 Hello and welcome to this video where we're going to go over some of the most common forms of poetry, okay? So as I've mentioned Form is basically the shape of a poem how poem is just shaped or laid out now when it comes to form There's lots of really common forms that poems and poets employ So what I wanted to do was to kind of go through a list of the different types of form that you should be familiar with And you should know what they mean Therefore if you read a type of poem for following one of these forms that I mentioned Then you can instantly pick it out. Okay, so when it comes to this list, this is a fairly long list Okay, so I will be kind of updating this list as I go through this lesson now Let's begin with the first type of form which is fairly common. It is what we call a sonnet Now remember that a sonnet is a 14 line poem and must be a 14 line poem no less or no more Okay, so it's a 14 line poem which is written in iambic pentameter and it's traditionally about love Okay, if you're not clear what iambic pentameter is I have lots of lessons going over that However, the easiest way to remember iambic pentameter is when you're reading a line of poetry Each line is it ten syllables and is the first syllable unstressed the second syllable stressed and that happens five times Okay, again, if you're not clear, just check out my lesson on iambic pentameter Okay, it's actually fairly easy to understand once you wrap your mind around it So just to quickly recap sonnet is 49 poem written in iambic pentameter and it's traditionally about love But sometimes it's used ironically such as for example, how ozimandius Talks about a king that's passed away, but and it's written in a sonnet form But actually we realize he uses that ironically because he doesn't actually like the king now The next form to be aware of is a ballad now What a ballad is is a traditional type of poem which tells a very dramatic story Okay, so a ballad must always have a dramatic story included within the poem now It was originally so it's a very old style of poem. Okay, and it was originally written as a musical tale Okay, it's a very old style of poem and we usually find ballads are written in quadrants in other words for line stanzas which are in terms of the rhyme scheme a b a b rhyme scheme or a b c b Okay, so that's a ballad now the next Popular type of form is what we call an ode now an ode is actually a very old style of poetry that Originated in ancient Greece. Okay, so in classic civilization So an ode came from ancient Greece and it basically is a poem that praises a person event or object And it's usually fairly brief. Okay, so an ode tends to be a poem that's praising a person But it's actually quite a brief now the next poem to be aware of is an elegy What this poem is is it's about somebody who has passed away It is celebrating the memory of a deceased person someone that's died. That's what we call an elegy So let's move on to the next type of form which is free verse now bear in mind that free verse is simply a poem That does not follow any set structure. Okay, it's actually very free flowing in other words You know, you can have however many numbers of stanzas. It can have, you know one stanzas That's fairly long or fairly short. It doesn't it's not constrained by any type of pattern any type of structure Okay, that's why it's called free flowing or free verse now Remember this is actually a very modern style of poetry. Okay, this form is a very modern construction Traditional poems and poems from long ago used to follow a very rigid form Okay, so free verse tends to be a bit more of a modern style of poetry The next poem to be aware of is the acrostic poem and you've probably heard of it especially in primary school Okay Now this is a poem where the first letter of each line spells out a name word or phrase for example Let's say you've written happy h a p p y right you write it on one side And then for each letter you then write out a verse of poetry. Okay So again very very popular with school teachers The next form to be aware of which is again very very well known is what we call the limerick. Okay Now a limerick is a very humorous type of poem and it has an a a b b a Structure. Okay, so limerick is a poem that's supposed to be quite funny. All right Now in terms of this style of poem that it does follow a specific Way of laying out. Okay. It has a layout now. Remember within a limerick lines one two and five within a stanza Must be longer than lines three and four. Okay, so lines one two and five are much much longer than lines three and four And the end of the poem tends to be the funniest aspect of the poem. This is where we have the punch line Okay Now moving on to a poem which is from japan Called the haiku. Now. This is a very ancient japanese form of poetry. Okay, so it's written This ancient form of poetry is written in tercets, which is three line Stanzas. Okay, so remember that a haiku is a traditional japanese poem that's written in tercets and lines one And three have five syllables. Okay, so within each tercet within each three line poem the first and the Third line of poetry has you'd be able to count out Five syllables. However, the second line the middle line must have seven syllables Moreover, the other form to be aware of and this obviously takes us to the end of the list Okay, so these are this is the list of fairly common forms that you should be aware of is the Villanelle style of poetry. Okay, so the villanelle style of poetry actually originates from france. All right So this is an old type of poem from france and it has 19 lines in total and these lines are split up into different types of stanzas now You have the you have five stanzas within a villanelle Which are made up of three lines and they follow the a b a structure. Okay, so of these 19 lines This is how it's broken up. It has five stanzas of three lines, which are an a b a rhyme scheme Then you have one stanza made up of four lines what we would call obviously a quatering three lines is tercet Four line is quatering and it follows an a b a a rhyme scheme. Okay So that's really it when it comes to understanding the most popular forms of poetry. Okay, so of course again This list is not exhaustive. You can obviously add more different styles of forms But these are the most popular you will find that you are studying. Okay one or more of these are going to find yourself studying So it's good to know what you should anticipate and what you should expect when you're looking at the form of any type of poem Thank you so much for listening