Writing of all genres has evolved throughout the years as different artistic skill sets keep being revealed. Poetry is no different and has come a long way. Aristotle had divided poetry into 3 main types: dramatic, lyrical and narrative. Basically, narrative poems are those used to tell a story whereas dramatic and lyrical are similar in that they both capture emotion. Lyrical poems are those used in songs while dramatic poems are written as they are meant to be spoken to explain a situation in its entirety. However, current modern literature allows poems to be grouped into more groups allowing different creativity styles to be explored. If you plan on joining any poetry contests, you may need to get to know more about them so as to figure where you belong. Some of the common contemporary styles include:
- Palindromes
These are also referred to as mirrored poems and tests not only the writer’s creativity but also their skill set. It tends to have two parts with the second part being the reversal of the first part. The top line becomes the bottom one and the first word of the line becomes the last one. The poem is difficult because although the stanzas are mirror images of each other, they must both make sense and should hopefully explore and define opposite ideas for the form of the poem to make an impact. Writing such a poem for any free poetry contests will surely set you apart.
- Blackout poems
These poems are fantastic and exemplify what modern age literature is. Basically, the poems are brought out from already existing literature. This style of poetry was discovered by Austin Kleon by redacting words on a newspaper article using a black marker to reveal a poem. This poems can be fun and allows one to reuse and rebuild already published literature to come up with their own work. It simply signifies that beauty can be found everywhere if you just look hard enough.
- Shape poetry
Just like it sounds, shape poetry is poetry written in form of a shape. It can be anything that has an impact to the writer including signs, animals and even plants. This style of writing has profound impact due to the force of the words as well as the shape the writer chooses. It can be a great submission for poetry contests. In shape poetry, there is a specific type of poetry called diamante. This poem is shaped like a diamond and it comprises seven lines of contrasting words. Each line has its own rules.
- Acrostic
This poem is another beautiful example of creativity you can use for future free poetry contests. In the poem, different a letter of each line spells out a word or words that tend to be the title of the poem. The letters can be at the beginning of every line or elsewhere allowing you creative room to play around with words. It also provides a more structured way of writing especially if your thoughts tend to wander a lot.
