NEW DAWN UNLIMITED
A FEW POETRY FORMS:
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Dedicated to poetry publishing, production,
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1. HAIKU (3 lines, 5-7-5 syllables per line.) More detailed description and example can be found HERE.
2. TANKA (5 lines, 5-7-5-7-7 syllables per line,
with a turn in thought before the last two lines.) More detailed description and example available HERE.
3. CINQUAIN Adelaide Crapsey style, 5 lines,
specific pattern available HERE.
4. LIMERICK (5 lines, rhyme sceme aabba,
with the 1st, 2nd, and 5th lines being longer (about 3 feet, but about the same length as each other) and the 3rd and 4th lines being shorter (about two feet, but the same length as each other.) Details and sample available HERE.
5. TRIOLET (8 lines, rhyme scheme ABaAabAB,
in which the 4th and 7th lines are the same as the 1st (A), and the 8th line is the same as the 2nd (B). More specific details and examples HERE.
6. SONNET (14 lines, any recognized sonnet
form accepted. Please name form under category. Definitions of sonnet forms available HERE.)
7. VILLANELLE (19-lines, five tercets and a
final quatrain with specific pattern of rhymes and
repeating lines. Click HERE.
for more exact details.)
8. PANTOUM (1 page in a standard 12 point
font, quatrains in which the 2nd and 4th lines are
repeated as the 1st and 3rd lines of the following
quatrain, and the closing quatrain circles back to the lines of the 1st quatrain to complete the form. More specific details available HERE.
9. SESTINA (39 lines, six sestets and a
concluding tercet, using 6 words repeating in a specific pattern as the ends of the lines and in the final tercet. Exact pattern and details available HERE.)
10. FREE VERSE (1 page maximum in a standard 12 point font.) A poem with no regular rhyme or meter. For example, click HERE.)
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POETRY FORMS
1. HAIKU
Haiku should have 3 lines, with the first line having five syllables, the second line having seven syllables, and the third line having five syllables. Though there are many other rules and conventions for traditional haiku, we will not restrict subject matter or sentence structure, etc. Just follow the 5-7-5 format.
LINE 1: 5 syllables
LINE 2: 7 syllables
LINE 3: 5 syllables
SAMPLE HAIKU:
Weed in the sidewalk
Doesn't know it can't grow there
Flowers anyway.
JDH
2. TANKA
A tanka is like a haiku, but with two more lines. There are five lines, the first having five syllables, the second having seven syllables, the third having 5 syllables, and the last two lines having seven syllables each.
Traditionally, there should be a "turn in thought" before the last two lines. Interpret that as you like, and there are no restrictions on subject matter or other conventions. Simply follow the 5-7-5-7-7 format.
LINE 1: 5 syllables
LINE 2: 7 syllables
LINE 3: 5 syllables (the poem changes in some way after this line.)
LINE 4: 7 syllables
LINE 5: 7 syllables
SAMPLE TANKA:
Seasonal Art
Spring likes fingerpaints,
Summer throws ceramic ware,
Autumn does decoupage,
But Winter makes ice sculptures,
Monuments to the year past.
JDH
3. CINQUAIN
The traditional cinquain is based on a syllable count and uses words of a certain type in each line as follows:
LINE 1: 2 syllables -- One word, noun, a title or name of the subject
LINE 2: 4 syllables -- Two words, adjectives, describing the title
LINE 3: 6 syllables -- Three words, verbs, describing an action related to the title
LINE 4: 8 syllables -- Four words describing a feeling about the title, a complete sentence
LINE 5: 2 syllables -- One word referring back to the title of the poem
SAMPLE CINQUAIN:
Cinquain Light
Daybreak
Golden stunning
reaching growing spreading
I sense new possibilities
Sunbeams
JDH
4. LIMERICK
A light or humorous verse form of five lines of which lines one, two, and five are longer (but roughly equal to each other) and rhyme with each other, and lines three and four are shorter (but equal to each other), and rhyme with each other. The resulting rhyme scheme is aabba.
LINE 1: Rhyme a -- longer line
LINE 2: Rhyme a -- length like line 1
LINE 3: Rhyme b -- shorter line
LINE 4: Rhyme b -- length equal to line 3
LINE 5: Rhyme a -- longer line, like 1 and 2
SAMPLE LIMERICK:
The limerick packs laughs anatomical
In space that is quite economical,
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
Anonymous
5. TRIOLET
The triolet is a poem of eight lines and two rhymes.
Five of the eight lines are repeated lines. The first line repeats as the fourth and seventh lines. The second line repeats as the eighth line. The rhyme scheme (where an upper-case letter indicates the appearance of an identical line, while a lower-case letter indicates a rhyme with each line designated by the same lower-case or upper-case letter) is: ABaAabAB. A triolet is often written in iambic tetrameter, but it does not have to be.
Line 1: A
Line 2: B
Line 3: a -- rhymes with line 1
Line 4: A -- repeat of line 1
Line 5: a -- rhymes with lines 1 & 3
Line 6: b -- rhymes with line 2
Line 7: A -- repeat of line 1
Line 8: B -- repeat of line 2
SAMPLE TRIOLET:
Birds At Winter
Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone'
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly! – faster
Shutting indoors the crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The Flakes fly faster
And all the berries now are gone!
By Thomas Hardy
6. SONNET
For this contest, a sonnet is a 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter. There are several well-known types of sonnets available below with different organization and rhyme schemes. There are also other sonnet forms. Please query first for approval of other sonnet forms for this contest.
Shakespearean Sonnet -- organized into three quatrains (4-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet 2-line stanza).
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
g
SAMPLE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET:
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
By William Shakespeare
Spenserian Sonnet -- organized into three quatrains (4-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet 2-line stanza).
a
b
a
b
b
c
b
c
c
d
c
d
e
e
SAMPLE SPENSERIAN SONNET:
Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hand
Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands,
Which hold my life in their dead doing might,
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands,
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight.
And happy lines! on which, with starry light,
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite,
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book.
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook
Of Helicon, whence she derived is,
When ye behold that angel's blessed look,
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss.
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone,
Whom if ye please, I care for other none.
By Edmund Spenser
Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet -- organized into two quatrains( 4-line stanzas) and two tercets (3-line stanzas).
a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a
c
d
e
c
d
e
French Sonnet -- organized into two quatrains(4-line stanzas)(also known as an octave), followed by a sestet composed of a couplet (2-line stanza) and another quatrain as follows.
a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a
c
c
d
c or e
c or e
d
*Note: The final quatrain can be dccd, deed, or even dede.
Wordsworth Sonnet -- organized into two quatrains(4-line stanzas)(also known as an octave), followed by three couplets (2-line stanzas.
a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a
c
d
c
d
c
d
* Note: The second quatrain may rhyme cddc, rather than abba, which would make the couplets ef, ef, ef.
7. VILLANELLE
A 19-line poem of fixed form consisting of five tercets (3-line stanzas) and a final quatrain (4-line stanza) on two rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain. The rhyme scheme (where A1 and A2 are the refrain (repeating) lines, and a lower-case letter indicates a rhyme with each line designated by the same lower-case or upper-case letter)will be A1 b A2, a b A1, a b A2, a b A1, a b A2, a b A1 A2.
Or:
A1
b
A2
a
b
A1
a
b
A2
a
b
A1
a
b
A2
a
b
A1
A2
SAMPLE VILLANELLE:
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
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.
BY DYLAN THOMAS
7. PANTOUM
(1 page in a standard 12 point font)
The Pantoum says everything twice: the lines are grouped into quatrains (4-line stanzas), in which the 2nd and 4th lines of each quatrain are repeated as the 1st and 3rd lines of the following quatrain, with the closing quatrain circling back to the lines of the 1st quatrain to complete the form. (for the final quatrain, its second line repeats the third line from the first quatrain; and its last line repeats the first line from the first quatrain.) Thus, the last line of the Pantoum will be the same as the first line.
A Pantoum has any number of quatrains, so long as the last links back to the first. Lines may be of any length. The Pantoum has a rhyme scheme of abab in each quatrain.
The pattern of line-repetition is as follows, where the lines of the first quatrain are represented by the numbers "1 2 3 4":
1 2 3 4 - Lines in first quatrain.
2 5 4 6 - Lines in second quatrain.
5 7 6 8 - Lines in third quatrain.
7 9 8 10 - Lines in fourth quatrain.
9 3 10 1 - Lines in fifth and final quatrain.
In this example, we have 5 quatrains. You could have more. You could have fewer.
SAMPLE PANTOUM:
9. SESTINA
The lines are grouped into six sestets (6-line stanzas) and a concluding tercet (3-line stanza). Thus a Sestina has 39 lines.
Lines may be of any length. Their length is usually consistent in a single poem.
The six words that end each of the lines of the first stanza are repeated in a different order at the end of lines in each of the subsequent five stanzas. The particular pattern is given below. The repeated words are unrhymed.
The first line of each sestet after the first ends with the same word as the one that ended the last line of the sestet before it.
In the closing tercet, each of the six words are used, with one in the middle of each line and one at the end.
The pattern of word-repetition is as follows, where the words that end the lines of the first sestet are represented by the numbers "1 2 3 4 5 6":
1 2 3 4 5 6 - End words of lines in first sestet.
6 1 5 2 4 3 - End words of lines in second sestet.
3 6 4 1 2 5 - End words of lines in third sestet.
5 3 2 6 1 4 - End words of lines in fourth sestet.
4 5 1 3 6 2 - End words of lines in fifth sestet.
2 4 6 5 3 1 - End words of lines in sixth sestet.
(6 2) (1 4) (5 3) - Middle and end words of lines in tercet.
SAMPLE SESTINA:
Sestina Of The Tramp
Speakin' in general, I'ave tried 'em all
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.
Speakin' in general, I'ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get 'ence, the same as I'ave done,
An' go observin' matters till they die.
What do it matter where or 'ow we die,
So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all
The different ways that different things are done,
An' men an' women lovin' in this world;
Takin' our chances as they come along,
An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good?
In cash or credit no, it aren't no good;
You've to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,
An' never bothered what you might ha' done.
But, Gawd, what things are they I'aven't done?
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,
In various situations round the world
For 'im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labour all
'Is life on one same shift life's none so long.
Therefore, from job to job I've moved along.
Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done,
For something in my 'ead upset it all,
Till I'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good,
An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die,
An' met my mate the wind that tramps the world!
It's like a book, I think, this bloomin, world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you're readi'n' done,
An' turn another likely not so good;
But what you're after is to turn'em all.
Gawd bless this world! Whatever she'oth done
Excep' When awful long I've found it good.
So write, before I die, "'E liked it all!"
By Rudyard Kipling
10. FREE VERSE
A poem written without regular rhyme or meter.
SAMPLE FREE VERSE:
A Noiseless Patient Spider
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood, isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my Soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of
space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my Soul.
By Walt Whitman