Fixed verse

Fixed verse forms are a kind of template or formula that poetry can be composed in. The converse of fixed-verse is Free Verse poetry, which by design has little or no pre-established guidelines.

The various poetic forms, such as meter, rhyme scheme, and stanzas guide and limit a poet's choices when composing poetry. A fixed verse form combines one or more of these limitations into a larger form.

A form usually demands strict adherence to the established guidelines that to some poets may seem stifling, while other poets view the rigid structure as a challenge to be innovative and creative while staying within the guidelines.

Examples of Fixed Verse forms

*; Haiku : A Japanese form designed to be small and concise by limiting the number of lines and the number of syllables in a line. Japanese haiku are three-line poems with the first and the third line having five syllables and the middle having seven syllables. English-language Haiku may be shorter than seventeen syllables, though some poets prefer to keep to the 5-7-5 format.
*::Whitecaps on the bay:
*::A broken signboard banging
*::In the April wind.
*::--Richard Wright (collected in "Haiku: This Other World", Arcade Publishing, 1998)

*; Sonnet : The sonnet is a European form and at its most basic requires that each line be in iambic pentameter and the total length be fourteen lines. There are two primary forms of the sonnet:
**; English Sonnet
**: In addition to above requirements, the English Sonnet must be four stanzas, the first three being quatrains and the last a couplet. Also the rhyme scheme for the quatrains is A-B-A-B and the final couplet is rhyming.
**::Let me not to the marriage of true minds
**::Admit impediments, love is not love
**::Which alters when it alteration finds,
**::Or bends with the remover to remove.
**::O no, it is an ever fixed mark
**::That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
**::It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
**::Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
**::Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
**::Within his bending sickle's compass come,
**::Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
**::But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
**::If this be error and upon me proved,
**::I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
**::--William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 16"
**; Italian Sonnet : The Italian sonnet requires that the fourteen lines be broken into oneoctave (two quatrains), which describe a problem, followed by a sestet (two tercets), which gives the resolution to it.
**::Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
**::Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
**::Whom Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave,
**::Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.
**::Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint,
**::Purification in the old Law did save,
**::And such, as yet once more I trust to have
**::Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
**::Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
**::Her face was vail'd, yet to my fancied sight,
**::Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
**::So clear, as in no face with more delight.
**::But O as to embrace me she enclin'd
**::I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.
**::--John Milton, "Sonnet XXIII"

*; Sestina : The sestina has a highly structured form consisting of six sestet stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada) for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time.
*::I
*::
*::Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
*::You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let's to music!
*::I have no life save when swords clash.
*::But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
*::And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
*::Then howel I my heart nigh mad rejoicing.
*::
*::II
*::
*::In hot summer have I great rejoicing
*::When tempests kill the earth's foul peace,
*::And the light'nings from black heav'n flash crimson,
*::And the fierce thunders roar me their music
*::And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
*::And through all the riven God's swords clash.
*::
*::III
*::
*::Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
*::And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
*::Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!
*::Better one hour's stour than a year¹s peace
*::With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
*::Bah! there's no wine like the blood¹s crimson!
*::
*::IV
*::
*::And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
*::And I watch his spears throught he dark clash
*::and it fills my heart with rejoycing
*::And pries wide my mouth with fast music
*::When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
*::His lone might 'gainst all darkmess opposing.
*::
*::V
*::
*::The man who fears war and squats opposing
*::My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
*::But it is fit only to rotin womanish peace
*::Far from where worth's won and the swords clash
*::For the death of sluts I go rejoicing;
*::Yea, I fill all the air with my music.
*::
*::VI
*::
*::Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
*::There¹s no sound like to swords swords opposing,
*::No cry like the battle's rejoicing
*::When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
*::And our charges 'gainst "The Leopard's" rush clash.
*::May God damn for ever all who cry "Peace!"
*::
*::VII
*::
*::And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
*::Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
*::Hell blot black for always the thought "Peace"!
*::--Ezra Pound, "Sestina: Altaforte"
*; Villanelle : A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain.
*::Do not go gentle into that good night,
*::Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
*::Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

*::Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
*::Because their words had forked no lightning they
*::Do not go gentle into that good night.

*::Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
*::Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
*::Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

*::Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
*::And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
*::Do not go gentle into that good night.

*::Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
*::Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
*::Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

*::And you, my father, there on the sad height,
*::Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
*::Do not go gentle into that good night.
*::Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

*::--Dylan Thomas, "Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night"