Types of poems

Posted by Smokey Stover on March 24, 2006

In Reply to: Types of poems posted by Bob on March 24, 2006

: : I need help finding the following types of poems
: : 1. idiom
: : 2. pun
: : 3. imagery
: : 4. hyperbole
: : 5. couplet
: : 6. quatrain
: : 7. limerick
: : 8. cinquain

: Well, Torie, we have a problem. Of the eight words, only one is a "type of poem." And limericks are so easy to find ... just type "limerick" into Google and you'll find sites with thousands of them. Some of them are even clean.

You know that you're kind of cheating, Torie. You have asked us about single words, not phrases, and you surely have access to a dictionary, which will tell you everything you need to know. Everything you mention can be found in poems, although, as Bob has said, only a limerick actually IS a type of poem. Idiom, pun, and imagery require many words and the applied wisdom of a dictionary. Hyperbole is exaggeration, and is the complete word of which advertising "hype" is a short form. A couplet consists of two lines that go together and rhyme (a couple of verses), as you may find at the end of each of Shakespeare's sonnets. A quatrain is a four-verse unit in a poem, four lines that go together to tell their little story, and usually end in a period. A cinquain is the same thing, but with five lines, and is rather rare, although far from unknown. Quatrain and cinquain are both French words, but quatrain is pronounced as though it were English (except in France, of course). If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Well, maybe that's a little hyperbole. SS