Here are examples of five traditional poetry forms I have found to be particularly perfect for a variety occasions.

 

Free Verse: Perfect for any occasion! Perhaps the most familiar form of poetry, Free Verse does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.

 

Example:

Frost and Feathers

         for Julia, on her 7th birthday

Julia, your joy is catching.
I am catching your joy as you throw it around the room, skipping
toward the day, toward this particular morning and the frost
that is trying so hard to be snow.

Today, the first day of your 8th year,
harmony is born in you. The music you hear
is the world singing you.

You are named after your great-grandma, Julia.
All that I love about her is in you.
Her farm, her knitting.
The home of her.

But you are your own home, Julia.
You live in your own body,
graceful, strong.
When you first arrived
you lived in mine, and I loved you
from the inside.
Now I love at you from across the table,
across the playground, across.
How much I love you is a farm, a family, generations.

Julia, you are an extraordinary carer of guinea pigs.
An extraordinary carer of all creatures. You are
Un girly.
Un squimish.
Un afraid to dig into the world.
Dressed in dirt and worms, you dig in.

Today my new seven year old, I wish to wrap you
in feathers (not to help you fly, you already know how to fly)
but to keep you warm while you explore the frost.
Helping it become what it really wanted to be,
in your hands, snow.

- cin salach

 

Pantoum: Particularly powerful for life transitions: graduations, new baby, new home, new year. Pantoums create a pattern of repeating lines that continue for any number of stanzas, with a twist in the final stanza.

 

Example:

New Year’s Pantoum

You can be yourself for just so long and then you have to start faking it,
flaunting all the other yous you’ve developed so faithfully over the years:
the wishful thinker, the almost mother, the injured lover, the crazy driver.
Maybe it’s time to kiss off some of those daily companions.

Flaunting all the other yous you’ve developed so faithfully over the years
Feels small in your new morning maturity, your good nights sleep sobriety.
Maybe it’s time to kiss off some of those daily companions,
prepare a therapeutic ritual and rid yourself of their annoying natures forever.

Embracing your new morning maturity, your good nights sleep sobriety,
it’s clear there is no time like the present to abandon those awful others,
prepare a therapeutic ritual and rid yourself of their annoying natures forever.
After all, you brought them into this world. You can take them out.

It’s clear there is no time like the present to abandon those awful others
when you see yourself naked. So much is salt, so much other seasonings.
You brought them into this world, you can take them out.
If it hurts it must be good for you. Sometimes that’s the only way to tell.

When you see yourself naked, so much is salt, so much other seasonings:
The wishful thinker, the almost mother, the injured lover, the crazy driver.
If it hurts it must be good for you. Sometimes that’s the only way to tell.
You can be yourself for just so long and then you have to start faking it.

- cin salach

 

Tanka: Beautiful for a birth, wedding, or any once-in-a-life-time event, this form is like a breath. A poetry breath. One of the major genres of Japanese literature, the tanka is a syllabic form of 5 lines with 5-7-5-7-7 syllables per line.

 

Example:

January

Everything whipping
by me and me slow in the
middle, wondering

if she might want to kiss me
when my mouth thaws into spring.

- cin salach

 

Somonka: Truly unique for any love poem...love between a parent and child, siblings, a deep friendship, a partnership or marriage. This Japanese verse form uses 2 tankas and is often written in the form of statement-response.

 

Example:

January 26, 2009

Everything shines now.
What lovely weather is this?
Your face, facing mine.

Since you arrived, I became
always who I want to be.

Before this, what was?
My questions like leaves falling.
Now everything blooms,

blooming even in winter.
Blooming so spring can happen.

- cin salach

 

Triolet: Rare, light and prophetic, it is absolutely wonderful for occasions you would like marked by laughter and truth. The triolet is an eight line poem with two rhymes repeated throughout. Deceptively simple, it has been around since the thirteenth century.

 

Example:

Courage

Every sane person I know, has jumped,
skipping the skipping to step off head first.
Laughing and tripping, the ground at last trumped,
every sane person I know has jumped.
The sky’s invitation suggests gravity be dumped,
anchored to weightless to leap un-immersed.
Every sane person I know has jumped.
The leaping does wear me, but not for the worst.

- cin salach