types of poetry*

Haiku - A haiku poem consists of three lines, with the first and last line having 5 syllables, and the middle line having 7. It is a way of looking at the physical world and seeing something deeper, like the very nature of existence.

The Old Pond by Matshuo Basho is an example of a haiku:

“The old pond-- a frog jumps in, sound of water.”

Free Verse - is a form of poetry that does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.

This excerpt from Little Father by Li-Young Lee is another example of free verse poetry:

I buried my father in my heart. 

Now he grows in me, my strange son,

My little root who won’t drink milk,

Little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,

Little clock spring newly wet In the fire,

little grape, parent to the future Wine,

a son the fruit of his own son,

Little father I ransom with my life.

Cinquain - A cinquain is a five-line poem inspired by Japanese haiku's. There are many different variations of cinquain including American Cinquains, Didactic Cinquains, Reverse Cinquains, Butterfly Cinquains and Crown Cinquains.

Tree

Strong, Tall

Swaying, swinging, sighing

Memories of summer

Oak

Epic - An epic is a long and narrative poem that normally tells a story about a hero or an adventure. Epics can be oral stories or can be poems in written form.  The "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" are examples of famous epic poems.

The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

By the shore of Gitchie Gumee, 

By the shining Big-Sea-Water, 

At the doorway of his wigwam, 

In the pleasant Summer morning, 

Hiawatha stood and waited.

 Ballad - Ballad poems also tell a story, like epic poems do. However, ballad poetry is often based on a legend or a folk tale. Ballad poems may take the form of songs and may contain a moral or a lesson.

The Mermaid by Unknown author

Oh the ocean waves may roll, 

And the stormy winds may blow, 

While we poor sailors go skipping aloft 

And the land lubbers lay down below, below, below 

And the land lubbers lay down below.

 Sonnet - it signified a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure.

Sonnet 116" by Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments.

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not

Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Source: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/types-of-poetry-examples.html