Poetic form
From Wikinfo
Poetic form is very much more flexible nowadays than ever before. Many modern poets eschew recognisable structures or forms, and write in 'free verse'. However, major structural elements often used in poetry are the line, the stanza or verse paragraph, and larger combinations of stanzas or lines such as cantos. The broader visual presentation of words and calligraphy can also be utilized. These basic units of poetic form are often combined into larger structures, called poetic forms, such as the sonnet.
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Lines
Poetry is often separated into lines on a page. These lines may be based on the number of metrical feet, or may emphasize a rhyming pattern at the ends of lines. Lines may serve other functions, particularly where the poem is not written in a formal metrical pattern. Lines can separate, compare or contrast thoughts expressed in different units, or can highlight a change in tone.
Lines may be combined into couplets, a combination of two lines which may or may not relate to each other by rhyme or rhythm. For example, a couplet may be two lines with identical meters, which rhyme or two lines held together by a common meter alone. Lines also may be combined into triplets, or sets of three lines. Lines are often grouped into verses or stanzas, which often have related couplets or triplets within them.
Stanzas and verse paragraphs
Related lines of poems are often organized into stanzas, which are denominated by the number of lines included. Thus a collection of four lines is a quatrain, six lines is a sestet and eight lines is an octet. Two lines form a couplet (or distich), three lines a triplet or tercet, and five lines a quintain (or cinquain). Other poems may be organized into a verse paragraphs, in which regular rhymes with established rhythms are not used, but the poetic tone is instead established by a collection of rhythms, alliterations, and rhymes established in paragraph form. Many medieval poems were written in verse paragraphs, even where regular rhymes and rhythms were used.
In many forms of poetry, stanzas are interlocking, so that the rhyming scheme or other structural elements of one stanza determine those of succeeding stanzas. Examples of such interlocking stanzas include, for example, the ghazal and the villanelle, where a refrain (or, in the case of the villanelle, refrains) is established in the first stanza which then repeats in subsequent stanzas. Related to the use of interlocking stanzas is their use to separate thematic parts of a poem. For example, the strophe, antistrophe and epode of the ode form are often separated into one or more stanzas. In such cases, or where structures are meant to be highly formal, a stanza will usually form a complete thought, consisting of full sentences and cohesive thoughts.
In some cases, particularly lengthier formal poetry such as some forms of epic poetry, stanzas themselves are constructed according to strict rules and then combined. In skaldic poetry, the [[Alliterative verse#Dr�ttkv�tt|dr�ttkv�tt]] stanza had eight lines, each having three "lifts" produced with alliteration or assonance. In addition to two or three alliterations, the odd numbered lines had partial rhyme of consonants with dissimilar vowels, not necessarily at the beginning of the word; the even lines contained internal rhyme in set syllables (not necessarily at the end of the word). Each half-line had exactly six syllables, and each line ended in a trochee. The arrangement of dr�ttkv�tts followed far less rigid rules than the construction of the individual dr�ttkv�tts.
See also
- Poet's corner, a place where you can post your original poems
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Poetic_form" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetic_form, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
