What Poetry Means To Me:

Poetry is a creative outlet. It allows words to tumble, even fumble to a timed sequence, or no sequence at all. Most of my poetry is about daily occurrences that I relish and want to share. It is a way to honor a person, place, or natural gift that is around me or in my imagination.

Favorite poetry types:

Iambic Pentameter–a basic rhythm that is pleasing to the ear; an unstressed or short syllable followed by a stressed or long syllable. Syllables in a line=10, two beats per foot, or five (penta) iambic feet. (paraphrased from Quora.com) It can be rhymed or unrhymed (blank verse.)

Haiku–Japanese, short form, typically about nature, or an essence, written in three lines with syllables: 5-7-5

Tanka–Japanese 31-syllable poem, traditionally, an unbroken meaning of words written in lines of syllables: 5-7-5-7-7

Cinquain–unrhymed, five-line poem with syllables: 2-4-6-8-2

Tercet–three lines forming a stanza making a complete poem. A Haiku is a Tercet

Nonet– 9 lines starting with 9 syllables, line two has 8 syllables, line three has seven, and so on down to one syllable on the ninth and last line.

Reverse Nonet– 9 lines starting with one syllable, line two has 2 syllables, and so on down to line nine with 9 syllables.

Ballad Stanza—Emily Dickinson is famous for writing in the “Yellow Rose of Texas” rhythm. A meter of Protestant hymns has a cadence that can be sung to rhyme.

Sonnet—fourteen lines typically in 10 syllables per line, using any number of rhyme schemes (Paraphrased from Oxford.com)

Limerick—a humorous and often randy verse of three long and two short lines-five total

Prose—written words as spoken without metrical structure

“I hope you find this simplified cheat sheet helpful.”

(Paraphrasing from Quora.com, Oxford.com, and Wendy’s take on the design types)