Poetry Types

The list starts with easiest types that can be used for almost any reading age and goes on to those appropriate for older students only. Most examples have non space themes so children are free to start their poems using only their imagination..

• Simple, four line rhyme scheme

          rhyming a,b,c,b:                       rhyming a,a,b,b:
      Mary had a little lamb                Twinkle, twinkle little star
      Its fleece was white as snow          How I wonder what you are
      And everywhere that Mary went         Up above the world so high
      The lamb was sure to go.              Like a diamond in the sky.
  
          rhyming a,b,a,b:                        rhyming a,a,a,a:
      The rain was like a little mouse,     Rain, rain, go away
      quiet, small and gray.                Come again another day
      It pattered all around the house      Little children want to play
      and then it went away.                So rain, rain, go away.
  

• Cinquain

  A short poem consisting of five, usually unrhymed lines containing respectively two, four, six, eight and two syllables:

                      Popcorn
                  Jumpy, bouncy
              White, yellow and bumpy
          Jumbly, rumbly, hot and mushy
                      Popcorn.
  

• Haiku

  Japanese poem of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables:

  		The pond I used to
  		Swim in has hardened now, but
  		It is mine year round.
  						--Andrea  Baccigalupi    (age 9)
  

• Free Verse

  Rhymed or unrhymed verse made free of conventional and traditional limitations and restrictions in regard to metrical structure. Cadence, especially that of common speech, is often substituted for regular metrical pattern:

  		Bring me all of your dreams,
  		You dreamers,
  		Bring me all of your 
  		Heart melodies
  		That I may wrap them
  		In a blue cloud-cloth
  		Away from the too-rough fingers
  		Of the world.
  					--Langston Hughes
  

• Sonnet

  A poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter (stress is on the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th syllables of each line), restricted to a definite rhyme scheme.

  -- Italian, or Petarchan, sonnet is composed of an octave and a sestet (rhyming abbaabba cdecde)

  -- Elizabethan, or Shakespearean, sonnet is composed of three quatrains and a couplet (rhyming abab cdcd efef gg)

  	Example of a modern day Shakespearean sonnet
  	(used as a holiday card):
  
  		Perhaps you light eight candles burning bright,
  		Or you may celebrate in Jesus' birth,
  		Or think the Maharashi sends you light
  		Or just enjoy the fact you're here on Earth
  
  		The year's been packed with news both glad and sad.
  		We find strength through our laughter and our tears.
  		Ring in the good, eliminate the bad
  		And hope the nineties will be peaceful years.
  
  		I hope this poem will find you of good cheer;
  		That you and yours are prospering and sound
  		And on the stroke of midnight this new year
  		My toast will be to you on the first round.
  
  		Just one last word before this card I send:
  		My thanks for having you as a good friend.