The
Introduce a theme, “This one's about…” or mention the location if it offers your audience insight into your poem and keep it short, preferrably shorter than the poem. If you can, avoid mentioning the title of your poem before or during your introduction and only read the title as you are about to read the poem.
Learning how to write a poem is debatably one of the hardest forms of creative writing to master—there are so many “rules”, but at the same time, no rules at all. It is the ultimate form of individual expression.
Poems can be structured, with rhyming lines and meter, the rhythm and emphasis of a line based on syllabic beats. Poems can also be freeform, which follows no formal structure. The basic building block of a poem is a verse known as a stanza.
An octastich is a stanza with eight lines. These lines might be written in free verse or conform to a specific rhyme scheme or metrical pattern.
Quatrain Definition with Examples. In poetry, a quatrain is a verse with four lines.
“Introduction to Poetry” suggests that reading poetry doesn't have to be the joylessly analytical exercise so many people think it is. The speaker—a teacher—wants students to approach poems with a playful, open-minded attitude.
Poets should consider limiting their poems to one page—two pages at the most—when possible.
Septet. A stanza with seven lines. This is sometimes called a “rhyme royal.”
Tercets are any three lines of poetry, whether as a stanza or as a poem, rhymed or unrhymed, metered or unmetered.
Simple 4-line rhyme follows a pattern of ABCB. Chain rhyme describes rhyme schemes in which stanzas are linked together by rhymes that carry over from one stanza to the next, as in ABA BCB CDC.
Examples include: 'Historic Evening' by Arthur Rimbaud, 'O Me! O Life! ' by Walt Whitman, and 'What Are Years' by Marianne Moore. Rhymed Poem: there are many different types of rhyme in poetry, such as end rhyme, internal rhyme, and half rhyme.
A quintain (also known as a quintet) is any poetic form or stanza that contains five lines. Quintain poems can contain any line length or meter.
However, there are names for stanzas of certain lengths: two-line stanzas are couplets; three-lines, tercets; four-lines, quatrains.
A four-line stanza, often with various rhyme schemes, including: -ABAC or ABCB (known as unbounded or ballad quatrain), as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” or “Sadie and Maud” by Gwendolyn Brooks.
Poems should be single-spaced, with double spaces between stanzas. Indent the lines that would otherwise continue across the page, although some prefer to align all text left. Each poem should be on a separate page. Use page breaks at the end of each poem instead of hard returns.
The basic elements of poetry include meter, rhyme, scheme, verse, and stanza.
The monostich is a stanza—a whole poem—consisting of just one line.
A poem or stanza with one line is called a monostich, one with two lines is a couplet; with three, tercet or triplet; four, quatrain.