History: Bragi is a form created by Thelma Allider and documented in Pathways for the Poet by Viola Berg. It, according to some, became popular through it’s documentation in the 1950s publication Scimitar and Song. (so far, we’ve only found one source for this information, so this isn’t completely vetted yet.) Structure: written in two...Read More

History: The Pantoum is a Malaysian poetry form that originated in the 15th century derived from the pantun, specifically from the pantun berkait, a series of interwoven quatrains, which itself originated as a traditional oral form of expression. As it made it’s way into the West it was adapted and altered by French poets, and then...Read More

History: Drottkvæðr, which literally means ‘recited before the retinue’, is an Old Norse verse form resented by Snorri Sturluson in the Edda, composed ca. 1178-1241, in it’s section Hattatal (‘Enumeration of Meters’). For more information on the Edda, click here (link pending). Structure: Each stanza has 8 lines broken down into 2 half stanzas (called...Read More

History: Previously called Hokku, Haiku was given it’s name by Masoka Shiki around 1900. Hokku, meaning starting verse, is the opening stanza of a Japanese orthodox collaborative linked poem, renga, or of its later derivative, renku (haikai no renga), and its establishment as an independent verse form is credited to Basho and his disciples. Around 1644-1694...Read More

History: The word ‘Ovillejo’ is the diminutive for ‘Ovillo’ which itself means “clew, ball of string or twine” and, as Mr. Turco says in The Book of Forms, “metaphorically suggests something tight, complicated, and small. It is a Spanish form attributed to and popularized by Miguel de Cervantes. Specifically, in La Ilustre Fregona and chapter XXVII...Read More

History: Clogyrnach, pronounced clog-ír-nach, (or even simpler a Clog Ear Nak, more or less) is a 16th codified Welsh meter, one of 24 official Welsh meters, and falls under the category of Awdl, or ode. Structure: Honestly, as far as Gaelic or Welsh forms go, this one is not that bad. Some get down right masochistic...Read More

A Note from the Editors: We set out to lay this out with enthusiasm and excitement, having come across this genre in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics in the Ethiopian Poetry entry. We glossed over when the entry itself said that “the rules of this poetry are complicated and take years to master....Read More

History: Minnesang, Middle High German, comes from minne, meaning love, and sanc, meaning song. The term applies to the German variant of the secular love lyric of the 12th and 13th centuries. In the 12th century, the poets were knights and lower nobility who wrote to unattainable noble women (commonly unattainable because they were married),...Read More

History and Structure: Schuttelreim is agreed upon to be a form of double rhyme, where the consonants of the last two stressed syllables are interchanged. It is a German verse rhyming device that’s existed since the 13th century which was once considered a serious poetic form but since the 19th century has been used more...Read More

History: An alexandroid takes its name from the alexandrine that it is composed of. An Alexandrine is a name used for several verse line types, most of which consist of two hemistichs (half-lines) of six syllables each, separated by a caesura (a word break, though it’s a bit more than that…more on that later). As far...Read More