Fixed Verse Forms

Descriptions with examples of the triolet, terzanelle, terza rima, villanelle, and clerihew.

Short descriptions of both stanza and poetic forms, with examples. By H.T. Kirby-Smith at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Brief explanations with examples of nearly all aspects of poetry, including forms, types, techniques, and national histories.

Descriptions with examples of a variety of poetic forms, including the cinquain, kyrielle, pantoum, rondeau, sonnet, and triolet. From Forward Press.

A description of the form with instructions on how to write one.

By English journalist Edmund Clerihew Bentley, the inventor of the form.

This interactive 'net artifact is an exercise in computer glossolalia that allows users to randomly generate metrically perfect nonsense-limericks--in an "alien" (that is, not spoken, now nor ever, on Earth) language.

The two earliest known books of limericks, with a link to a third. Part of an Edward Lear home page.

A limerick page for children, with a simple explanation and some family-friendly examples, including the option to print out limericks in color. Be warned: the site generates pop-up and new-browser-window ads.

A brief history and explanation along with numerous examples from "A Book of Nonsense" by Edward Lear.

A blog that collects a number of sites relating to Edward Lear, the creator of the limerick.

A description and explanation of the form, with examples and a step-by-step guide to writing one.

By Algernon Charles Swinburne. Unusual in its use of rhyme.

Translations into English of Korean sijo from poets of the Classical period.

An introductory page by Larry Gross, a leading proponent of writing sijo in English, with some of his poems and links to his several pages on the subject, and an e-mail discussion list on the subject.

Instructions on how to write a Shakespearean sonnet with an analysis of the form and content of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.

An eleven sonnet sequence by George Eliot.

By Brandon Astor Jones, as of 1996 a prisoner on death row. From the archives of The Green Left Weekly.

By Oscar Wilde.