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Read poetry and connect to a poetry fan community.

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The largest mobile/online teen poetry community

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For an overview of a vast array of slam poetry and guaranteed family-friendly content, this playlist curated by Button Poetry is the place to begin.

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Poems that are appropriate (content and language) for youth classroom settings.

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Explore the basics of poetry, get advice on how to write your own poems, and read poetry written organized by subject matter.

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Recommended Reading from Seven Academy Chancellors
We asked our Chancellors what books they'd recommend reading. Seven Chancellors- Toi Derricotte, Marilyn Hacker, Juan Felipe Herrera, Edward Hirsch, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Arthur Sze -each chose two books of poems, a volume often revisited for continuous inspiration and another beloved book more readers should know about.

"The book I return to is Li-Young Lee's The City in Which I Love You. The unfamiliar leaps, the dream-soaked realities of a "wanderer's heart," the revisions of memory, the illuminations on the demolished crossings of nation and self to the upper trigrams of sensual becoming and the knife-sharp divinities of being; all this, all the whispered line-work-takes me back to Lee's pages." -Juan Felipe Herrera
Recommended Reading from Other Renowned Poets Past and Present
We asked a number of poets, including previous Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets, to list a few poetry books that they would recommend to others. The selections that came in include influential volumes, books returned to over and over, must-reads, and books frequently recommended to students or new poetry readers.

Galway Kinnell
Body Rags (2002, Mariner Books Reissue)

Galway Kinnell
The Book of Nightmares (1973, Mariner Books)

The Lice (1993, Copper Canyon Press Reissue)

Cesare Pavese
Hard Labor (1979, Johns Hopkins University Press)

James Wright
Shall We Gather at the River (1968, University Press of
New England)

Sylvia Plath
Ariel (2004, HarperCollins Restored Edition)

Allen Ginsberg
Howl (1956, City Lights Books)

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Poetry for Teens - If you're a teen looking to learn more about the art of reading or writing poetry, we've gathered

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Learn about different types of poetry based on rhyming, repetition, and more.

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Sestina

Here's another old poetic form, in this case coming out of 12th-century Provence. Like the villanelle, it has a lot of repetition, but unlike the villanelle, sestinas don't have to rhyme. The sestina has six stanzas of six lines each, and a closing stanza of three lines. The six words that end the lines of the first stanza get repeated at the line endings of each of the remaining stanzas, and all six words appear in the poem's final three lines. Here is a great description of the order these six words should appear in.
Elizabeth Bishop, "Sestina." Alberto Alvaro Rios, "Nani"
Acrostic

Here is a fun form: spell out a name, word, or phrase with the first letter of each line of your poem. You can write a love poem using the name of your beloved this way!
Edgar Allan Poe, "An Acrostic." Sathya Narayana, "Nuggets"
Ekphrastic Poetry

This type of poem doesn't have particular rules for form: unlike the forms above, you can write it however you like. What it is, instead, is a poem about a work of art: a painting, a statue, perhaps a photograph. It's art about art, written in response to visual art that inspires the poet.
Tyehimba Jess, "Hagar in the Wilderness." Rebecca Wolff, "Ekphrastic."
concrete POetry

Concrete poetry, or shape poetry, or visual poetry, is meant to look a particular way on the page: it's written to form a particular image or shape that enhances the poem's meaning. In its cheesy form, a concrete poem might be a love poem written in the shape of a heart. But here are some better examples:

May Swenson, "Women." This poem is about how women are expected be "pedestals moving to the motions of men," and the poem itself illustrates the swaying women are supposed to do at the will of men.
George Herbert, "Altar."
Elegy

Like ekphrastic poetry above, this type of poem doesn't have to fit a particular form; instead, it's defined by its subject, which is death. An elegy is a poem of mourning, often for a particular person, but it can be about a group of people or about a broader sense of loss. Elegies often move from mourning toward consolation.
Walt Whitman, "O Captain, My Captain." Mary Jo Bangs, "You Were You Are Elegy." Kwame Dawes, "Requiem."
Epigram

Want to write something short? Try your hand at an epigram. All you have to do is be brilliant and witty in a few lines - easy! Epigrams don't have to be poems, but they often are. They are short and witty, often satirical, and have a surprising and funny ending.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Epigram" Emily Dickinson, "'Faith' is a Fine Invention"
Limerick

On the subject of funny poems, next is the limerick. You're probably familiar with the limerick form, even if you don't get the details of it, because its sound is so distinctive: two longer lines, two short ones, and a closing longer line that makes a joke, often a ribald one. If you want the technical details, here you go: limericks have a rhyme scheme of AABBA and use anapestic meter, with three feet in the longer lines and two in the shorter.

Ballad

If you want to read a story or tell a story in a poem, the ballad is for you. It's an old, traditional form that used to be passed down orally from one generation to the next. Ballads, if you want to follow the rules of the form strictly, are written in quatrains, groups of four lines, and have a rhyme scheme of ABAB or ABCB. The lines alternate between having eight syllables and six syllables. But the ballad is a loose enough form that you can make of it whatever you want.

Anonymous, "Barbara Allen." Here's the first stanza:

In Scarlet town, where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwellin',
Made every youth cry Well-a-way!
Her name was Barbara Allen.
Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee."
epitaph

The epitaph is like the elegy, only shorter. It's the kind of poem that might appear on a gravestone, although it doesn't have to. It's brief and it pays tribute to a person who has passed away or commemorates some other loss.
Robert Herrick, "Upon a Child That Died" Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Epitaph"
Tanka

The tanka (which means "short poem") is a Japanese form that is five lines. The first and third lines have five syllables (in the English version of the form) and the other lines have seven syllables each. The subject of the poem can be nature, as it generally is for haiku, but this isn't required.
Sadakichi Hartmann, "Tanka" Philip Appleman, "Three Haiku, Two Tanka."
Ode

An ode is simply a poem address to a particular person, event, or thing. It's often meant to praise or glorify its subject. The ode as a form comes from ancient Greece and there are various ode types available, but basically if you are addressing something/someone directly, you are writing an ode.

Pablo Neruda, "Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market." Here is how the poem begins:

Here,
among the market vegetables,
this torpedo
from the ocean
depths,
a missile
that swam,
now
lying in front of me
dead.
Phillis Wheatley, "Ode to Neptune."
Free Verse

This is the form of poetry where you can do whatever you want! There are no rules! You don't use regular patterns of rhythm or rhyme, don't need lines of any particular length, or stanzas of a particular number of lines. This is both liberating and terrifying. Yes, you can do whatever you want...which means it can be hard to know where to start. But give it a try and enjoy the freedom of it!
Nikki Giovanni, "Winter Poem" Langston Hughes, "Theme for English B."
This is a fairly lengthy list but it's only just the beginning when it comes to understanding and appreciating different types of poems. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend the Poetry Foundation website. Or you can read more Book Riot articles on the subject: Click here for an introduction to how to read poetry. To explore more articles on poetry, click here. Have fun!

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A Beginner's Guide To The Different Types of Poems

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Learn about the most common types of poems and be inspired to write a poem of your own based on these poem examples from famous poets.

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Discover 100 poem forms, from common types like limerick to more rare types like pantoum and see examples.

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Check out this list of 100 poetic forms for poets that includes everything from abstract poetry and ae freislighe to villanelle and zappai-and so many more in between.
[ Update: This post used to list 50 poetic forms for poets, but I've updated it with 100 poetic forms for poets. Because forms rock!]

I'm in the middle of putting together my list of poetic forms to cover in the (2015) 2020 issues of Writer's Digest magazine, and it prompted me to take a look at what I've already covered on this blog over the years. As the title of this post suggests, I've covered at least (50) 100 forms.

Be sure to check out each form. It might even make a good year-long challenge to write two forms each week of the year.

Here's my list of 100 poetic forms:

(Note: Click on the name of each form to read the full description in the original posts.)

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Play with poetic forms!
Poetic forms are fun poetic games, and this digital guide collects more than 100 poetic forms, including more established poetic forms (like sestinas and sonnets) and newer invented forms (like golden shovels and fibs).

Click to continue.

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The Fib. Fun form from Gregory K. Pincus.

Found Poetry. Finders keepers, right?

Ghazal. Couplets and a refrain.

Glose (or Glosa). 40-line poem based off an epigraph.

Gogyohka. 5-line poem developed by Enta Kusakabe.

Golden Shovel. Terrance Hayes-invented, Gwendolyn Brooks-inspired.

Gwawdodyn. Welsh poetic form.

Haibun. Japanese form popularized by Matsuo Basho.

Haiku. Popular Japanese form.

Haiku Sonnet. 4 haiku and a couplet.

Hay(na)ku. Eileen Tabios form with 3 lines, 6 words.

Hir a Thoddaid. 6 lines that mostly all share the same rhyme.

Huitain. French 8-liner with an ababbcbc rhyme scheme.

Imayo. 4-line Japanese poem with a pause in the middle of each line.

Interlocking Rubaiyat. Used by Omar Khayyam, Robert Frost, and many others.

Katauta Poems. Haiku (or senryu) for lovers.

Kimo. Israeli version of haiku.

Kyrielle. Adjustable French form.

Lai. Nine-liner from the French.

Landay. Poem comprised of self-contained couplets.

Limerick. 5 lines and naughty rhymes.

List Poem. Poetry at the grocery store.

Luc Bat. Vietnamese "6-8" form.

Lune. Robert Kelly invention, also known as American haiku.

Madrigal. Learn both the Italian and English versions.

Magic 9. The "abacadaba" 9-line rhyme scheme.

Minute Poem. 3 quatrains and a simple rhyme scheme.

Mondo. Brief collaborative Q&A poem.

Monotetra. Quatrain madness developed by Michael Walker.

Nonet. Nine-line countdown poem.

Ode. Praise poetry!

Ottava Rima. ABC rhymes in 8 lines.

Ovillejo Poems. 10-liner popularized by Miguel de Cervantes.

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Build an Audience for Your Poetry!
While your focus as a poet will always be on refining your craft, why not cultivate a following along the way? With the multitude of social networking opportunities available today, it's never been easier to connect with other poetry enthusiasts.

Click to continue.

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Palindrome (or Mirror Poetry). Reflective poetic form.

Pantoum. The repetitive form from Malay.

Paradelle. Silly and/or psycho form from Billy Collins.

Prose. Just when you thought poetry was defined by line breaks.

Qasida. Guest post by Ren Powell.

Quatern. French 4x4 form.

Rannaigheact Mhor. Irish form that fits a lot of rules into 28 syllables.

Rhupunt. Welsh form that offers variability and rigidity simultaneously.

Rimas Dissolutas. Old French form that rhymes and doesn't rhyme.

Rispetto. Italian poetic form.

Rondeau. 15 lines, 3 stanzas, and a lot of rhymes.

Rondel. 13 lines in 3 stanzas.

Rondine. 12-liner with a refrain.

The Roundabout. Form from Sara Diane Doyle and David Edwards.

Roundelay. Simple lyric poem that uses a refrain.

Seguidilla. Spanish 7-liner that began as a dance song.

Senryu. What many people consider haiku.

Sestina. The form poets either love or hate.

Shadorma. Spanish 6-liner.

Sijo. Korean poetic form.

Skeltonic Verse. "Tumbling verse" named after originator, John Skelton.

Somonka. Japanese collaborative form.

Sonnet. Shakespeare's 14-line fave.

Strambotto. Hendecasyllabic octave with abababab rhyme scheme.

Tanka. Kinda like a haiku plus a couplet.

Tautogram. Poem in which all words start with the same letter.

Terzanelle. What happens when the terza rima and villanelle combine.

Than-bauk. Burmese descending rhyme tercet (or linked verse).

Trenta-Sei. 36-liner invented by John Ciardi.

Treochair. Alliterative tercets that rhyme with variable 3/7/7 lines.

Tricubes. 3 stanzas by 3 lines by 3 syllables.

Trimeric. 13-line form invented by Charles A. Stone.

Triolet. 8-line French form.

Triversen. William Carlos Williams invention: six tercets.

Villanelle. Five tercets and a quatrain.

Zappai. Just another 3-liner form.

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Enter your email below and get a free video tutorial, "Contemporary Poetic Forms: Newer Forms for Poets," presented by Robert Brewer!
Remember the difference between the 8 parts of speech, and how to use them? Are you comfortable with punctuation and mechanics? No matter what type of writing you do, mastering the fundamentals of grammar and mechanics is an important first step to having a successful writing career.

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From abstract poems to villanelles, find a range of poetic forms for poets in this list, including French, Spanish, Vietnamese, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Welsh, and contemporary forms! Each listing links to a more comprehensive description of the form along with an example poem using the form.

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Poetry written by teens and for teens. You can also submit your own poetry to be featured.

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By Carl Haynes
Staten Island, NY

i asked my father if i could swim, and he said that i would drown. The Sea would imprison me - he said if my feet had left the ground. So i walked out to the water, and crie...

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By Carl HaynesStaten Island, NY i asked my father if i could swim, and he said that i would drown. The Sea would imprison me - he said if my feet had left the ground. So i walked out to the water, and crie...

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A teen’s guide to all thing’s poetry featuring the classics, emerging poets, and everything in between.

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Poems and articles about poetry for young adults, ages 13-18.

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Listen to a new poem every weekday read aloud by Tracy K. Smith.

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The Slowdown podcast hosted by Major Jackson delivers a different way to see the world - through poetry

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Get your daily dose of poetry by listening to a new poem every day.

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Audio recordings of poems and poetry-related podcasts: Poem of the Day, PoetryNow, the POETRY magazine podcast, VS, and more.

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YouTube channel featuring videos of poetry read aloud. Sometimes the author reads their own work, and sometimes guests read their favorite poems by poets alive and dead.

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Making poetry personal, in the hands of people who love it. New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Produced in collaboration with The Poetry Found...

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The YouTube Channel of Button Poetry publishing company, publisher of performance poetry.

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poetry "slam poetry" slam "spoken word" neil hilborn "freestyle poetry" "poetry slam" "poetry videos" "spoken poetry" "rudy francisco" "sabrina benaim"

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Help us expand what we do (closed captioning, multilingual subtitles, nationwide tour & more!): http://bit.ly/buttonpatreon Subscribe to Button! New video da...

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Poetry Slam Inc. is a non-profit who oversees poetry slams and posts performances of spoken word poetry performed at competitions.

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Poetry Slam, Inc. is a non-profit organization that organizes the National Poetry Slam, the Individual World Poetry Slam, and the Women of the World Poetry S...

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A YouTube channel dedicated to featuring teenage slam poets.

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poetry "spoken word" advocacy "slam poetry" "san francisco" oakland "youth speaks" "brave new voices" "hbo def jam poetry" "spoken word poetry"

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The official YouTube channel of Youth Speaks, the nation's leading presenter of spoken word arts and education. Here you will find all videos related to the ...

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Features weekly videos of new and established spoken word poets performing their work.

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"all def poetry" poetry "all def" "spoken word" narrative literature "poetry slam" "all def digital"

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Follow these Insta-Poets to add a burst of poetry and art to your Instagram Feed:

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An animated poetry reading about the struggles of being a teenager and feeling alone.

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A poem by a former teacher about the work teachers do.

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The Importance of Proofreading by Taylor Mali

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The Importance of Proofreading by Taylor Mali

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A funny poem about what happens when you let spellcheck be your grammar expert.

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0:00 / 3:30•Watch full video

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"The the Impotence of Proofreading," by TAYLOR MALI

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Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior by Taylor Mali

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Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior by Taylor Mali

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A story-poem about a smart young man and his friends facing life’s toughest challenges.

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"Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior," by TAYLOR MALI

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A poem for romantics.