Why do poets use stanzas

It begins with a quintain or five-line stanza, then moves into question-and-answer style couplets, then to tercets, and back and forth again. Phillips shows that poems can become greatly complicated and interesting by stanzaic choices of the poet.

On the other hand, sometimes stanzaic decisions are simpler and more uniform. In this poem, the poet chooses to use quatrains for a clean and orderly poetic form. Stanzas are not found in pop culture, as stanzas are only used in poetry. When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me Speaking words of wisdom. And in my hour of darkness She is standing right in front of me Speaking words of wisdom. Just as stanzas divide poems, verses divide songs based on different parts of the song, varying speeds and moods of singing, and different sections of the song.

As this example shows, verses have various forms and types as well, including numbered verses, bridges, and hooks. Stanzas are used to divide lines. Verse has many definitions; it is a line within poetry usually with meter and rhyme or even a synonym for poem.

This can be confusing in that sometimes stanzas are also referred to as verses, but the more technical term for divisions of lines in poetry is the stanza.

Singers divide their song lyrics similarly to poets, though the divisions are referred to as verses rather than stanzas. Stanzas are of the utmost importance in poetry in that they organize poetic lines based on a variety of factors ranging from mood to meaning. Although stanzas are only found in poetry, their equivalents include the paragraph in prose and the verse in song.

Let It Be - 1s Preview. List of Terms Action. Ad Hominem. A stanza is a group of lines that form the basic metrical unit in a poem. So, in a line poem, the first four lines might be a stanza. You can identify a stanza by the number of lines it has and its rhyme scheme or pattern, such as A-B-A-B. There are many different types of stanzas. Stanzas are categorized by the number of lines included in them. You will often see an empty line after a stanza in a poem. Take a look at these sonnet examples to see which types of stanzas jump out at you.

A tercet is a stanza with three lines that may or may not rhyme. Tercets are also known as triplets. For example:. A quatrain is a stanza with four lines that may or may not rhyme. This famous poem by Dylan Thomas is made up of five tercets ending with a quatrain. This poem by Emily Dickinson features two sestets, or two stanzas with six lines each. If you have ever sung along to your favorite song, you most likely sang some stanzas.

Songs are simply poetry set to music. With this in mind, you should be able to identify each stanza and its individual length. Typically, songs consist of at least two verses, a bridge which may or may not repeated , and a chorus that definitely repeats. For example, some stanzas alternate between iambic pentameter and iambic tetrameter.

However, the general rule about stanzas in formal verse is that their form recurs from stanza to stanza—the words are different in each stanza, but the general metrical pattern and rhyme scheme are usually the same in each stanza.

Here's an example. In this two-stanza poem by Emily Dickinson, the first stanza alternates lines of iambic tetrameter eight syllables with lines of iambic trimeter six syllables , and the rhyme scheme is A B C B. Since this is formal verse, the second stanza should be expected to repeat the same pattern the same meter and rhyme scheme, but using different rhymes , which it does.

In free verse —or, poetry without meter or rhyme scheme—the stanza is a unit that is defined by meaning or pacing, rather than by meter or rhyme.

In other words, a stanza break may be used in free verse to create a pause in the poem, or to signal a shift in the poem's focus. In free verse, unlike in formal verse, stanzas are often irregular throughout the poem, so a poem may contain a dozen two-line couplets shuffled in with a handful of six-line sestets and one much longer stanza.

Notice how the stanza breaks serve to break the poem into units of speech or thought—much like paragraphs in prose. Because it is the nature of garden paths to be circular, each night, after my wanderings, I would find myself at my front door, staring at it, barely able to make out, in darkness, the glittering knob.

It was, she said, a great discovery, albeit my real life. But certain nights, she said, the moon was barely visible through the clouds and the music never started. A night of pure discouragement.

And still the next night I would begin again, and often all would be well. There are other types of stanzas that are not simply defined by their number of lines. These specialized types of stanzas are defined by specific rhyme scheme or metrical requirements, or they always appear in specific poetic forms.

Here are just a few of the more common types of stanzas that are defined by rhyme scheme or meter. Stanzas consisting of four or more lines may sometimes be described as containing shorter stanzas within them, even if there is no stanza break.

For example, the first two lines of a quatrain may be referred to as a couplet, even if they do not form their own stanza. This can make it easier, when speaking or writing about a poem, to break larger pieces down into units that are shorter than stanzas but longer than individual lines.

The same is true of grouping multiple stanzas together. Two distinct quatrains may be described as making up a single octave, as is often the case with sonnets —the two quatrains that begin a sonnet are, together, referred to as the octave. Similarly, the two halves of an octave can always also be referred to as quatrains. What this means is that while stanzas are usually set off from other stanzas by lines breaks or indentation, that isn't always the case.

For instance, fourteen-line sonnets often appear without any stanza breaks at all—and yet the first eight lines of the poem are still referred to as the octave. In some cases, a stanza can be broken down multiple ways. For example, a stanza that is a sestet may be described as consisting of two tercets, even though there may not be a stanza break between the two tercets to distinguish them.

On the other hand, a sestet may also be described as consisting of three couplets. Neither would be improper, but which one you choose may be informed by a few separate factors. A sestet with the rhyme scheme ABCABC would more likely be described as consisting of two tercets than three couplets, since it would be more natural to break the stanza up into two units with a rhyme scheme of ABC than to break it into three units with rhyme schemes of AB, CA, and BC.

A sestet with an ABABAB rhyme scheme, on the other hand, would more properly be described as consisting of three couplets, since such a stanza could be thought of as breaking down into three units with rhyme schemes of AB.

In some cases it can be used interchangeably with "stanza," while in others it can't:. Here's a contemporary example of the use of couplets in a work of free verse by the poet Max Ritvo. Tercets are the basic unit of a form known as the villanelle , which follows an A B A rhyme scheme and has two refrains that repeat throughout the poem.

These two tercets are the opening two stanzas of one of the more famous modern examples of the villanelle, Dylan Thomas;s "Do no go gentle into that good night. Do not go gentle into that good night , Old age should burn and rave at close of day ; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right , Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. This ballad by Edna St. Here's an example of a poem by Edgar Allen Poe written entirely in cinquains.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore That gently, o'er a perfumed sea , The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam , Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face , Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece , And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo, in yon brilliant window- niche How statue-like I see thee stand , The agate lamp within thy hand , Ah!

Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land! The lines at the end of this sonnet may be referred to as a "rhyming couplet. Notice how the final two lines are the only adjacent lines in the whole poem to rhyme; this is yet another factor that sets them apart as a couplet. Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter, and confounds him there; Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where: Then were not summer's distillation left, A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was: But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet , Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

This brief excerpt from a longer love poem by the Roman poet Ovid makes use of elegiac couplets though the original meter is lost in translation. Although the couplets aren't separated from one another by double line breaks, each half of the quatrain below may be referred to as a couplet because of the metrical pattern they followed in the original Latin, as well as the AA BB rhyme scheme they follow in English.

Heav'n knows, dear maid, I love no other fair ; In thee lives all my love, my heav'n lies there. This sestina by Rudyard Kipling is a good example of the sestina's use of envoi , a brief concluding stanza to a poem.