Exploring new forms one line at a time…
This is sort of a sampler of the hundreds of forms I have come across. Some are limited to the line length specified while others are merely useful for that length. The links below take you to poems I have written in these forms. These are not tutorials per se, nor were they presented as challenges. But I have included them here because for each of them I gave a brief explanation of the form so that you may write one of your own, if you feel so inclined.
- 1 Line ~ 6-Word Memoir ~ summarizing my day in six words (an exercise in conciseness)
- 2 Lines ~ Doha ~ a Hindi stanzaic couplet
- 3 Lines ~ Brevette ~ a short unrhymed tercet
- 4 Lines ~ Modified nursery rhyme ~ taking an original nursery rhyme and making a few humorous changes (an exercise in creativity)
- 5 Lines ~ Emmett ~ the first word also appears as the first word of every line
- 6 Lines ~ Double Acrostic ~ the title appears at both the beginning and the end of each line (may be any length)
- 7 Lines ~ Pleiades ~ 7-line stanza in which the first word of each line alliterates with the 1-word title
- 8 Lines ~ The Abercrombie ~ a stanzaic form (may have multiple 8-line stanzas) using sprung rhythm and an interlocking rhyme scheme
- 9 Lines ~ Amaranth ~ makes deliberate use of the 9 most common metric feet, one per line
- 10 Lines ~ Egg Timer ~ a decastich that is a mirror image of itself
- 11 Lines ~ Shoe Laces ~ an 11-line poem that alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic monameter
- 12 Lines ~ Rondine ~ The beginning of Line 1 is repeated twice as a refrain.
- 13 Lines ~ Chaucerian Roundel ~ a tercet, quatrain, and sestet with a refrain
- 14 Lines ~ Word Sonnet ~ one word per line
- 15 Lines ~ Compound Word Verse ~ The third line of each tercet is a compound word related to a word in the title.
- 16 Lines ~ Domino Rhyme ~ The object is to give the feel of an unrhymed poem by keeping the rhymes distant from one another.
- 17 Lines ~ Lucubration ~ a 17-line poem with a very strict structure
- 18 Lines ~ Rhyming Wave ~ mimics the motion of the waves upon the shore
- 19 Lines ~ Terzanelle ~ a 19-line poem with an interlocking rhyme scheme, a cross between the Terza Rima and the Villanelle
- 20 Lines ~ The Balance ~ has an ebb-and-flow rhythm and a closing refrain
- 21 Lines ~ Diminishing Hexaverse ~ both lines and stanza diminish in length
- 22 Lines ~ Chain of Abolition ~ has an increasing stanza length and an external rhyme scheme with an interesting twist
- 23 Lines ~ Daisy Chain ~ the last word of each line appears as the first word of the next line; may be any length
- 24 Lines ~ Couplet Chain ~ a series of open and closed rhyming couplets (may be any number of couplets)
- 25 Lines ~ Free Verse ~ an unrhymed, unmetered poem
- 26 Lines ~ Alpha Beta ~ a poem in which each line begins with a consecutive letter of the alphabet
- 27 Lines ~ Quintina ~ a quintet version of the Sestina, with the same 5 end words repeated in varying order in each stanza, and concluded with an envoy
