Verse forms

Fixed verse forms are a kind of template or formula that poetry can be composed in. The converse of fixed-verse is Free verse poetry, which by design has little or no pre-established guidelines.

The various poetic forms, such as meter, rhyme scheme, and stanzas guide and limit a poet's choices when composing poetry. A fixed verse form combines one or more of these limitations into a larger form.

A form usually demands strict adherence to the established guidelines that to some poets may seem stifling, while other poets view the rigid structure as a challenge to be innovative and creative while staying within the guidelines.

Examples of Fixed Verse forms

 * Haiku : A Japanese form designed to be small and concise by limiting the number of lines and the number of syllables in a line. Japanese haiku are three-line poems with the first and the third line having five syllables and the middle having seven syllables. English-language Haiku may be shorter than seventeen syllables, though some poets prefer to keep to the 5-7-5 format.
 * Whitecaps on the bay:
 * A broken signboard banging
 * In the April wind.
 * —Richard Wright (collected in Haiku: This Other World, Arcade Publishing, 1998)


 * Sonnet : The sonnet is a European form and at its most basic requires that the total length be fourteen lines. There are two primary forms of the sonnet:
 * English Sonnet
 * In addition to above requirements, the English Sonnet must be four stanzas, the first three being quatrains and the last a couplet. Also the rhyme scheme for the quatrains is A-B-A-B and the final couplet is rhyming.
 * Let me not to the marriage of true minds
 * Admit impediments, love is not love
 * Which alters when it alteration finds,
 * Or bends with the remover to remove.
 * O no, it is an ever fixed mark
 * That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
 * It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
 * Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
 * Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
 * Within his bending sickle's compass come,
 * Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
 * But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
 * If this be error and upon me proved,
 * I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
 * —William Shakespeare, Sonnet 16
 * Italian Sonnet : The Italian sonnet requires that the fourteen lines be broken into oneoctave (two quatrains), which describe a problem, followed by a sestet (two tercets), which gives the resolution to it.
 * Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
 * Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
 * Whom Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave,
 * Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.
 * Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint,
 * Purification in the old Law did save,
 * And such, as yet once more I trust to have
 * Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
 * Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
 * Her face was vail'd, yet to my fancied sight,
 * Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
 * So clear, as in no face with more delight.
 * But O as to embrace me she enclin'd
 * I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.
 * —John Milton, Sonnet XXIII


 * Sestina : The sestina has a highly structured form consisting of six sestet stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada) for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time.
 * I
 * Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
 * You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let's to music!
 * I have no life save when swords clash.
 * But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
 * And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
 * Then howel I my heart nigh mad rejoicing.
 * II
 * In hot summer have I great rejoicing
 * When tempests kill the earth's foul peace,
 * And the light'nings from black heav'n flash crimson,
 * And the fierce thunders roar me their music
 * And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
 * And through all the riven God's swords clash.
 * III
 * Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
 * And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
 * Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!
 * Better one hour's stour than a year's peace
 * With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
 * Bah! there's no wine like the blood's crimson!
 * IV
 * And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
 * And I watch his spears through the dark clash
 * and it fills my heart with rejoycing
 * And pries wide my mouth with fast music
 * When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
 * His lone might 'gainst all darkmess opposing.
 * V
 * The man who fears war and squats opposing
 * My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
 * But it is fit only to rotin womanish peace
 * Far from where worth's won and the swords clash
 * For the death of sluts I go rejoicing;
 * Yea, I fill all the air with my music.
 * VI
 * Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
 * There¹s no sound like to swords swords opposing,
 * No cry like the battle's rejoicing
 * When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
 * And our charges 'gainst "The Leopard's" rush clash.
 * May God damn for ever all who cry "Peace!"
 * VII
 * And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
 * Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
 * Hell blot black for always the thought "Peace"!
 * —Ezra Pound, Sestina: Altaforte
 * Villanelle : A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain.
 * Do not go gentle into that good night,
 * Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
 * Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 * And our charges 'gainst "The Leopard's" rush clash.
 * May God damn for ever all who cry "Peace!"
 * VII
 * And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
 * Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
 * Hell blot black for always the thought "Peace"!
 * —Ezra Pound, Sestina: Altaforte
 * Villanelle : A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain.
 * Do not go gentle into that good night,
 * Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
 * Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 * Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
 * Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


 * Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
 * Because their words had forked no lightning they
 * Do not go gentle into that good night.


 * Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
 * Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
 * Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


 * Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
 * And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
 * Do not go gentle into that good night.


 * Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
 * Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
 * Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


 * And you, my father, there on the sad height,
 * Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
 * Do not go gentle into that good night.
 * Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


 * —Dylan Thomas, Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night