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You are here: Home / Resources for Writers / Top 10 Types of Poems, Forms or Formats

Top 10 Types of Poems, Forms or Formats

Top 10 Types of Poems, Forms or Formats

Top 10 Types of Poems, Forms or Formats


Here is a list of what I feel are the Top 10 Types of Poems, Forms or Formats. I say forms or formats because we cross some lines of distinction here that are not always easy to explain. Basically these are types of poems where people use a certain form to create them, but some are forms in and of themselves. Anyway,  I wanted to come up with a short list of the most popular poetry types. This is a basic guide. If someone throws these at you, at least you will know what they are. I hope you will try each type, and if you do feel free to share them in the comments.

1. Free Verse

Not to be mixed up with blank verse, free verse is poetic form/technique where the poet does not follow the conventions of any meter or rhyme.

2. Haiku

This is the only poem that rivals free verse these days. People love the Haiku. It’s a 3 line poem generally where first and last lines have 5 syllables, and the middle has seven syllables.

3. Sonnet

There are various forms of sonnets, but the most popular tends to be the English or Shakespearean sonnet. It is a 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter. The poem will end in a rhyming couplet. There are much more to these of course, but this is the general definition. There is also the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. The English sonnet seems to be the most attempted.

4. Blank Verse

This is basiclly a poem written in Iambic pentameter but it does not rhyme. It can follow other meter, but Iambic pentameter is the most common by far.

5. Limerick

A Limerick is at it’s core (and there is more too them) a 5 line poem that follows a strict meter and always has a AABBA rhyme scheme.

6. Tanka

Related in a sense to the Haiku,  the Tanka poem is basically a poem that has 5,7,5,7,7 for it’s lines. So it’s basically a Haiku with 2 seven syllable lines added on to the end.

7. Cinquain

At it’s very base this is simply a 5 line poem. So The Tanka above falls into this classification, but the most popular Cinquain that people want you to write when you say, Let’s write a cinquain is generally in English that follows a rhyme scheme of ababb, abaab or abccb.

8. Sestina

It’s probably easier to write a sestina than it is to explain how to write one. So its a six stanza of six lines each with a triplet at the end. Each stanza has the same 6 words at the end of each line of the poem. So basically the words that end the lines fo the first stanza are rotated over and over again at the end of the lines of the next stanza.

9. Villanelle

Here is another poetic, but it’s not easy to explain nor easy to write. The most famous one of these is Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas. The form is basically a 19 line poem that has five 3 line stanzas. The first line of the poem and the last line of the first stanza becomes a refrains (repeated) again and again until the last stanza. Basically, line 1, 3 become beginning and ending lines of all the other stanzas.

10. Acrostic

This is a simple poetry form, newer than the rest on this page. The Acrostic is basically a poem that uses the up and down letters of a poem to spell a word or phrase. So the first letter of each line could be pulled out to spell a word.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jacqueline Casey says

    April 16, 2017 at 10:07 am

    What is a “cizoe’ poem?

    Reply
    • jerry says

      April 6, 2022 at 10:22 am

      It’s when you don’t rhyme at all and say nothing but words

      Reply
  2. Jamescarr says

    August 10, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    I used to love poems. These days I find it difficult to concentrate on them. I guess I have become too busy

    Reply
  3. Jenitha Rugaika says

    July 28, 2018 at 9:31 am

    i write poems but i wasnt sure where my type falls in,now i know it falls under free verse category. Thank you for sharing.

    Jenitha

    Reply
  4. olayiwola eniola says

    August 30, 2018 at 3:44 am

    I write different categories of poems which i didnt knw before thank u very much

    Reply
  5. Justin Nnamezie says

    September 30, 2018 at 6:55 pm

    I read poems a lot but I’m often confused about their types. I’m more familiar with sonnet, haiku and Limerick. Thank you for the enlightenment.

    Reply
    • Mary jane says

      October 17, 2019 at 8:36 pm

      Find mines on lulu or amazon (for amazon search NAKED 13-30 BOOK)

      Reply
  6. Nuhamin Ararso says

    July 31, 2019 at 11:02 am

    Poems are children of poet that is why they reveal their parents behaviour.I am poet for and an author, Wait and see And prepare to read my upcoming book

    Reply
  7. Nuhamin Ararso says

    July 31, 2019 at 11:02 am

    Poems are children of poet that is why they reveal their parents behaviour.I am poet and an author, Wait and see And prepare to read my upcoming book

    Reply
    • Every Writer says

      July 31, 2019 at 1:15 pm

      I agree with you. I’ll look for your books.

      Reply
  8. sydney says

    October 17, 2019 at 1:33 pm

    i found this really helpful

    Reply
  9. Charlotte says

    November 20, 2019 at 10:45 pm

    What is a limerick???

    Reply
    • Lyric Schowalter says

      April 3, 2020 at 8:12 am

      AABBA is a pattern in which the words rhyme, so the A’s rhyme and the B’s rhyme.

      Reply
  10. Lebron James says

    December 9, 2019 at 3:44 pm

    Half of these poems i didn’t even know were a thing 🙂

    Reply
    • Stephen Curry says

      December 9, 2019 at 3:46 pm

      Poetry is hard

      Reply
    • Micheal Jordan says

      November 5, 2021 at 12:18 pm

      no way Stephen curry writes poems

      Reply
  11. Jonathan Mack says

    April 8, 2020 at 10:27 am

    Dude, Awesomely crazy poetry, ya got there/

    Reply
  12. Izzy says

    September 27, 2020 at 9:13 am

    I love sestinas even tho they are so hard to write.

    Reply
  13. Mia Evans says

    April 27, 2022 at 10:31 pm

    I love that you talked about how Free Verse poems would be a technique that would not follow any conventions of meter or rhyme. I can imagine how nice it would be to be exposed to such work, especially when I appreciate words being used in such a creative way. Hopefully, I can find a Puerto Rican poet this time because I feel curious on how they take this kind of technique.

    Reply

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