Simply defined, narrative poetry is poetry that tells a story. Narratives make use of the same literary elements common to a short story or novel, such as setting, characters and plot. Aside from length, the main difference between a narrative poem and a novel is that a narrative poem uses sound devices like rhyme to help tell its story.
There are a couple of variations of narrative poems taught in seventh grade. An epic poem tells a lengthy, detailed story about the main character's heroic adventures, for example "Beowulf" and Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey." Although epic poems are generally too difficult to read all the way through at the seventh-grade level, short excerpts are often discussed. Ballads are another type of narrative poetry. Written similarly to a song, ballads tell a story in several four- to six-line stanzas and a refrain, which is like the chorus of a song. The language of a ballad is very musical, using rhyme schemes to add emotion and understanding.
Lyric poetry is a musical form of writing, but it does not tell a story. Lyric poems express the author's feelings, using vivid, creative word choices to describe the main idea or image that the writer is trying to convey. Lyric poems, such as sonnets, are written following a rhyme scheme, or pattern of rhyming lines, but all lyric poetry does not have to rhyme.
An art form originated in Japan, haiku is a structured three-line poem constructed of seventeen syllables. The first line must have exactly five syllables, the second line, seven, and the third line, five. If it does not follow the format, even by a syllable of difference, it is not truly a haiku. Traditional haiku generally have an element of nature, but contemporary haiku often branch out in theme.
Concrete poetry graphically or physically matches the theme or topic of the poem. Rather than being written in a block form, with each line aligned to the left, concrete poems can swirl, drop and bend into various shapes and patterns. For example, a poem about love may be written in the shape of a heart and a poem about a river may curve into an S-shape to resemble the flow of water.