The Sonnet

-usually a thinking poem
-14 lines
-iambic pentameter (10 syllables/line is “close enough”)
-abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme (or other variation)
-generally poses a problem in first four lines, explores the idea in the next four lines and undergoes a shift in the next four lines.
-couplet at the end gives it closure

Sample:

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.