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aamer13
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aamer13
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Nomad

Well i like reading poetry, but im not sure of the rules of certain types, Can anyone explain the most common types of poetry to me?

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aamer13
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aamer13
2,568 posts
Nomad

Haiku: 3 lines 5,7,5 syllables.no Rhyme
FreeWrite: anything


Any others?

aamer13
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aamer13
2,568 posts
Nomad

Haiku: 3 lines 5,7,5 syllables.no Rhyme
FreeWrite: anything
Tanka: 5,7,5,7,7
nonet: 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1.
quatrain: 4 lines
english sonnet:???
french sonnet:???

thxs jeol, any can add on info on the types of poems

Hypermnestra
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Hypermnestra
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Nomad

Any others?

You can use any meter you like, but the most common forms of English meters are iamb, trochee, dactyl, and anapest.
Iamb, which in adjective form is iambic like in iambic pentameter, is one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. For example Joseph ran down the street(italics indicates a stressed syllable). The prior sentence is an example of iambic triameter, because there are 3 iambic feet, or 3 pairs of unstressed syllables and stressed syllables.
Trochee, which in adjective form is trochaic, as in trochaic tetrameter, is basically the same as iamb. The only difference is that in trochaic meters, there is one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable instead of the other way around.
Anapest is two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable: for example, "I should finish my hunting first." The stressed syllables have been italicized.
Dactyl is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

The most common form of meter is iambic pentameter, which is 5 iambic feet to a line. It was used by famous poets like William Shakespeare, and if you want any examples of iambic pentameter just look at some of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Hope that helped.
Hypermnestra
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Hypermnestra
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Nomad

english sonnet:???

14 lines, I believe.
ramzaman
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ramzaman
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Farmer

the sonnet is a 14 line poem
each line containing 10 syllables
the rhyme scheme is ABAB , CDCD, EFEF, GG

for me its very fun a relatively easy to write

nichodemus
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nichodemus
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Grand Duke

I lied. It wasn't the French sonnet I was thinking of, it was the Italian sonnet. Like the English sonnet, it has fourteen lines... The rhyming scheme is A B B A A B B A C D E C D E. I don't even know if there is a French sonnet. There's probably one out there somewhere.


The Italian Sonnet is also known as the Petrarchian Sonnet. The English one is much more flexible, since the Italians liked to structure theirs such that it had two parts, 8 lines than 6 lines. The English could do 4 4 4 2, 8 6, or other weird combinations.

Basically to sort out which is which, English sonnets tend to have the final two lines as a rhyming couplet.

Apart from structure, poetry can be sorted out into many variations, such as Renaissance Poetry, which tends to make use of conceits (long extended metaphors between objects that are otherwise unrelated), tend to have love as a central theme, might use religious or nature based imagery, and might mention the Divine Right of Kings.

Example of Renaissance Poetry:

When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my Gates ;
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the Grates ;
When I lye tangled in her haire
And fettered to her eye ;
The Gods that wanton in the Aire,
Know no such Liberty.


When flowing Cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our carelesse heads with Roses bound,
Our hearts with Loyall Flames ;
When thirsty griefe in Wine we steepe,
When Healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the Deepe,
Know no such Libertie.


When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetnes, Mercy, Majesty,
And glories of my KING ;
When I shall voyce aloud, how Good
He is, how Great should be ;
Enlarged Winds that curle the Flood,
Know no such Liberty.


Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage ;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage ;
If I have freedome in my Love,
And in my soule am free ;
Angels alone that sore above,
Injoy such Liberty.


Richard Lovelace's To Althea From Prison


Or one other poetry form is the epic, such as Homer's Odyssey, or Milton's Paradise Lost. There are hundreds of other ways to characterise poems.


My advice for reading is not to care about structure, but just let it flow over you naturally.
dude_gamer
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dude_gamer
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Peasant

i beg to differ.

nichodemus
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nichodemus
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1) It is call tradition poetry which is you must write in certain line like only 13 lines. I guess. I don't remember this a lot. And the poem must have rhythm in the poem.

2) It is free poetry. Which mean you can write your own rules. No limited amount of line. No rhythm.



No....you're just horribly simplifying it. And it's not 13 lines, but 14. And it's called a Sonnet. The rhythm you mention refers to the meter in the Sonnet, most of the time in English it's Iambic Pentameter. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called ''feet''. The word ''iambic'' describes the type of foot that is used (in English, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable). The word ''entameter'' indicates that a line has five of these ''feet.''


It might be considered ''traditional'', but there are modern adaptations of Sonnets to boot; plus if one takes into account the fact that sonnets are relatively young in literary history, are they really ''traditional''?

And even so, that leaves out a whole range of ''traditional'' poetry structures if we measure them by age. Oh, and poet's have always been setting their own rules when they write poems; it's not a modern phenomenon.
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