Poetic Patterns

Stanzas, Rhyme & Rhyme Scheme

STANZA

• A division of a poem consisting of a series of lines arranged together in a usually recurring pattern of meter and rhyme.

THINGS TO KNOW

• “/” is used to indicate a new line when one has run out of room when a poem is being re-written.

“Angels we have heard on high, / Sweetly singing o’r the plains.”

COUPLET

• Two line stanza. “We wear the mask that grins and lies, / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes…” (Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask”)

TERCET/TRIPLET

• Three line stanza.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

(Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”)

QUATRAIN

• Four line stanza.

“Out there things can happen / and frequently do / to people as brainy / and footsy as you.”

(Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!)

CINQUAINFive line stanza.

“You said you would not / Forget me - those were but words; / All that still remains / Is the moon which shone that night / And now has come again.” (Fujiwara no Ariie, “Shiknokinshu)

SESTET/SEXTAINSix line stanza.

“Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment, / Little souls who thirst for fight, / These men were born to drill and die. / The unexplained glory flies above them, / Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom - / A field where a thousand corpses lie.”

(Stephen Crane, “War Is Kind)

You get the picture…

• Septet: Seven line poem.

• Octave: Eight line poem.

Rhyme & Rhyme Scheme

• A rhyme occurs when there is a correspondence in sound of two or more words or lines of verse.

“Out there things can happen / and frequently do / to people as brainy / and footsy as you.”

Rhyme & Rhyme Scheme

• Rhyme scheme is the arrangement of rhymes in a stanza or a poem. The first line is always marked with the letter “A”. If the end of the next line rhymes with the first, then it would be assigned an “A”. If it changes it would receive a “B”.

Rhyme Scheme ExampleBecause I could not stop for Death – (A)He kindly stopped for me – (B)The Carriage held but just Ourselves – (C)And Immortality. (B)

We slowly drove – He knew no haste (D)And I had put away (E)My labor and my leisure too, (F)For His Civility – (B)

from “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson

Can you mark the rhyme scheme?

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud ______

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, ______

When all at once I saw a crowd, ______

A host, of golden daffodils; ______

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, ______

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. ______