Recommended to prove

CHAPTER I. THE GENERAL CLASSIFICATION OF POETRY
1.1. The types of poetry
Poetry has been around for almost four thousand years. Like other forms of literature, poetry is written to share ideas, express emotions, and create imagery. Poets choose words for their meaning and acoustics, arranging them to create a tempo known as the meter. Some poems incorporate rhyme schemes, with two or more lines that end in like-sounding words.
Today, poetry remains an important part of art and culture. Every year, the United States Library of Congress appoints a Poet Laureate to represent the art of poetry in America. From Shakespearean sonnets to Maya Angelou’s reflective compositions, poems are long-lived, read and recited for generations.
Poetry is a type of literature that conveys a thought, describes a scene or tells a story in a concentrated, lyrical arrangement of words. Poems can be structured, with rhyming lines and meter, the rhythm and emphasis of a line based on syllabic beats. Poems can also be freeform, which follows no formal structure.
The basic building block of a poem is a verse known as a stanza. A stanza is a grouping of lines related to the same thought or topic, similar to a paragraph in prose. A stanza can be subdivided based on the number of lines it contains. For example, a couplet is a stanza with two lines.
On the page, poetry is visibly unique: a narrow column of words with recurring breaks between stanzas. Lines of a poem may be indented or lengthened with extra spacing between words. The white space that frames a poem is an aesthetic guide for how a poem is read.
Contemporary poet Kevin Young has written many odes, including this poem in praise of the Midwest. A really great ode can change the way you think about something you tend to take for granted (like Angel Nafis’s “Ode to Shea Butter”) or shift your perspective on something painful (George Abraham’s “Ode to my Swollen, Mono-Infected Spleen” does this well) or finally, just let you revel in a specific type of nostalgia (see José Olivarez’s “Ode to Cheese Fries”).
1. Acrostic
You might have encountered the acrostic poem in school! Also called “name poems,” acrostic poems spell out a name, word, or phrase, with each letter beginning each new line of your poem. Want to challenge yourself? See if you can write an acrostic poem where the final letters of the poem also spell out a word or message.
Several notable authors have written acrostic poems, including Lewis Carroll and Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve included the full text of Poe’s acrostic, which begins with the same name that it spells (Elizabeth).
Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.