The “Wheel Legend” (List of Forms)

Spin the wheel and see what comes up

Beginner Forms

Free Verse: Pure expression with no rules. Focus on rhythm and imagery without a fixed structure.

Haiku: A traditional Japanese form capturing a specific moment in nature (5-7-5 syllables).

Limerick: A humorous, bouncy 5-line poem with an AABBA rhyme scheme.

Blackout Poem: A visual form where you black out words on an existing page to reveal a new poem.

Tanka: The “older cousin” of the Haiku, moving from an image to an emotion (5-7-5-7-7 syllables).

Acrostic: Spell a hidden word down the page. The first letter of each line, read top to bottom, reveals it.

Concrete Poem: A “shape poem” where the words are arranged on the page to form a picture of the subject.

Clerihew: A short, funny 4-line biographical poem (AABB) about a named real or famous person.

Cinquain: A 5-line shape built by word count, moving from a one-word title out to a one-word echo of it.

Intermediate Forms

Sonnet: A classic 14-line poem about love or philosophy, traditionally in iambic pentameter.

Ode: A lyrical poem that passionately addresses and praises a specific person or object.

Ballad: A narrative poem that tells a story (often tragic or heroic), originally meant to be sung.

Triolet: A short 8-line form with two rhyming sounds and repeating lines.

Prose Poem: Poetry written in paragraph blocks rather than verses, preserving poetic sound and imagery.

Golden Shovel: A contemporary form where the end-words of each line form a sentence from a famous poem.

Kenning Poem: An Old Norse riddle form that names things only through two-word metaphors (the sea as the “whale-road”).

Epigram: A short, sharp poem of 2 to 4 lines that lands on a witty or biting final turn.

Aubade: A dawn poem of lovers parting at sunrise, often resenting the morning light for ending the night.

Ekphrastic Poem: A poem written in response to a specific work of visual art, such as a painting or sculpture.

Sijo: A Korean three-line form, cousin to the haiku, that sets up an idea and twists hard in the final line.

Advanced & Master Class Forms

Villanelle: A haunting 19-line poem defined by two repeating rhymes and two refrains.

Sestina: A complex lexical puzzle of 39 lines that rotates six specific end-words in a spiral pattern.

Pantoum: A slow, weaving form where lines from previous stanzas echo as the start of the next.

Ghazal: An ancient form of couplets dealing with loss and love, using a monorhyme and refrain.

Terza Rima: An interlocking rhyme scheme (ABA BCB CDC…) invented by Dante.

Rondeau: A French form of 15 lines with a specific rhyme and a partial refrain (rentrement).

Elegy: A poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.

Blank Verse: Unrhymed poetry with a strict meter (Iambic Pentameter), the language of Shakespeare.

Petrarchan Sonnet: The Italian sonnet, posing a question in 8 lines and turning to answer it in the final 6.

Ottava Rima: An 8-line Italian stanza (ABABABCC) that Byron used for mock-heroic storytelling.

Rhyme Royal: A stately 7-line stanza (ABABBCC) that Chaucer brought into English.

Rubaiyat: A Persian quatrain form (AABA) whose unrhymed line chains forward into the next stanza.

Dramatic Monologue: A single character speaks to a silent listener and unwittingly reveals themselves.

Haibun: A Japanese hybrid of compressed, present-tense prose that closes with a haiku.

Sapphic Stanza: A classical form of three 11-syllable lines and a short 5-syllable closing line.

Cento: A collage poem built entirely from lines borrowed from other poets.

Spenserian Stanza: A 9-line stanza (ABABBCBCC) that ends on a longer six-foot line.

Duplex: A contemporary form by Jericho Brown blending the ghazal, sonnet, and blues.

Crown of Sonnets: A linked sequence where each sonnet’s last line opens the next, looping back at the end.

Sometimes the hardest part of writing is just choosing where to start. This tool turns that decision into a challenge. The Poetry Spin Wheel randomly selects a poetic structure for you, forcing you to think those constraints. For a longer explanation see our poetry form page.

How to play: Simply spin the wheel and challenge yourself, or your children, to write a poem in whichever style lands on the marker. If you land on a form you haven’t tried before, use the definitions below to learn the rhythm or rhyme scheme.

This element of chance is perfect for gamifying the writing process. It helps writers break out of their comfort zones and stops the habit of writing the same style of poem over and over again.

Below is a search engine of 40,000 public domain poetry from the Gutenburg database, good for searching for inspiration as well.