POETRY

Couplets are made up of two lines whose last words rhyme. They are often silly.

Example:
The cat ate a mouse
And then brought it to the house.

Triplets are made up of three lines. The rhyming pattern can be AAA or ABA

Example:

What a fine day
To go out to play
In the month of May

Quatrains are made up of four lines. The rhyming pattern can be AABB or ABAB.

Example:

I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one:
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.

STRUCTURE:

A limerick has five lines.
The last words of lines one, two, and five rhyme.
The last words of lines three and four rhyme.
A limerick has to have a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

EXAMPLE:

There was an old man from Peru
Who dreamed he was eating his shoe
He awoke in the night
With a terrible fright
To discover it was totally true

Origins:
It is of Japanese origin. A Haiku is short poem of a keenly observed moment
that pertains to nature or human nature.

Structure:
* 3 Lines
* Lines 1,2,3 have 5,7,5 syllables respectively.
* Unrhymed

Characteristics:
Observing nature

Example:
An old pond!
A frog jumps in—
the sound of water.

Basho

An ABC poem has a series of lines that create a mood, picture, or feeling. Lines are made up of words and phrases. The first word of line 1 begins with an A, the first word of line 2 begins with a B etc.

Example of ABC poem :

A lthough things are not perfect
B ecause of trial or pain
C ontinue in thanksgiving
D o not begin to blame
E ven when the times are hard
F ierce winds are bound to blow

The term English Poetryis ambigous as it can mean a poem written in english as well as a poem written in England.....well.....

The earliest known English poem is a hymn on the creation; Bede attributes this to Cædmon (fl. 658–680), who was, according to legend, an illiterate herdsman who produced extemporaneous poetry at a monastery at Whitby.^[1] This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry.

Much of the poetry of the period is difficult to date, or even to arrange chronologically; for example, estimates for the date of the great epic Beowulf range from AD 608 right through to AD 1000, and there has never been anything even approaching a consensus.^[2] It is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD 700, when excerpts were carved in runes on the Ruthwell Cross.^[3] Some poems on historical events, such as The Battle of Brunanburh (937) and the Battle of Maldon (991), appear to have been composed shortly after the events in question, and can be dated reasonably precisely in consequence.

By and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. The most important manuscripts are the four great poetical codices of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, known as the Caedmon manuscript, the Vercelli Book, the Exeter Book, and the Beowulf manuscript.

While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth. Beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnsburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from devotional works to biblical paraphrase; elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin (often taken to be a description of the ruins of Bath); and numerous proverbs, riddles, and charms.

With one notable exception (Rhyming Poem), Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure and any rhyme included is merely ornamental.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_poetry