A. Verse FormIs a composition written in metrical feet forming rhythmical lines. In the countable sense, a verse is formally a single metrical line in a poetic composition. However, verse has come to represent any division or grouping of words in a poetic composition, with groupings traditionally having been referred to as stanzas.In the uncountable (mass noun) sense verse refers to "poetry" as contrasted to prose. Where the common unit of verse is based on meter or rhyme, the common unit of prose is purely grammatical, such as a sentence or paragraph.Verse has had a traditional application in drama, which is therefore known as dramatic poetry, verse drama, or dramatic verse.Types of verse Blank Verse Unrhymed iambic pentameter.Free verse is usually defined as having no fixed meter and no end rhyme. Although free verse may include end rhyme, it commonly does not.Whirl up, seaWhirl your pointed pines,Splash your great pines,On our rocks,Hurl your green over us,Cover us with your pools of fir.H.D.B. SonnetThe sonnet is probably the best-known verse form of all. It has 14 lines, divided into two sections: normally an octave (or octet) followed by a sestet. Often the octave will pose a question that the sestet answers; or the two sections will put contrasting points of view.There are several varieties of sonnet with different rhyming schemes.The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet rhymes abbaabba/cdecde. This is a relatively hard form of sonnet to write in English; it's far easier to find large numbers of words that rhyme when you're working in Italian.The Spenserian sonnet (after Edmund Spenser, he of the Faerie Queene) is often claimed to be a compromise between Italian and English sonnet forms; it rhymes ababbcbc/cdcdee. The alert reader will notice that its rhyming scheme is every bit as demanding as that of an Italian sonnet. Hardly anyone other than Spenser himself has ever used this form. One modern example is Roddy Lumsden's much-anthologised Yeah Yeah Yeah.The Shakespearean sonnet rhymes ababcdcd/efefgg, a rhyming scheme so much better suited to our language that the Bard was able to write 154 of them.John Milton then returned to the original Italian form, with so much success that they renamed it after him - the Miltonian sonnet is almost exactly the same as the Petrarchan.(The only change Milton made was to allow the break that normally comes after 8 lines to come a little earlier or later.)There are numerous further variations - for example, Wordsworth used abbaacca/dedede, the Sicilian sonnet uses abababab/cdcdcd, Clare the straightforward aabbccddeeffgg, and Pushkin had his own ideas - but it's time we had an example. Here is one of the few sonnets (Miltonian, as it happens) ever to offer the point of view of a plastic carrier bag:ExilesInferior, some called us, second-class,Defective and unfit to be employed;Sad misfits cultured people would avoidLike litter on a windswept underpass.Our problems colour. Still, theres greener grassOut here; replete, fulfilled, were overjoyed.Our pleasure, long-delayed, is unalloyed.W e scoff at those back home, so-called top brass -Now miffed to find that we had what it took.When smuggled out by businessmen with nous,We carried all before us, Europe-wide.Were comme il faut, in any Georgians book,And honoured guests; for us, its open house.They love us; show us off with bags of prideI had been deeply moved by a news story about a batch of carrier bags, produced for a major supermarket chain, which had been rejected because the colours were wrong. The enterprising manufacturers had exported the bags instead to Georgia and Ukraine, where they had become regarded as status symbols.