Fixed verse

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Fixed verse forms are a kind of template or formula that poetry can be composed in. The converse of fixed-verse is Free Verse poetry, which by design has little or no pre-established guidelines.

The various poetic forms, such as meter, rhyme scheme, and stanzas guide and limit a poet's choices when composing poetry. A fixed verse form combines one or more of these limitations into a larger form.

A form usually demands strict adherence to the established guidelines that to some poets may seem stifling, while other poets view the rigid structure as a challenge to be innovative and creative while staying within the guidelines.

[edit] Examples of Fixed Verse forms

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness.

Revisions and sourced additions are welcome.

• Haiku 

  A Japanese form designed to be small and concise by limiting the number of lines and the number of syllables in a line. Japanese haiku are three-line poems with the first and the third line having five syllables and the middle having seven syllables. English-language Haiku are normally shorter than seventeen syllables, though some poets write 5-7-5 pieces.

  Whitecaps on the bay:

  A broken signboard banging

  In the April wind.

  --Richard Wright (collected in Haiku: This Other World, Arcade Publishing, 1998)

• Sonnet 

  The sonnet is a European form and at its most basic requires that each line be in iambic pentameter and the total length be fourteen lines. There are two primary forms of the sonnet:

  • English Sonnet

    In addition to above requirements, the English Sonnet must be four stanzas, the first three being quatrains and the last a couplet. Also the rhyme scheme for the quatrains is A-B-A-B and the final couplet is rhyming.

    Let me not to the marriage of true minds

    Admit impediments, love is not love

    Which alters when it alteration finds,

    Or bends with the remover to remove.

    O no, it is an ever fixed mark

    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

    It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

    Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.

    Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

    Within his bending sickle's compass come,

    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

    But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

    If this be error and upon me proved,

    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

    --William Shakespeare, Sonnet 16

    Italian Sonnet 

    The Italian sonnet requires that the fourteen lines be broken into oneoctave (two quatrains), which describe a problem, followed by a sestet (two tercets), which gives the resolution to it.

    Methought I saw my late espoused Saint

    Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,

    Whom Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave,

    Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.

    Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint,

    Purification in the old Law did save,

    And such, as yet once more I trust to have

    Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,

    Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:

    Her face was vail'd, yet to my fancied sight,

    Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd

    So clear, as in no face with more delight.

    But O as to embrace me she enclin'd

    I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

    --John Milton, Sonnet XXIII

• Sestina 

  The sestina has a highly structured form consisting of six sestet stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada) for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time.

  I

  Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.

  You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let¹s to music!

  I have no life save when swords clash.

  But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair,purple,opposing

  And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,

  Then howel I my heart nigh mad rejoying.

  II

  In hot summer have I great rejoicing

  When tempests kill the earth¹s foul peace,

  And the light¹nings from black heav¹n flash crimson,

  And the fierce thunders roar me their music

  And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,

  And through all the riven God¹s swords clash.

  III

  Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!

  And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,

  Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!

  Better one hour¹s stour than a year¹s peace

  With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!

  Bah! there¹s no wine like the blood¹s crimson!

  IV

  And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.

  And I watch his spears throught he dark clash

  and it fills my heart with rejoycing

  And pries wide my mouth with fast music

  When I see him so scorn and defy peace,

  His lone might Œgainst all darkmess opposing.

  V

  The man who fears war and squats opposing

  My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson

  But it is fit only to rotin womanish peace

  Far from where worth¹s won and the swords clash

  For the death of sluts I go rejoicing;

  Yea, I fill all the air with my music.

  VI

  Papiols, Papiols, to the music!

  There¹s no sound like to swords swords opposing,

  No cry like the battle¹s rejoicing

  When our elbows and swords drip the crimson

  And our charges Œgainst "The Leopard's" rush clash.

  May God damn for ever all who cry "Peace!"

  VII

  And let the music of the swords make them crimson!

  Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!

  Hell blot black for always the thought "Peace"!

  --Ezra Pound, Sestina: Altaforte

  Villanelle 

  A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain.

  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.

  --Dylan Thomas, Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night