge to Bob Dylan, it represents a melodious form of storytelling.
 Example:

And now there came both mist and snow And it grew wondrous cold And ice, mast-
high, came floating by As green as emerald

And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen Nor shapes of men nor
beasts we ken— The ice was all between - Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner.” 

14. Soliloquy. A soliloquy is a monologue in which a character speaks to him or herself,

expressing inner thoughts that an audience might not otherwise know. Soliloquies are
not definitionally poems, although they often can be—most famously in the plays of
William Shakespeare.
15. Villanelle. A nineteen-line poem consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, with a highly
specified internal rhyme scheme. Originally a variation on a pastoral, the villanelle has
evolved to describe obsessions and other intense subject matters, as exemplified by
Dylan Thomas, author of villanelles like “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”