A poem in which the words are chosen for their aural quality rather than specifically for their sense or meaning.

A poem in which certain letters of each line spells out a word, name, or phrase when read vertically, revealing a hidden message.

An Irish syllabic stanza form with complex patterns of rhyme, alliteration and consonance, with its ending mirroring its beginning.

An acrostic form where the first letter of each line spells out the alphabet.

Poetry with the constrained form that either each line or each verse is an anagram of all other lines or verses in the poem.

A poem that explains the “art of poetry,” or a meditation on poetry using the form and techniques of a poem.

A poem of four lines with seven syllables in each line where the first and third lines rhyme with the 3rd-5th syllable of the following lines.

A form of verse that uses poetic turns of phrase to form a compelling narrative over the course of its four stanzas, which follow a rhyming pattern.

Trochaic poem with eight syllables per line that consists of two sections: a reprisa , a stanza, and a volta.

A form of found poetry where a poet takes an existing text and erases, blacks out, or obscures to create a whole new poem.

This form of poetry is a stream of short phrases and images with repetition and rapid flow, created by Robert Keim.

A pairing of two metrical schemes, a group of typically five rhymed lines following a section of unrhymed lines, often at the end of a strophe.

A form of poetic argument consisting of three stanzas, each followed by a repeated line or refrain.

An Irish quatrain form with five syllables in the first line, six syllables in the other three lines, and each line ends with a two-syllable word.

A French poetic form consisting of 3 quatrains and a final couplet, with three rhymes and 4-5 un-rhymed lines.

A quatrain or series of quatrains where the quatrain itself is divided into two combined couplets.

A quatrain stanza of heptasyllabic lines with trisyllabic endings and at least two cross-rhymes in each couplet.

A poet takes each line from the first stanza of a poem and makes those the final lines of each stanza afterward.

Comprised of a variable number of quatrains, the first line of each quatrain is also the last, and the second line of each is the first line of the next.

a poetical work wholly composed of verses or passages taken from other authors disposed in a new form or order.

A poem consisting of 5 tercets followed by a couplet written with an ABC rhyme scheme for each line.

A form that catalyzes energetic and expansive poems and yet offers numerous formal techniques, such as the use of repetition.

A poetic form that is a variation of the ballad form and consists of five eleven-line stanzas with a strict rhyme scheme.

A Chinese sonnet cut short, consisting of eight lines broken into two quatrains with various possible rhyme schemes.

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

a whimsical, four-line biographical poem, the first line being the name of the poem's subject, and the remainder puts the subject in an absurd light.

A Welsh verse form that utilizes a two-sound rhyme scheme and lines whose rhymes get closer and closer together as the verse continues.

An arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance.

A form that weaves two or more poems to create a single poem that can be read in multiple ways, depending on how it’s designed on the page.

An aleatory literary technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text.

A Welsh poem with 6 lines and a series of internal rhymes and variable syllables following a particular pattern.

An occitan verse form that has limited rhyme and includes a refrain, and was popular with poets like Dante, Petrarch and Medici.

Poetic verses or song lyrics consisting of a single four-line stanza followed by four ten-line stanzas with eight syllables per line.

A form of Old Occitan lyric poetry which is heavily discordant in verse, form, and/or feeling, and often used to express disagreement.

A poetry form where you remove the first letter of the end word in the previous line and then repeat it.

A stanza of ten lines, of which each normally has ten syllables, or more rarely eight, using iambic pentameter and an ‘ababbccded’ rhyme scheme.

A Japanese form often concerning love or work, usually comical, consisting of four lines with the moraic structure 7-7-7-5 and no rhyme.

a type of verse in which repetition of the end of a line or stanza imitates an echo, and usually changes the meaning of the part being repeated.

Poems written about works of art; however, in ancient Greece, the term was applied to the skill of describing a thing with vivid detail.

A meditative lyric poem lamenting the death of a public personage or of a friend or loved one.

A subgenre of lament, planto, found in early Iberian music, that usually indicates a metrical composition of 4 lines with 6 or 7 syllables.

A short poem intended for (or imagined as) an inscription on a tombstone and often serving as a brief elegy.

A Spanish quintain (or 5-line stanza) form with a staccato rhythm meant to replicate the click of heels by flamenco dancers.

An experimental Western poetry form, bearing similarities to haiku, but based on the Fibonacci sequence.

A type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them.

An open form of poetry which does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern, but follows the rhythm of natural speech.

A form of amatory poem originating in Arabic poetry, dealing with topics of spiritual or romantic love, and the beauty of love in spite of pain.

A poetic form in which the last word of each line forms a second, pre-existing poem, to which the poet is paying homage.

A Welsh poetic form comprised of quatrains with a 9-9-10-9 syllable pattern, some matching end rhymes, and often an internal rhyme.

A poetic form in which a poet combines prose and haiku to create a prose poem, often using diary, essay, short story and travel journal writing.

A Japanese short form that consists of three phrases composed of 17 phonetic units, a kireji (cutting word), and a kigo (seasonal reference).

A poem of four haikus plus an additional couplet of 5-7 syllables replicating the 14-line length of traditional sonnets.

A 3-line poem with one word in the first line, two words in the second, and three in the third.

A syllabic sestet where all lines have ten syllables. All lines except the fifth are mono-rhymed, which cross-rhymes with the quatrain and last line.

A 4-line Japanese poem that has 12 syllables in each line and a planned caesura between the first 7 syllables and the following 5.

A Rubáiyát where the subsequent stanza rhymes its 1st, 2nd, and 4th lines with the sound at the end of the 3rd line in the stanza (Rubá'íyah) before it.

A haiku for lovers; a single katauta was considered incomplete or a half-poem.

A 49-word poetic form that contains seven lines with no more than seven words in each line, and each word is less than seven letters.

A French form of rhyming poetry written in quatrains and each quatrain contains a repeating line or phrase as a refrain.

A lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance.

A traditional Afghan poetic form consisting of a single couplet, often addressing themes of love, grief, homeland, war, and separation.

A traditional humorous drinking song that consists of a single stanza (5 lines), and an AABBA rhyme scheme.

A deliberately organized poem containing a list of images or adjectives that build up to describe the poem's subject matter through an inventory.

A Vietnamese verse form that alternates between 6-syllable lines and 8-syllable lines, always beginning with 6 and ending on 8.

A form also known as the ‘American Haiku’ that consists of three lines, a 3-5-3 word sequence (or 3-5-3 syllable sequence for the Kelly Lune).

A poem consisting of nine lines with a ‘abacadaba’ rhyme scheme and not other rules.

A poem written in rhyming couplets with an 11-syllable line length (occasionally 10) and often depicts a mystical or religious story.

A rhyming verse consisting of 60 syllables, written in strict iambic pentameter, and formatted into three stanzas of 8-4-4-4 syllables.

Poems are often very brief collaborative affairs that present a question and answer in the style of trying to glean meaning from nature.

A poetic form where stanza contains four lines in monorhyme, each 8-syllable line is in tetrameter, and the last line has two metrical feet, repeated.

Couplets (of any length) that feature comical rhymes, including wrenched rhymes.

A nine-line poem where each line contains specific, descending syllable counts, the first starting with 9, the final with only 1.

A poem form consisting of four-syllable, three-word tercets in which the positioning of the disyllabic word is different on each line.

Poetry composed for a particular occasion; in the history of literature, it is often in connection with orality, performance, and patronage.

Elaborately structured poems glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally, structured in three parts.

A rhyming stanza form originally used for long poems on heroic themes, but later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works.

A old Spanish form that consists of three rhyming couplets, formed as a question and an answer, and a redondilla (type of quatrain)

A poem that reads the same forwards as it does backwards with a word in between each part that works as a bridge.

A poem composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza.

A modern poetic form invented as a parody of the Villanelle, with a fixed form of four six-line stanzas and a repetitive pattern.

A Spanish poetic form where the first stanza poses a question and the second answers it, often written collaboratively as poetic debate.

Poetry written in prose form instead of verse, while using poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects.

A 16-line French form composed of four quatrains that employs refrains and 8-syllable lines.

A Spanish stanza of five octosyllabic lines that employs two rhymes and no three consecutive lines may rhyme nor may it end in a couplet.

An Irish quatrain form that uses consonant end sounds, heptasyllabic lines, at least 2 cross-rhymes per couplet and alliterate words per line.

A ‘linked poem' that requires a partner or partners, consists of alternating haiku and couplets, with each stanza written by a different person.

A poem where each line or stanza contains 3-5 sections, each section has 4 syllables, and all but the final section rhyme with each other.

A form where each stanza contains no end rhymes, but each line in each stanza rhymes with the corresponding line in the next stanza.

A form of Tuscan folk verse generally composed of eight hendecasyllabic lines and usually employing an ‘ababccdd’ rhyme scheme.

A form with two rhymes, three stanzas, and a two-line refrain that repeats either two and a half or three times.

A metered stanzaic form with a simple but unusual premise that the rhyme scheme should come full circle.

A German couplet poem or series of stanzas where the final two words of each couplet exchange initial consonants.

An Irish poetic form, with a few rules about rhyming and syllables, alliteration, and lines with alternating syllable count.

A French form with 6 stanzas, normally followed by a 3-line envoi, the first stanza’s end words used as line endings in the following stanzas.

A Korean traditional form often exploring metaphysical or cosmological themes, comprising three lines of 14-16 syllables each.

Short verses of irregular metre, stresses arranged into falling or rising rhythm, relying on alliteration, parallelism and multiple rhymes.

A fourteen-line poem traditionally using iambic pentameter, divided into an octave and an answering sestet, with a conclusive couplet.

From its Greek origin meaning “the same letter”, a poem where every word simply starts with the same letter.

A Burmese form, consisting of 3 lines of 4 syllables each and, traditionally, are witty and epigrammic, with a particular rhyme scheme.

An eight-line stanza having just two rhymes and repeating the first line as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line as the eighth.

A 9-line poetic form of 5 tercets followed by a quatrain with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating in the following stanzas.

A simple form of 10 lines, with the even numbered lines having only two syllables, and forming a poem of their own within the larger poem.

Similar to the haiku, following a 5-7-5 syllable structure, but not requiring the seasonal reference crucial to haiku-writing.

A likely-Old Arabic form comprising a tercet, followed by quatrains, and employing a varied rhyme scheme and 8-syllable lines.