Different Poetry Classification Systems

Two Types:

• Traditional Verse -- or -- Closed Forms
• Free Verse -- or -- Open Forms

Three Forms:

• Continuous Form
• Stanzaic Form
• Fixed Form -- e.g. sonnet, villanelle, sestina, limerick, haiku, etc.

Three Types:

• Narrative
• Lyric
• Dramatic

Narrative:

• The Ballad

Lyric Poetry:

• The Ode
• The Elegy
• The Sonnet
• The Epigram and the Aphorism
• The Limerick
• The Sestina
• The Villanelle
• Open Form
• The Prose Poem
• The Haiku
• Imagism

Dramatic Poetry:

• Plays -- e.g. Shakespeare
• The Dramatic Monologue -- e.g. Browning
• Poems for the Ear

(Adapted from Charters/Charters, Literature and Its Writers, Compact Second Edition, Chapters 8-11)