Poetry Guides

Poetic Forms

Guides to poetic forms such as the sonnet, ballad, ode and villanelle.

A compact Japanese lyric form of 31 sound units, shaped by image, turn, and resonance

How a poem’s initial letters create a hidden pattern, an address or a second voice

How large-scale stories of heroes, journeys and communities create poetry with public ambition

How six recurring end-words create pattern, variation and emotional momentum

How voice, concentrated feeling and verbal music give lyric poetry its many shapes

How poetry without a fixed metre or rhyme scheme creates shape, rhythm and meaning

How unrhymed iambic pentameter creates a flexible music for thought, speech and dramatic action

How refrains, repetition and changing context turn a fixed poetic pattern into an unfolding argument or emotion

How a single speaking voice reveals character, conflict and meanings it may not fully understand

How address, praise, meditation and changing emotion give the ode its distinctive poetic shape

How story, repetition, rhythm and song give the ballad its enduring power

How a few carefully placed words can hold a season, a moment of perception, and a larger world

How fourteen lines can turn an argument, a feeling or a moment of thought into a complete poetic shape