Love Poems

In this part of the project students have to choose from a variety of poetic styles (Quantrain, Diamonte, Couplet, Tanka, Ballad) to write their own Love Poems.

Quantrain
A Quantrain can be a poem on its own or a stanza in a poem such as ballad.  It always consists of four lines with rhyming patterns.

Tanka
Like the haiku, the tanka is also a form of Japanese poetry. Coming from the word “short poem,” the tanka is five-lines in length and utilizes strong images to establish a specific mood. Just as with the haiku, the length of a tanka poem focuses on syllables, 31 to be exact. However, unlike the haiku, an author may use the following literary devices in a tanka: simile, metaphor and personification.

Diamonte
The diamonte poem takes the form of a diamond. Part of this is due to the fact it begins with one word and ends with one word. A fun way to write diamonte poems is to think of two subjects (nouns) that are opposite each other. For example: day & night, sun & rain, summer & winter, etc.

Couplet
Couplet poems are one of the easier forms of poetry to write, are the shortest form of traditional poetry and have been around since the fifteenth century. The couplet has a stanza of two lines. As the author, you can decide as to whether or not the lines rhyme.

Ballad
Ballad is a poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain.
In England the ballad form can be traced back to the Middle Ages.  The traditional ballad has been imitated by literary writers since the eighteenth century.  Traditional ballads were composed to be sung. Authors were not known.  Many ballads feature elements of loyalty, the supernatural, comedy and fantasy.  Ballads are fairly short narrative poems usually in quatrains (four-line stanzas).