Poems can be written in either a patterned form or a non-patterned form. The latter we call "continuous" form because the lines follow one another and the poet has not arranged them into stanzas. Hamlet's soliloquy "To be or not to be" is a poem written in a "continuous" form. Hamlet's soliloquy is written in a special kind of continuous form called BLANK VERSE, which is unrhymed iambic pentameter lines.

Many poems, of course, use stanzaic patterns, and some of these patterns have become staples in poetic tradition. For example, the sonnet has been around since the thirteenth century in Italy and found its way into the cultures of Spain, France, Germany, and England, where it was popularized by leading poets of the Renaissance. If Shakespeare had not written a single play, he would be remembered for his sonnets.

The following list of patterned poems is not exhaustive. The human mind is very inventive and devises new patterns yearly. But the list will give you an introduction to the major stanzaic forms.

1. BALLAD

This is a folk form, very popular in England in the century just before the English Renaissance. It has endured, however, to our own day. "Frankie and Johnny" has been a popular ballad in American century culture, and rock stars today have contributed many ballads to our heritage: "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" and "The Ballad of Billy Joe" are but two.

The ballad stanza is four lines long, generally rhyming A B C B, and the meter is iambic tetrameter for lines 1 and 3, iambic trimeter for lines 2 and 4. The following stanza opens the ancient ballad "The Wife of Usher's Well":

          There lived a wife at Usher's Well,

            And a wealthy wife was she;

          She had three stout and stalwart sons,

          And sent them o'er the sea.

Can you scan the lines? Try writing a stanza in ballad meter yourself.

The couplet was a highly popular form in the eighteenth century in England. Poets like Alexander Pope, Anne Finch, and John Dryden. It consists of two rhymed lines, usually written in iambic pentameter. Here are the opening lines of Oliver Goldsmith's "The Deserted Village."

          Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,

          Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain,

          Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,

          And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed.

The limerick is always five lines long with lines 1, 2 and 5 written in anapestic trimeter. Lines 3 and 4 are a foot shorter, written in anapestic dimeter. Since anapests are merry and skip along on the tongue, limericks are always comic. They are a favorite form of grafitti, and many of them are off-color. The following example by the nonsense-verse writer Edward Lear is not, however, off-color.

          There was an old man who supposed

          That the street door was partially closed

               But some very large rats

               Ate his coats and his hats

          While that futile old gentleman dozed.

Morris Bishop wrote the following:

          The limerick is furtive and mean.

          You must keep her in close quarantine,

               Or she sneaks to the slums

               And promptly becomes

          Disorderly, drunk and obscene.

One wag who hated limericks made fun of the form thusly:

          There was a man from St. Bees

          Who was bit on the hand by a wasp

               When asked if it hurt,

               He replied, "I don't know,

          But I'm glad it wasn't a hornet.

4. SESTINA

The sestina is an intricate form. Writing one takes great patience and much expertise. There are seven stanzas generally written in iambic pentameter. The first six stanzas have six lines each; the seventh stanza has three lines. The trick is that the same six words must be used to end the lines, but in a very strictly revolving pattern. The lines in the first stanza, for example, could end with the words

light

treasure

might

pleasure

direction

affection

Then the lines in the second stanza must end

affection

light

direction

treasure

pleasure

might

So from stanza one,

the end word of the first line becomes the end word of the second line

the end word of the second line becomes the end word of the fourth line

the end word of the third line becomes the end word of the last line

the end word of the fourth line becomes the end word of the fifth line

the end word of the fifth line becomes the end word of the third line

the end word of the sixth line becomes the end word of the first line

Then when you go to the third stanza, you repeat the pattern as if the second stanza were actually the first. Is this confusing? Wait. When you finish the sixth stanza, in the seventh stanza you must use all six end words again, two in each line (because the seventh stanza has only three lines), and they must be used in the pattern of the first stanza, with the first end word coming in the middle of line one, the second end word coming at the end of line one, the third end word coming in the middle of line two, etc. Sir Philip Sidney wrote one called "Farewell O Sun."

5.SONNET

The sonnet pattern was invented by Da Lentino in thirteenth century Italy, and it was used by Petrarch and Dante. A sonnet has fourteen lines. The pattern for the "Italian" sonnet breaks the poem into two sections: an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines). Often the octave will ask a question ("Why won't my loved one respond to me?") and the sestet attempts to answer it ("My loved one has other things in mind.") or the octave may pose a problem and the sestet offer a solution. The break between the octave and the sestet may be signaled by a "volta," or giveaway word like "but" or "yet." Then you know that the tone of the sonnet is changing direction.

The octave invariably rhymes A B B A   A B B A. This is the easiest way to tell if you are reading an Italian sonnet. The sestet has variations. It may rhyme C D C   C D C or C C D   C C D or any number of combinations, even C D  C D  C D.

The Italian sonnet was popularized in England by Sir Thomas Wyatt who translated a number of Petrarch's sonnets into English. But English rhymes are harder to come by than Italian so the English soon developed a new rhyme scheme for the sonnet that would allow them to use more rhyming words within the fourteen lines. The "English" or "Shakespearean" sonnet breaks down into three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme is invariably   A B A B   C D C D   E F E F   G G. The meter is always iambic pentameter.

Is the following sonnet Italian or English?

          When I consider how my light is spent,
          Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
          And that one talent which is death to hide
          Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
          To serve therewith my Maker, and present
          My true account, lest he returning chide;
          "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
          I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
          That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
          Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
          Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
          Is kingly. Thousands at his bdding speed
          And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
          They also serve who only stand and wait."

6. SPENSERIAN STANZA

Edmund Spenser invented a stanza form for his long poem The Faerie Queene. He must have liked the pattern very much because the poem has six books, each book containing twelve cantos, each canto containing between fifty and eighty stanzas. You do the math! The Spenserian stanza is nine lines long rhyming A B A B B C B C C. The first eight lines are written in iambic pentameter. The ninth line is written in iambic hexameter, giving the stanza a kind of extra kick to closure.

Here is a dragon being defeated by Spenser's Red Cross Knight:

          The cruel wound enraged him so sore,
          That loud he yelled for exceeding pain;
          As hundred ramping lions seemed to roar,
          Whom ravenous hunger did there to constraine:
          Then gan he toss aloft his stretched traine,
          And therewith scourge the buxom air so sore,
          That to his force to yield it was faine;
          Ne ought his sturdy strokes might stand afore,
          That high trees overthrew, and rocks in pieces tore.

Did you catch the extra foot in the final line?

7. Villanelle

The villanelle is often a tortured poem, as tortured as some sestinas, because the pattern is so rigid and tight. Yet many poets have tried their hand at writing one because it is so challenging. The poem consists of five stanzas of tercets and a final quatrain stanza. Its meter is iambic pentameter. Here's the kick: line one MUST be repeated as line 3 of the second stanza, line 3 of the fourth stanza, and the second last line of the poem. In addition, line three of the poem MUST be repeated as line three of the third stanza, line three of the fifth stanza, and serve as the final line of the poem.

          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.

          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.

This villanelle is quite brilliantly executed. Notice how Thomas changes the command of line one into part of a statment for stanza two. In this way he varies the motion of the line so it does not seem as if you are reading the same line over again. Can you see how he executes a similar transformation later in the poem? He wrote the poem, by the way, to encourage his father to fight off death.

Memorial stone for Dylan Thomas in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, London.

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