Discover poem types. From Abecedarian to Madrigal to Zéjel. To start, here’s the overview of poem types.
The décima espinela is a poem written in ten-line verses utilizing isosyllabic rhymed lines. This variant of the décima was invented by Vicente Espinela, whose name lives on in the name of the poem, much like how we refer to sonnets as ‘Shakespearean’ or ‘Petrarchan.’
Jintishi, or regulated verse, is a group of Chinese poem forms that rely heavily on tonality and rhyme, traditionally written in couplets. This particular form is so entrenched in tonality that there is no true English equivalent, since the English language has a limited relationship with tone compared to Chinese.
Rannaicheacht Mhor is an ancient Irish poem form based entirely on quatrains. The lines of the quatrain are isosyllabic, a relative rarity among Irish poem forms, and cross-rhymes are used liberally. In particular, every line includes a word that matches the end rhyme in its paired line.
Lethrannaegecht Mor is a casual form hailing from ancient Ireland. As with many Celtic forms, there is an emphasis on repeated sounds and rhyme. This particular form is fairly compact, with each verse being just twenty syllables, though the poem as a whole can be any number of verses.
Hir a Thoddaid (literally “long stanza with a Toddaid”) is the 22nd of the codified Welsh meters. It consists of an isosyllabic mono-rhymed quatrain followed by a Toddaid couplet, which is itself the 19th meter. This unique form is the most commonly used of the awdl forms in the modern day.
While you might hear that the gogyohka is a short Japanese poem form and mistakenly conflate it with the extremely popular haiku, the two are not related. The gogyohka is a modern invention of the Japanese poet Enta Kusakabe (born 1938) and only has two simple rules. It is five lines long. Each line is one phrase.
Masnavi (or mathnawi) are a poem form that emerged from the middle east, and most likely the Persian empire, sometime between the 4th and 10th century. The form is entirely comprised of couplets, though triplet variants exist, with isosyllabic lines of either ten or eleven syllables and varies from region to region.
Idylls are short poems about rural living, but Theocritus’s original idylls were quite long by the standards of modern poetry. This is generally seen as a synonym for pastoral. When the two are differentiated, it is accepted that “idyll” will then refer to poems directly inspired by Theocritus’ writing.
The waka is a type of Japanese poem form consisting of a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure. The poet is generally expected to divide waka into two distinct sections, usually signified in English by a hard stop of some kind, such as a period or semi-colon. This division is between the first three lines and the final couplet.
The snam suad is an eight-line Irish poem form with an aabcdddc rhyme scheme. It has exactly 24 syllables (three per line) and generally attempts to follow Irish traditions such as cywddydd (harmony of sound) and the inclusion of dunadh (a type of refrain).
The toddaid is one of the 24 codified Welsh meters. This particular poem form consists of uneven couplets with lines of ten and nine syllables, featuring unusual rhyme schemes that utilize a technique called gair cyrch, ultimately resulting in staggered rhymes that feel exotic to English readers and writers.
The viator is a refrain-based poem type created by the Canadian poet Robin Skelton. It uses a refrain on the first line that becomes the second line of the second stanza, the third line of the third, and so on. The poem ends on the refrain, such that the number of lines per verse and number of verses per poem is equal.
Virelai is one of the three formes fixes and is a type of formal poem from medieval France. It thrives on short lines, a focus on rhyme, and is written entirely in nonets (nine-line verses). Note that the song and poem forms are related but slightly different.
Bucolic poems, depending on perspective, are either a subcategory of pastoral poems OR a synonym for pastoral. (It’s a bit of a gray area.) The most noteworthy examples of bucolic verse tend to idealize rural living as an aesthetic rather than as a lifestyle, with more appeal for the upper class.
The Tripadi is a verse form from the Bangladesh region of India, dating back to roughly the 10th century. The form is usually written in tercets, with either an 8-8-10 syllable structure or a less common 6-6-8 structure. The first two lines of each tercet are expected to rhyme.
The Than-Bauk is a Burmese tercet utilizing climbing rhyme. It consists of three tetrasyllabic lines with a single rhyme that starts on the last syllable of the first line, then on the third syllable of the second line, and finally on the second syllable of the last line. Than-Bauks are usually witty or humorous.