Poetical Forms M-Z

. . . poetical forms

mnemonic
narrative one of the three main genres of poetry, the other two being lyric and dramatic.a poem that tells a story, introduces a character or characters and follows a plot. An epic is a form of narrative poetry.

example: David Kirby’s “Looking Percy Sledge”
example: Darah de Veer’s “Rumbling Pompeii”
nashears invented by Ogden Nash
a light verse poem where couplets rhyme comically
object poem a poem about an inanimate object that provides a new look at a familiar object or transforms the object in some way. It can also take an unfamiliar object and make it familiar or ordinary.The object poem comes from the German Dinggedicht or “thing poem.”
occasional verse a poem written to commemorate a special occasion and is often commissioned for the occasion
see epithalamion

example: Darrell Bourque’s “Lincoln in New Orleans, 1831”
ode from the Greek for song

a poem that praises the subject in any of several song-like forms including Pindaric, Horatian, Cowleyan, and elemental.
see Pindaric ode
see Horatian ode
see elemental ode
pantoum (pan – toom’)
also pantun

a repeating form written in quatrains. The second and fourth lines in each quatrain become the first and third lines in the following quatrain. Each quatrain follows an abab rhyme scheme.
parody (pare’ –uh –dee)
from the Greek for song sung beside

a poem that ridicules or satirizes another poem or poet
pastoral (pass’ –ter –ul)
from the Latin for one who leads a flock
also called bucolic , eclogue , georgic , and idyll

a poem that describes country life in an idealized way. There are three major types of pastorals: the complaint , the eclogue , and the pastoral elegy .
pastoral elegy a type of pastoral that is a lament in the voice of one shepherd for another shepherd who has died.
See elegy .
pattern poem see concrete poem
Petrarchan sonnet See Italian sonnet
Pindaric Ode named after the Greek poet Pindar
also called choral ode

an ode written in triads and contains a strophe and antistrophe that are identical in meter followed by an epode that has a different metrical pattern. It may have more than one triad . These odes were often commissioned as celebratory occasional poems for winners of athletic events. They were performed as songs with dance movements.
prose poem pioneered by Charles Baudelaire and Aloysius Bertrand in the 19th century as a reaction to the strict poetic rules of the French Academy.a short work of prose that is considered to be a poem due to its imagery, rhythm, condensed language, and/or other poetical elements

example: Sandra Alcosser’s “Hats”
renga (reng’ –guh)
also called linked verse

a collaboration or dialogue between two or more poets that link haiku by adding two seven-syllable lines. Renga is similar to tanka , which also follows a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern. For renga, the first poet writes the haiku and passes it to the second poet who writes the two seven-syllable lines. The poets continue trading back and forth to continue the conversation. Haiku grew out of renga as a solitary or meditative exercise.
response poem a poem written in response or reaction to another poem or event
rhopalic verse also called wedge verse

a poem where each word in the line is one syllable longer that the line before i
rondeau (ron –doe’)
from the French for round, referring to the dance “the round”a poem with fifteen lines in three parts following the rhyme scheme aabba aabR aabbaR. The R stands for refrain .
rondel
sestina
Shakespearean sonnet
shaped verse see concrete poem
sonnet
spoken word
syllabics (sih –lab’ –ix)
also called syllabic meter

a poem written using an equal number of syllables per line or a specific set of syllables per line in a specific order to give stanzas a specific shape
tanka
triolet
villanelle
visual poem see concrete poem
wedge verse see rhopalic verse