Writing Poetry

There are 9 different types of poetry.
 
1.  Haiku - haikus consist of just three lines (tercet); the first and third lines have five syllables, whereas the second has seven. 

2.  Free Verse - free verse is a popular style of modern poetry, and as its name suggests there is a fair amount of freedom when it comes to writing a poem like this. Free verse can rhyme or not.

3.  Sonnet - sonnets are made up of 14 lines and usually deal with love. As a rule, Petrarchan (Italian) sonnets follow an ABBA ABBA CDE CDE rhyme scheme. 

4.  Acrostic - this type of poetry spells out a name, word, phrase or message with the first letter of each line of the poem. It can rhyme or not.

5.  Villanelle - it is made up of 19 lines; five stanzas of three lines (tercet) each and a final stanza of four lines (quatrain). As you can see from the rhyme scheme; ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA, this type of poem only has two rhyming sounds. Plus, there is a lot of repetition throughout the villanelle. Line one will be repeated in lines six, 12 and 18; and line three will be repeated in lines nine, 15 and 19.
6.  Limerick - they have a set rhyme scheme of AABBA, with lines one, two and five all being longer in length than lines three and four. The last line is often the punchline. 

7.  Ode - an ode is typically written to praise a person, event or thing and they are usually quite short in length.

8.  Elegy - an elegy doesn’t have rules like some of the other forms of poetry, but it does have a set subject: death. 

9.  Ballad - ballads do have a set form; they are typically four lines (quatrain) and have a rhyme scheme of ABAB or ABCB. 

I have been writing poetry since 1972 or for 50 years which to those of you who are in your early adult years may seem like a lot of time.  For someone like myself who is 75, it is a long period of time.  It is sometimes difficult for me to understand not just how long but the fact that I continued to write all those years and have no plans to stop.

My main style of poetry is FREE VERSE, followed by HAIKU, then Acrostic...  I would say that free verse comprises 98% of my poetry with Haiku about 1.5% and Acrostic about .5%.

I did not learn how to write poetry in school nor have I taken any lessons in how to write poetry.  I just started writing.

Song lyrics are usually ballads with a definite rhyme pattern throughout the song.

I am not interested in rhymes but am interested in getting a message across.

To date, I have written over 40,000 poems which is about 8,000 each year or about 600 each month or about 20 each day.  This is based on a mathematical breakdown but does not really reflect how I write.  

When I was working, I would spend about an hour at McDonalds drinking coffee and intentionally writing before work.  I would not write anymore that day.  I would also go to McDonalds on the weekends and holidays, including my days off for vacation.  On those days, I would write about 8-10 maybe more.  Now that I am retired, I am writing about 1-2 each day.

I don't think about publishing just writing.  However, I started a blog to publish my poetry in the event that others might enjoy reading some of them.  This is the link to that blog:     

Reflections: White Scorpion (reflectionsinthoughts.blogspot.com)