The Wide World of Poems

As the end of National Poetry Month fast approaches, I wanted to throw one last piece about poetry to my many readers. As my regular readers know all too well, I am an advocate of writing poetry as one of the many exercises people should perform to be a better writer. This does not mean you will be an awesome poet - no guarantees in life - but the art of poetry helps us distill our thoughts and feelings into more concise ideas. We lose a lot of the wandering thoughts and bothersome distractions that make writing feel flabby and loose, and instead sharpen our focus on a simple thought or theme.

With that in mind, I felt the best way to get the poetry inspiration going was to offer a wide variety of poem styles and formats, and give you, the writer, the opportunity to try them out and see what fits best. Poems come in many shapes and sizes, so I won't go into the little details like writing in meter and so forth (although it is worth knowing). Rather, I will just lay out some options and you can choose your own.

• Monostich: As I discussed in my last post, this is a one-line poem, without commas or pauses, to convey one idea
• Haiku: a three-line poem where the first and third lines are five syllables long, with the middle line being seven syllabes. Often these are about nature and the last line sums up the other two, but that's optional
• Tanka: Similar to a Haiku, but instead of the 5-7-5 syllable structure, it closes with two extra seven-syllable lines
• Limerick: A five-line poem where the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines rhyme (known as the AABBA structure)
• Triolet: An eight-line poem where the first line is repeated and in the fourth and seventh lines
• Pirouette: A ten-line poem made up of two five-line stanzas, where the last line of the first stanza is the first like of the second stanza
• Trimeric: A four stanza poem, with the first stanza being four lines and the subsequent three being three lines. In this format, the second, third, and fourth lines of the first stanza become the lead lines of the second, third, and fourth stanza, respectively
• Sonnet: A fourteen-line poem with a matching rhyme scheme (AABBCC...). The traditional sonnet presents a question in the first six lines, a realization in the seventh and eighth lines, and the last six lines present a resolution
• Villanelle: A 19-line poem composed of five three-line stanzas, followed by a closing quatrain. These usually have two recurring ideas that are repeated intermittenyly throughout the work.

Okay, that shouls give you plenty to work with. However, if none of them appeal to you, I offer one last form that can offer some artistic freedom: Freestyle. Also known as Free Verse, this is just expression in its pure form. It can be anything - it is open style. If you've never seen this style, hunt down the various clips from "Louder than a Bomb" on YouTube. It's not that hard.

Happy Naional Poetry Month!