Ballad Meter

Type: structure, meter, rhyme, stanzaic. Description: Ballad measure is a four-line stanzaic form usually rhymed abcb and consisting of alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines. Normally it is accentual-syllabic, such as iambic meter, though they can be podic with variable numbers of unaccented syllables. Schema: xX xX xX xa xX xX xb xX xX xX xc xX xX xb Stanza Length: quatrain.
© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Ballad

Type: refrain, structure, meter, rhyme, stanzaic.

Description: Short narrative poem compromising of quatrains. Usually written in ballad meter of alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. The rhyme scheme is usually alternating lines. Ballads have a refrain stanza.

Schema:

xX xX xX xA (Refrain)
xX xX xB
xX xX xX xA
xX xX xB

xX xX xX xc
xX xX xd
xX xX xX xc
xX xX xd

Stanza Length: quatrain.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Balassi Stanza

Type: structure, rhyme, stanzaic.

Description: A nine-line stanzaic form where the lines are grouped in three-line sets with syllable counts 6, 6, and 7. The first two lines of each set is a couplet. The third, and longer line, carries the main rhyme in the third, sixth and ninth line of the stanza. Created by Balint Balassi.

Schema:

xxxxxb
xxxxxb
xxxxxxA
xxxxxc
xxxxxc
xxxxxxA
xxxxxd
xxxxxd
xxxxxxA

Poem Length: 9 lines

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Balada

Type: structure, meter, refrain, rhyme.

Description: A dance song with an insistent refrain. The refrain is repeated after each stanza. The first line of the refrain is repeated after the first and second line or section of each stanza. The balada is usually three stanzas where the stanzas are separated into three parts, the first two being of identical structure and the third matching the structure of the refrain. The balada was common in Occitan circa 1300CE.

Schema:

RA bRbRa(RA) bRbRa(RA) bRbRa(RA)

where:
R is the first line of the refrain
A is the rest of the refrain
b is the first and second section of the stanza
a is the third section of the stanza.

Poem Length: 3 stanzas

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Bagarthach Verses

Type: structure, rhyme, simple.

Description: Created by Raphael Aloysius Lafferty who used this form for a book where aliens would curse bothersome humans.

Schema:

Rhyme: abab.

Stanza Length: quatrain.

Poem Length: 1 stanza

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Awdl Gywydd

Type: structure, meter, rhyme, stanzaic.

Description: Pronounced ‘owdl gow-widd’. Seven syllable quatrains with end rhymes and couplet binding. Welsh origin.

Schema:

xxxxxxa
xxaxxxb (a can be 3rd or 4th syllable)
xxxxxxc
xxcxxxb (c can be 3rd or 4th syllable)

Mid-line rhymes a and c can be various forms of rhyme but the end of line rhyme b should be perfect rhyme.

Stanza Length: quatrain.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Aubade

Type: subject.

Description: A song or verse about lovers parting at dawn.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Anglo-Saxon Accentual Verse

Type: structure, other.

Description: Based on alliteration and stress, this is a style left over from the English language’s Anglo-Saxon forebears. It is usually done with four-stress lines with a caesura (pause) in the middle. The stressed words are alliterated with the first stress, the second stress or both. The fourth stress does not alliterate internally, but might cross-alliterate with other lines. Alliteration holds the lines of the poem together, rather than the rhyme. All vowels were considered to alliterate with each other, but consonant compounds such as ‘sk’ or ‘sp’ would alliterate only with themselves, not each other. The Anglo-Saxons were more likely to use enjambment than to end-stop their lines.

Stanza length: quatrain.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Anacreontic Ode

Type: structure, subject, other requirement

Description: The lines are short and the forms simple. The subjects are normally love or drinking. (Wine, women and song.)

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Alternating Sonnet

Type: structure, metrical, rhyme scheme, isosyllabic, simple, pivot.

Description: Tercets alternating with quatrains

Schema:
Rhyme: abba,ccd,abba, ede
or ccd,abba,ede,abba
or similar parsing of other sonnet rhyme schemes.


Metric: iambic pentameter

Pivot: Line 8, 11, or 12

Stanza Length: tercet and quatrain.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Alternating Quatrain

Type: structure, rhyme scheme, stanzaic.

Description: Four-line stanzas rhymed abab. They can conform to other rules, such as having lines of iambic pentameter (Sicilian quatrains), but they need not even be metered as long as they rhyme.

Schema: Rhyme: abab

Stanza length: quatrain.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Alcaics

Type: structure, meter, stanzaic

Description: This form is Greek. It is a quatrain form, described in technical terms of meter, the first two lines of each stanza consists of an acephelous iamb, two trochees and two dactyls, the third line is composed of an acephelous iamb and four trochees and the last line is two dactyls and two trochees. The form is unrhymed.

Schematic:

X Xx Xx Xxx Xxx
X Xx Xx Xxx Xxx
X Xx Xx Xx Xx
Xxx Xxx Xx Xx

Meter: mixed

Line length: between 9 and 11 syllables

Poem Length: unlimited

Example:

Good Morning Mister Christopher Basleget
How goes the Day in Bathampton Somerset?
Drum beats sound Loudly Mangled like Mumerset
Winningly playing the Congo Bongo

by Jeff Green

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Ae Freislighe

Type: Structure, metric, rhyme, stanzaic

Description: Accordingly is pronounced ‘ay freshly’. This is an Irish syllabic quatrain stanza form. The simplified version for English language poets is as follows. Each line consists of seven syllables. Lines 1 and 3 of each quatrain ends with a triple syllable rhyme. Lines 2 and 4 of each quatrain ends with a double syllable rhyme. The poem traditionally ends as it began, either the first syllable, word, phrase or line (in Gaelic this is known as a dunedh).

Schematic:

xxxx (xxa)
xxxxx (xb)
xxxx (xxa)
xxxxx (xb)

Stanza length: Quatrain

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Acrostic

Type: Structure, other requirement

Description: The acrostic is a special requirement poem. The first letter of each line spells out a word, name or phrase.

Schematic:

L1xxx…
L2xxx…
L3xxx… and so on


Line Length: There is no standard line length.

Poem Length: As long as the word, phrase or message.

Example:

An Acrostic
by Edgar Allan Poe

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
"Love not" — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.