An ABC poem has 5 lines that create a mood, picture, or feeling. Lines 1 through 4 are made up of words, phrases or clauses - and the first word of each line is in alphabetical order from the first word. Line 5 is one sentence, beginning with any letter.
Ballad
A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain.
Blank Verse
Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is often unobtrusive and the iambic pentameter form often resembles the rhythms of ordinary speech. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse.
Couplet
A couplet has rhyming stanzas each made up of two lines. Shakespearean sonnets usually end in a couplet.
Elegy
A sad and thoughtful poem lamenting the death of a person. An example of this type of poem is Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
Epic
A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure. Two of the most famous epic poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer and the epic poem of Hiawatha.
Free Verse
Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed metrical pattern or expectation.
Idyll, or Idyl
Either a short poem depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene, or a long poem that tells a story about heroes of a bygone age.
Lyric
A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. The term lyric is now generally referred to as the words to a song.
Narrative
Ballads, epics, and lays are different kinds of narrative poems.
Ode
John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is probably the most famous example of this type of poem which is long and serious in nature written to a set structure.
Poetry Forms
Pastoral
A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, idealized way for example of shepherds or country life.
Rhyme
A rhyme has the repetition of the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more words most often at the ends of lines. There are several derivatives of this term which include double rhyme, Triple rhyme, rising rhyme, falling rhyme, Perfect and imperfect rhymes.
Romanticism
Nature and love were a major themes of Romanticism favoured by 18th and 19th century poets such as Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Emphasis was placed on the personal experiences of the individual.
Sonnet
English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are lyric poems that are 14 lines long falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet. Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line sestet.
Verse
A single metrical line of poetry, or poetry in general (as opposed to prose).