BY HANNAH VERMONT Welcome to week 2 of Poetry 101 with the Poetry Princess! Today, as promised, we will focus on some of the most popular types of poetry and how to create them. First, the favorite of amateur poets: Free verse Free verse is perfect for new poets because there are no restrictions! It has no set structure or rhyme scheme. Here’s an example: The child sits on the floor Biding his time, Until the woman turns Away from the counter Wherein the sweet Treats lie Do you see how it doesn’t rhyme or have an specific format? And yet it still seems to flow? That, is free verse. Next up is one that is easy and simple: ABC In an ABC poem, the poet starts off with four alphabetized lines with a fifth line starting with any letter. It, like free verse, does not have to rhyme, but is typically formatted in order for the first letter of every line to be clearly seen in a pattern: An apple falls down But it doesn’t wait long Carelessly, it rolls Down the luscious hill Until it becomes no more A similar style to ABC is: Acrostic Acrostic, like ABC, plays off of the first letters of every line. But instead of following an alphabetic pattern, the letters spell out a word: Babbling on Answers coo-ingly Blushing cheeks Yawns with delight Do you see how it also doesn’t rhyme like the ABC poem? This is one of the most known types of poetry for its use in country music: Ballad A Ballad typically follows the rhyme scheme of ABCB, meaning that the second and fourth lines rhyme while lines one and three do not. Ballads can be any number of stanzas but are mostly arranged in four part rhymes. Also, music is usually added to a ballad for its effect in creating the flow. A short ballad would look like this: A dog barks furiously Breaking the morning with cries Of intentional malice And utter demise And now for a rhyming poem: Couplets Couplets are two line poems or a paragraph style for longer poems with each stanza only being two lines. Each line must rhyme with line before it so the pattern would go AA BB CC etc. Also, the syllables must be the same for both lines. You will often hear a poem as having so-and-so number of couplets. This does not mean that the poem is a “couplet”, more that it has a few stanzas that follow its pattern, like ending of a Sonnet consists of one couplet: : The boy ran around Feet stomping the ground Continuing on Past trees until gone Do you see how each line has five syllables? And how “around” and “ground” are coupled together so that they form a rhyme scheme? Everybody’s favorite Japanese poem: Haiku Haikus have three lines. The first line has five syllables, the second has seven, and the last has five again. The catch is that this poem does not have to rhyme: Rocks fall from above Striking Earth with forced impacts Meteors come down Another unique rhyme scheme found in poems: Limerick Limericks have five lines and follow the rhyme scheme of AABBA. Typically, the first, second, and fifth lines are written with more syllables than the third and fourth in order to create its special flowing rhythm: Daybreaking overhead He rose from his warm bed Being startled And disgruntled For never being fed Most of the time, limericks are used for humor. A very popular form back in the day: Narrative A Narrative follows a pattern like a story, with characters, a plot, dialogue, and even a narrator. It is similar to free verse since it has no particular rhyme scheme or rhythm. It may even read more like a work of fiction than a poem. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” is the best example of this style. A typical tool to use in the poetry world: Quatrain The Quatrain, like the name implies, consists of four lines. Its rhyme scheme is either ABAB or AABB and often has lines that rhyme alternately. You will often hear a poem referred to as having so-and-so number of quatrains, meaning that the poem is not necessarily a “quatrain” itself, but contains stanzas that follow its pattern: Trees bend all along Breaking wood and stump Falling down is going wrong It lands with a thump! Finally, for what Shakespeare was known for: Sonnets Sonnets are poems with fourteen lines and is written in iambic pentameter, which is a rhythm flow similar to that of the human heart in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable in sets of five in an unrhyming line. (Ex. da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM or tick TOCK tick TOCK tick TOCK tick TOCK tick TOCK) Its rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Most of Shakespeare's poems were written in this style. That’s it for this week! Next time we will be getting into the actual substance of a poem, as in literary devices and paragraph styles. Thanks for learning with the Poetry Princess. See ya soon! ;)
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