Discover poem types. From Abecedarian to Madrigal to Zéjel.
Start here: Poem Types’ Overview
The roundabout is a twenty-line poem comprised of four quintains. The meter of the poem is iambic, though its length changes from line to line. The poem also features refrains unique to each verse, but its most interesting quality is the way the rhyme scheme comes ‘back around’ to the first end sound.
The rondelet, not to be confused with the rondel or short rondel, is a seven-line French poem form that utilizes a refrain three times despite its brevity. As a result, the real challenge of the form is often seeing how much the poet can fit within the limited space left behind between the refrains.
The rondel supreme (or rondel prime) is a variant of the shorter rondel. A rondel supreme is 14 lines, utilizing only two end sounds and a set of refrains that repeats at the end of each of its three verses. The form has been compared to a sonnet and even carries the nickname “the French sonnet.”
The rondel is a French verse form typically consisting of 13 octasyllabic lines and multiple refrains, though there are quite a few variants of the form. It is a descendant of the prolific rondeau, another older French form that also had an impressive amount of influence over formal poetry.
The rispetto is a 15th century Italian verse form based around two rhyming quatrains. It usually has a rhyme scheme of abab ccdd, though the second verse can vary a bit. The most defining feature of the rispetto is that it is always a poem expressing respect. In fact the name, rispetto, literally means “respect.”
The rionnaird is an ancient Irish verse form consisting of quatrains. The poem form is technically a meter, as the ancient Celtic cultures had a very different concept of meter than we do in modern English. A longer version can be formed by repeating rionnairds back-to-back for as long as the poet would like.
Rime couée is a French stanzaic verse form with six-line stanzas that each have a rhyme scheme of aabccb. The third and sixth lines are hexasyllabic while the rest of the lines are octasyllabic. This, paired with the rhyme scheme, puts a unique emphasis on the middle and end of each verse.
The rhupunt is one of the 24 codified Welsh meters. It focuses mainly on monorhyme, though the last line of the rhupunt will not rhyme with the rest and will usually instead be matched to a second rhupunt added to the first. As such, rhupunts were traditionally written in couplets.
A quintilla is a five-line verse form with octosyllabic lines in which there are only two end sounds. The poet is not allowed to have three consecutive rhymes nor to end the poem in a couplet, leaving only five viable options for the poem’s rhyme scheme. The most common of these is ABAAB.
The quatern is a short quaternion (a poem divided into four parts) that employs a refrain that switches positions between each verse. The quatern is sixteen lines, cut up into quatrains that are each comprised of eight-syllable lines.
The qasida, in its original form, was similar to a Greek ode. It was a three-part poem with narrative elements meant to be sung aloud, which usually touched on praise, glory, loss, or other popular themes of the time. The modern-day qasida retains some elements but is less unified in its design.
The pregunta (Spanish for “question”) is a poem form in which one poet recites a question and another poet recites an answer, echoing whatever meter and rhyme scheme the first poet used in their question. Solo preguntas are also possible, and easier, though it’s debatable as to which is actually better as a form.
The paradelle, as the name suggests, is a parody of the villanelle (and formal poetry in general), created by poet laureate Billy Collins. Despite its introduction as a joke, the form ended up being picked up by multiple writers afterward and now paradoxically joins the list of formal poems out in the wild.
Palindrome poems, or mirrored poems, describe a category of poems that revolve around the idea of the palindrome (words, phrases, or sentences that read the same backwards as forwards). This concept can be taken in several different directions, with mixed results, so there’s no absolute definition of this poem type.
The ovillejo is a ten-line Spanish poem form that gained popularity during the 17th century. It’s a unique question-answer poem that weaves three couplets together with a final quatrain using short lines that are designed to intermingle on the last line.
Ottava rima is an Italian verse form comprised of octaves that use ten or eleven syllables per line. (Originally eleven, then reimagined as ten in English.) The form has been predominantly used for epic poetry and has a simple rhyme scheme that lends itself well to being expanded out into longer poems.