In my college Humanities class we decided to get away from non-fiction and spend a week on poetry. In came the poetry bug.

However, I didn't want to kill the bug with just any old free-verse poetry (what I used to write as a sixth grader with very little knowledge of poetry.) So, I visited Shadow Poetry to see what types of poems were out there. I wanted to stay away from types I knew - so cinquain, free-verse, monorhyme and a few others were out. Haiku was briefly considered before given up.

I chose five different types since that seemed like a good number at the time. I chose, Ethereee, Naani, Ghazal, Laturne, and Quinzaine. Most were syllabic (lines based on the number of syllables in the words) but one - my favorite, I've decided - Ghazal, uses a specific reptition pattern.

So to make this a little less complex...

Ethereee: A poem consisting of ten lines where the lines go 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 syllables. There are inverses of these which go 10,9,8 etc, but I stuck with the original. My version was on friendship.

Nanni: A quartet (four line stanza) generally consisting of 20-25 lines total. This one I wrote on courage.

Ghazal: A poem with the rhyming scheme: AA bA cA dA eA

(Ex: La de da de do
He he ha ha do

Le loo mee ma me
to le te do)

I wrote this one on writing - using the repeating word shh!

Lanturne: A five-line verse with the syllables like this:
One
Two
Three
Four
One

This one was on lying.

Quinzaine: A poem where the first line is 7 syllables and makes a statement, the second line is 5 syllables, the third line is 3 syllables and both the second and third line ask questions about the first.
This one was on a gorgeous morning.

I might post them later - we'll see how it goes.