Forms of Poetry

[pacman000]

Haiku - 3 lines, 17 syllables total. First line 5, second line 7, third line 5.

Ballad - 4 lines in an ABCB Rhyming pattern. 28 syllables minimum.  First line 8 syllables, Second 6, third 7, Fourth 6. Can be repeated for longer works.

Anyone know of any others?

[Rev. Powell]

Sonnet: Three stanzas of ABAB rhyme scheme. One couplet at the end. The ending couplet should be a kind of "twist" that informs or changes your view of the prior stanzas.

[ER]

A sestina. As defined online: The sestina follows a strict pattern of the repetition of the initial six end-words of the first stanza through the remaining five six-line stanzas, culminating in a three-line envoi. The lines may be of any length, though in its initial incarnation, the sestina followed a syllabic restriction.


I wrote (a parody of) one in high school to trip up someone I knew who was having a hard time writing one for his 400-level English class.

Incestina

Though bonded by parental union, not by blood,
Forbidden by man and God was their passion,
Restricted till all mountains stand worn, all iron is rust;
This they know: they must be thought but brother and sister—
To be ought else would be seen as corrupt—
Give suspicion but once and their secret may be unbound.

So in outward guise he is but polite to his sister,
To any glance there is no hint of the corrupt,
In his appearance and his mien his youthful passion
Is seemingly focused elsewhere, for he is visibly hot of blood,
And he gives his father's hopes reason to be unbound
In this world where dreams too often rust.

She is modest, or seems so, though feels her soul is rust,
No betraying hint of incestuous passion,
Unnatural in passing from brother to sister,
Gives she, her tongue is never by confession unbound;
It salves her to recall they have no tie in blood,
And this way their mad couplings feel less corrupt.

Once, by mishap, is their secret nearly unbound
When they are half-spotted through a patch of rust
Which has eaten at a cellar door; a lie absolves them: sister
Had needed brother's help in reaching a jar, its label red as blood;
It was luck that nothing in their stance hinted at the corrupt,
That they had not yet given way to heated passion.

In the forest, when the trees are bright with autumn rust,
They have a favored spot where they meet, this brother and sister,
And after she wonders if they damn their souls with their passion,
But these musings die when her heart beats unbound,
When the fire springs like a dragon in her blood,
Then she forgets to ponder if this love is corrupt.

The boy stands alone that night and sees the stars unbound;
He rebukes conscience, spits on any notion of the corrupt,
Does not share in the fears of his sister,
In fact likens guilt to decaying rust;
He is at heart a gambler and ruled by passion,
It boils constantly, violently, in his blood.


He thinks: Rust and rot eat mortal flesh and blood,
And the passion of spirit is from the body unbound;
Life is corrupt, sister, we must revel while we may!

[indianasmith]

Were their names Jaimie and Circe, per chance?

[ER]

LOL!

[RCMerchant]

Music.

[ER]

Music.

Music is math, not poetry. Lyrics, maybe.

[RCMerchant]

Everything is related to math.
Music and poetry is related to emotion.