Types of Poetry Examples
Learning about the different types
of poetry is often easier when you review examples of the different types. Each
example gives you the opportunity to see the differences between the style and
tone of each type.
Examples
Highlight the Poetic Types
Each type of poetry is characterized
by its own style. By understanding the various styles, you are better able to
learn the variances between each of the different types.
Haiku
Poems
The Old
Pond by Matshuo Basho is an example of a
haiku:
- “The old pond-- a frog jumps
in, sound of water.”
Truth in
Advertising by Yahia
Lababidi is another example of a haiku:
- “Morning epiphany, applicable
to love and life, in haiku-like purity.”
Free
Verse Poems
Because free verse poems are the
least well defined, there are numerous examples of free verse poems. This
excerpt from This is Marriage, is by Marianne Moore is one such example:
This institution, perhaps one should
say enterpriseout of respect for which one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in, requiring public promises of one's intention
to fulfil a private obligation: I wonder what Adam and Eve think of it by this
time, this fire-gilt steel alive with goldenness;
This excerpt from Little Father
by Li-Young Lee is another example of free verse poetry:
I buried my father in my heart.
Now he grows in me, my strange son,
My little root who won’t drink milk,
Little pale foot sunk in unheard-of
night,
Little clock spring newly wet
In the fire,little grape, parent to
the future
Wine, a son the fruit of his own
son,
Little father I ransom with my life.
Cinquains
A cinquain is a five-line poem
inspired by Japanese haiku's. There are many different variations of cinquain
including American Cinquains, didactic cinquains, reverse cinquains, butterfly
cinquains and crown cinquains
TreeStrong,
TallSwaying,
swinging,
sighing
Memories of summerOak
Epic
Poems
An epic is a long and narrative poem
that normally tells a story about a hero or an adventure. Epics can be oral
stories or can be poems in written form. The Illiad and the Odyssey
are examples of famous epic poems, as is The Song of Hiawatha by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow.
The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
By the shore of Gitchie Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
Ballad
Poems
Ballad poems also tell a story, like
epic poems do. However, ballad poetry is often based on a legend or a folk
tale. Ballad poems may take the form of songs and may contain a moral or a
lesson.
The Mermaid by Unknown author
Oh the ocean waves may roll,
And the stormy winds may blow,
While we poor sailors go skipping
aloft
And the land lubbers lay down below,
below, below
And the land lubbers lay down below.
Name
Poems
While a name verse poem can be as
simple as using an adjective to describe a person that begins with each letter
of that person's name, these poems can also be far more beautiful works of art.
For example, here is a name poem for a person named Alexis:
“Alexis seems quite shy and somewhat
frail,
Leaning, like a tree averse to
light,
Evasively away from her delight.
X-rays, though, reveal a sylvan
sprite,
Intense as a bright bird behind her
veil,
Singing to the moon throughout the
night.”
As you can see, each line of the
poem begins with the letters of the name Alexis. This can be done with any name
- for example, the following name poem is a poem for a person named Taylor:
“Taylor likes each sentiment to be
Appropriate to its own time and
place.
Years may roll like waves across her
shore,
Leaving none of what there was
before,
Obliterating every sign of grace.
Reason not, says Taylor, with the
sea!”
Sonnets
The poems of William Shakespeare
provide excellent types of poetry examples for sonnets.
Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true
minds
Admit impediments.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration
finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never
shaken;
It is the star to every wandering
bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his
height be taken.
Love's not
Time's fool, though rosy lips and
cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass
come:
Love alters not with his brief hours
and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of
doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Shakespeare was not the only source
of sonnets.
Sonnet of Demeter - An Italian Sonnet
Oh the pirate stars, they have no
mercy!
Masquerading as hope they tell their
lies;
Only the young can hear their
lullabies.
But I am barren and I am thirsty
Since she has gone. No hope is there
for me.
I will roam and curse this earth and
these skies--
Death from life which Zeus sovereign
denies.
My heart's ill shall the whole
world's illness be
Till she is returned-- my daughter,
my blood--
From the dark hand of Hades to my
care.
With my tears these mortals shall
know a flood
To show Poseidon's realm desert and
bare.
No myrtle shall flower, no cypress
bud
Till the gods release her...and my
despair.
Ode
to Job
Job came down
in awoosh, outstretched
and gliding into the horizon.
Blue shadowed
flight arrested by the beckoning
marsh.
His greatness bears much
yet not the anguish of ancient
prophecy.
Situated grievances weigh feathery
on this long, strong back.
Unconscious emotion numbs
while time drifts out
another sun salted day.
Different
Types of Poetry
There are over 50 types of poetry.
Poetry is categorized by the number of lines in the poem, the words in the
poem, whether it rhymes or not, and what it is about.
Some types of poetry examples
include haiku, free verse, sonnets, and name poems, although there are many
more types as well.
- Haikus are one category of poems. The haiku originated from
Japan, It’s the shortest type of poem and, often, the most difficult to
understand. It consists of three lines that generally do not rhyme. The
lines should have five, seven, and five syllables in them.
- Free verse poems are another
type of poetry. A free verse is the loosest type of poem. It can consist
of as many lines as the writer wants. It can either rhyme or not, and it
does not require any fixed metrical pattern. Free verse is commonly used
among writers because it allows for maximum flexibility.
- Sonnets are another classification of poetry. A sonnet is best
described as a lyric poem that consists of fourteen lines. Sonnet’s have
at least one or two conventional rhyme schemes. Shakespeare in particular was famous for
writing sonnets.
- Name poems are popular among
children and are often used in schools. The name of the person becomes the
poem. Each letter in the name is the first letter in the line of the poem.
There is a very wide definition of
what constitutes poetry, and although some types of poetry can be grouped
together in specific styles, creativity is the key to poetry and a new poet can
choose to write in any style he wants, even if it doesn't fit into one of the
recognized type
