Examples
There are different types of poetry.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Acrostic | A peom where the first letter of each line spells a word when read vertically. |
| Ballad | A popular narrative song passed down orally. In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (abcb) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines. Folk (or traditional) ballads are anonymous and recount tragic, comic, or heroic stories with emphasis on a central dramatic event; examples include “Barbara Allen” and “John Henry.” Beginning in the Renaissance, poets have adapted the conventions of the folk ballad for their own original compositions. Examples of this “literary” ballad form include John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” Thomas Hardy’s “During Wind and Rain,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee.” Browse more ballads. |
| Carol | A hymn or poem often sung by a group, with an individual taking the changing stanzas and the group taking the burden or refrain. See Robert Southwell’s “The Burning Babe”. Many traditional Christmas songs are carols, such as “I Saw Three Ships” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” |
For more information on all the different Types of Poetry please visit the Poetry Foundation
If your poem is selected to be published on our website
You will be notified by email. We do not publish any poems that have already posted on the Internet, including poems posted on our Forums. You may submit only 1 poem every 30 days. Submit your most popular poem, not necessarily your best. Only submit poems written in English.