Types of Poems: Spin a Poem Type

Ways to use this list

• Poetry unit warm-up: spin a form each lesson and write one together on the board before pupils try their own. Acrostics and haiku suit children from about age six.
• Poetry week display: spin a new form each day, then pin the finished class poems up under the name of each form.
• Writer's block for poets: when a subject feels flat, spin a form. A villanelle's returning lines or a nonet's shrinking shape can open a new angle.
• Homework choice: students spin two forms and pick one, so everyone has a choice but nobody spends the whole evening deciding.
• Art and poetry lesson: spin Ekphrastic poem, pick a painting from the art style generator and write about what is happening just outside the frame.

Press Spin the wheel, tap the game or press the Space bar. Change the list in the box as you like: add your own, delete what doesn't suit you, or write *2 after an entry to give it double the chance. The game buttons switch the same list to a duck race, hat, claw machine and more.

The full list (37 entries)

• Haiku – 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables, often about nature and a season
• Senryu – shaped like a haiku, but about people and often funny
• Tanka – 5 lines of 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables
• Limerick – 5 funny lines rhyming AABBA, with a bouncy rhythm
• Acrostic – the first letters of the lines spell out a word
• Cinquain – 5 lines, often of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 2 syllables
• Diamante – 7 lines in a diamond shape, moving from one noun to its opposite
• Couplet – 2 lines that rhyme
• Tercet – a poem or verse of 3 lines
• Quatrain – a poem or verse of 4 lines, often rhyming ABAB or AABB
• Free verse – no fixed rhyme or rhythm: the lines follow your thoughts
• Concrete poem – words arranged in the shape of the subject, also called a shape poem
• Kenning – a list of two-word descriptions, like "tail-wagger" for a dog
• List poem – a poem built from a list, often with a repeated opening
• Riddle poem – describes something without naming it, for the reader to guess
• Clerihew – 4 funny lines rhyming AABB, starting with a person's name
• Nonet – 9 lines, from 9 syllables down to 1
• Etheree – 10 lines, from 1 syllable up to 10
• Ode – a poem praising a person, place or thing
• Elegy – a thoughtful poem remembering someone or something lost
• Ballad – a story poem in four-line verses, often rhyming ABCB, made to be sung
• Narrative poem – a poem that tells a story, with characters and a plot
• Epic – a very long story poem about heroes and great deeds
• Lyric poem – a short, musical poem about personal feelings
• Dramatic monologue – one character speaking to a listener who never answers
• Sonnet – 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter; the English kind ends in a rhyming couplet
• Villanelle – 19 lines: five tercets and a quatrain, with two lines that keep returning
• Sestina – 6 verses of 6 lines plus a 3-line ending, reusing the same 6 end words
• Pantoum – lines 2 and 4 of each verse become lines 1 and 3 of the next
• Triolet – 8 lines on two rhymes; the first line appears three times
• Ghazal – couplets that each close on the same repeated word or phrase
• Terza rima – linked 3-line verses rhyming ABA BCB CDC
• Blank verse – unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter
• Prose poem – poetry written in sentences and paragraphs, with no line breaks
• Found poem – made from words taken from another text, like a leaflet or a sign
• Ekphrastic poem – a poem about a painting, photo or other work of art
• Renga – linked verses written by several poets taking turns

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