Poetry

TYPES of poetry

• limericks
• haiku
• acrostic
• free verse
• sonnet

Limerick:

Limerick

• A form of light verse, a limerick is often funny, nonsensical, or even lewd.
• A limerick is five lines and follows a rhyme scheme (aabba) and rhythm

"There Was an Old Man with a Beard," by Edward Lear.
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared!—
Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard.

Haiku

Haiku

• A haiku is a three-line poem consisting of 17 syllables arranged as a five-syllable line, followed by a seven-syllable line, concluded with another five-syllable line.
• Originally from Japan.
• Usually about nature.
• When translated from another language, it might it not follow the syllable rules.

Spring is in the Air
by Kaitlyn Guenther
Spring is in the air
Flowers are blooming sky high
Children are laughing

Acrostic

Acrostic

• An acrostic poem spells out a word, name, or phrase in a vertical line within the poem. Commonly the first letter of each line spells a word, but the word may also be found in the middle or end of a line
• Commonly the first letter of each line spells a word, but the word may also be found in the middle or end of a line

"An Acrostic" by Edgar Allan Poe
Elizabeth it is in vain you say
"Love not" — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.

Free Verse

Free Verse

• In free verse, there are no regular rhyme schemes or patterns of meter. However, the poem does have intentional line breaks and may rhyme.

"After the Sea-Ship" by Walt Whitman

AFTER the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,
Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully
flowing,
The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome
under the sun,
A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following

Sonnet

SOnnet

• Sonnets are fourteen-line poems traditionally written in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme and meter that varies based on the type. There are several types of sonnet, including Shakespearean, Petrarchan, Miltonic, and Spenserian.

"Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun" by William Shakespeare.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.