It’s national poetry month! I’m never able to keep up with writing a poem every day, but I thought I would share different kinds of poems as a means of celebrating it.
Poetry is an art that is near and dear to my heart. My parents were part of the Austin Poetry Slam Team, and I followed in pursuit. I was a frequent open mic attender. I also have poems published in a few books.
I wanted to share a few things about poetry for everyone else who either enjoys it like me, or wants to know more about it!
Most times, the poem relates to the “hidden message.” If “APPLE” is the acrostic, then the poem is about apples.
It’s not always this way, but an acrostic makes more sense if the lines relate to the word that’s been spelled out.
This is actually one of my favorite types of poems because it’s simple and yet unique.
*found this image on Pinterest, it didn’t have a link source
Writing a deep and poetic couplet is a nightmare. If you just want to do the bare minimum, two lines that rhyme is perfect lol.
I forgot to add: A stanza is a group of lines. These stanzas might be as short as two lines, or as long as eight+ lines. You’ll see what I mean later on.
I changed the colors of the format to show each stanza. The lines in one group (stanza) will rhyme with each other, but they DON’T rhyme with the next group of lines (next stanza).
Shakespeare’s sonnets have incredibly dense and complicated language. I decided to add a mediocre sonnet that I wrote about corgis to break down the pieces of a sonnet a little better.
It’s not a good sonnet, but I hope it’s more helpful in understanding how a sonnet is written.
Free verses seem easy, because there are no rules to abide by. But there’s a catch: The lack of rules makes them difficult because you don’t have a structure that will guide you through writing a poem. You’re on your own.
This is from Shel Silverstein’s book, “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” I’m normally not a fan of excessive rhyming, but it is absolutely perfect in this particular poem.
Spoken word is a free verse poem that is designed to be read aloud.
Spoken word poems are often more intense, with extra descriptive language. Spoken word poems are used in Poetry Slams, where you have a limit of 3 minutes and 10 seconds before you take a time penalty and lose points.
I did my best to write a 60-second spoken word for you to listen to, to get an idea of what a spoken word sounds like.
I actually managed to do this in ten seconds because I did not understand using voiceover in TikTok.
Here are two of my favorite spoken word pieces. I wanted to add more, but it seems like Austin Slam is taking down some of their pieces (probably for editing).
“2-3-GO” by Mike Whalen Link: https://youtu.be/pr0d0Pb4CFA
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“Damn, Girl” by Glori B Link: https://youtu.be/d-0rZb9p1JE
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I would have included some of my pieces, but then y’all would know my IRL identity, and I was not comfortable with that.
There are many more different types of poems out there, but for the sake of length and simplicity, I will end it here. I hope you enjoyed this post! Have a lovely day!