Types Of Poetry

 Narratives 

Definition

Narratives are poems that tell stories. Narrative poems include plots, characters, settings, themes...

Example
Thanksgiving is in the tears
that burst like ripe grapes.
Proclaiming, see you next year,
we wave, begin to panic.
With these tears, the further we go
the tighter we are entwined.
We hold onto each others image,
hold each other way-deep
as the bus pulls us apart,
stretching our gratitude for miles. 

Ballads

Definition

Ballads are songs or songlike poems that tell stories. These stories often talk about death, betrayal or love. Ballads usually have a regular, steady rhythm, and use simple language. Ballads also have refrains which are repeated words, phrases, or a group of lines.

Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
(Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
Hump, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
(Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!
Jail him and joy.

He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us
Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare's milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion's reform,
(Chorus) And religious reform,
Hideous in form.

Epics

Definition

Epics are long narrative poems writen in a formal, elegant language that tell about a series of missions undertaken by great heroes.

Tiddalick - The Frog Who Caused a Flood

In the time of dreaming
Before the earth was old
Myths were in the making
Legends yet untold

Here began a story
Of one huge enormous frog
Solemn in his glory
He drank from every bog

Tiddalick the great one
Had to quench his mighty thirst
He drank from all the waterholes
So much he nearly burst

He drained the lake and river
The stream and billabong
Soon there was no water left
It was very wrong

Others now grew thirsty
There was no sign of rain
Hot sun scorched the arid earth
No water did remain

Tiddalick's swollen stomach
Was squelchy round and wide
He was so big he couldn't move
The water was inside

Animals assembled
Men gathered with them too
They had to end this great distress
And work out what to do

Boomerangs were useless
Spears bounced off his side
Getting angry didn't help
Even though they tried

The kookaburra had a plan
We need to make him laugh
To hold his side and open wide
We need to show some gaffe

If only we can do that
The water will pour out
We all must work together
To end this mighty drought

C'mon laugh you big fat frog
You're like a bursting pot
If only you could see yourself
Squelching as you squat

Tiddalick moved his mournful head
He had a doleful face
He didn't see the humour
Of smiles there were no trace

The kangaroo and platypus
Wombat and emu
All tried their best to make him laugh
But Tiddalick stayed blue

Some danced and some told stories
Others somersaulted
Tiddalick grew tired and bored
And slept when antics halted

The last to try was Norang the Eel
He was their final hope
He turned himself into a hoop
And wriggled like a rope

The rope stood upright on the sand
Then it began to spin
It went round like a whirlwind
Tiddalick began to grin

Then out slopped some water
Before it reached the sand
Man and beast began to drink
It worked like they had planned

But Norang went on spinning
Till he was scarcely seen
Tiddalick began to chuckle
It really made a scene

As his belly rumbled
The frog rocked to and fro
With his hands upon his sides
A stream began to flow

Tiddalick's mouth was open wide
With water gushing out
A surging tidal river
Spewed like a water spout

It swept away the animals
And covered all the sand
A shining lake of water
Had spread over the land

Now Tiddalick has shrunken
He's just a little frog
Who sometimes hides in desert sands
Or sits upon a log

Lyrics

Definition

Lyric poems usually do not tell a story. Instead, they express personal thoughts and feelings of the poet ot the speaker. Lyric poems are usually short, and evoke a strong emotion.

Example
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.

Sonnets

Definition

A specific type of lyric poems that is always fourteen lines long and wrtten in iambic pentameter. There are two main forms of sonnets: Elizabethan and Italian. 

Example
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. 

Odes 

Use to celebrate, grow gratitude, the gratefulness toward something. Usually long and complex

Example - Odes to Thanks 

Thanks to the word
that says thanks!
Thanks to thanks,
word
that melts
iron and snow! 
The world is a threatening place
until
thanks
makes the rounds
from one pair of lips to another,
soft as a bright
feather
and sweet as a petal of sugar,
filling the mouth with its sound
or else a mumbled
whisper.

Elegies

Definition

A sorrowful, mournful and plaintive poem, usually lamenting the death of someone.

Example
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Free Verse\

Definition - 

Poems that do not follow a regular rhyme scheme or meter, but do include elements of poetry, such as imagery, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and figures of speech ( similies, metaphors, personification).

Example

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.