Quick Lesson Time: Poems are not just short phrases or cute greeting card sayings. Poems are a form of written art — paintings created from language and/or the tools of language. This is a broad statement but given the advancements in technology, poetry can now take many different forms: from binary poetry to hidden poetry.

To improve my poetry and to celebrate how far we have come in our global poetic history, I will be presenting poetic forms throughout the year of 2018.

Today’s Poetic Form is Abecedarian!

The link provided gives a wonderful overview of the form and other examples, but to summarize: Abecedarian poems are Alphabet Poems.

Most American students, including yours truly, were taught this form as a child. It helps with memorizing facts and can be entertaining for those young at heart.

If you don’t speak English but your language has an Alphabet (or an equivalent) you can play around with the form.

Each line of an Abecedarian begins with a letter of the Alphabet, in alphabetic order.

Typing it out, an Abecedarian poem’s first column would look like this in English:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

These lines can be varied and formed however way you wish. The only prerequisite for this form is to pick an Alphabet and begin the poem in Alphabetical Forms.