Types of poems
Fifteen forms, each with its own set of rules. Every page explains what the form requires and gives you a generator already set to it.
Haiku
Three lines, 5-7-5 syllables
A haiku holds one moment still.
Free Verse
No fixed meter or rhyme
Free verse drops the meter and the rhyme scheme and keeps everything else: rhythm, image, the weight a line gains from where it ends.
Sonnet
14 lines, iambic pentameter
Fourteen lines, ten syllables each, and an argument that turns.
Limerick
Five lines, AABBA, comic
Five lines, a fixed bounce, and a joke at the end.
Ballad
Four-line stanzas that tell a story
A ballad tells a story you could sing.
Villanelle
19 lines, two refrains that return
Nineteen lines built around two lines that keep coming back.
Ode
Sustained praise of one subject
An ode looks hard at one thing and refuses to look away.
Elegy
A poem of mourning
An elegy holds a loss steady enough to look at.
Acrostic
First letters spell a word
An acrostic hides a word down the left margin.
Epic
Long-form heroic narrative
An epic is a long narrative poem about someone whose choices matter to more than themselves.
Tanka
Five lines, 5-7-5-7-7
A tanka is a haiku that keeps going.
Cinquain
Five lines, 2-4-6-8-2 syllables
A cinquain widens for four lines and then shuts.
Blank Verse
Iambic pentameter, no rhyme
Blank verse is iambic pentameter without rhyme.
Couplet
Rhyming pairs of lines
Two lines, one rhyme, one thought.
Rap Verse
Bars with internal rhyme
A rap verse is measured in bars against a beat, not in lines against a margin.