Types Of Poetry

Have I tricked you? I promised you a fun poetry site and suddenly there’s a section called Types of Poetry, which sounds like the sort of boring rubbish that is taught at school. Perhaps I’d better try and explain. I think it’s worth learning a little bit about the different types of poetry, because it makes reading the poems more fun. I’ve deliberately kept the explanations short and light, so that you won’t feel too much as though you're at school, and included as examples lots of funny poems that you won’t find elsewhere on the website. As you become more knowledgeable about different types of poetry, you may be amazed to discover that you:

OK, I'll admit that the last one was a lie, but I felt you might just be starting to doze off.

Types, styles and forms of poetry

When we talk about types of poetry, we're really talking about systems for classifying poems according to features of the poem. At a very simple level, poems could be divided according to their length, target audience, emotional intent or when they were written.

This site is described as containing short funny poems for kids, which should make it fairly clear what type of poetry you'll find here without the need for a complicated explanation. I sometimes add the term 'original', 'contemporary' or 'modern' to the description, so that readers know I'm not passing off any second-hand rubbish. Within the site, a second form of classification according to subject is used - animal poems, school poems, rude poems etc. - to help make it easier for readers to find suitable poems.

The Types of Poetry section deals with a third and rather more complicated classification system. This system relies on the physical characteristic of poems - the number of lines, rhyme scheme and metre - to describe different forms of poetry and the use of language and specific linguistic devices to describe different styles of poetry. I'm not even sure I completely understand it myself, but we'll try and muddle through together.

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Individual poems are copyright of the stated authors and used with permission