Quatrain is probably the most common form of poetry. It is also used extensively in poems that are very long. The word quarter comes from the Latin word meaning "four". It is a poem or part of a poem containing four lines. Famous poets like William Blake and T.S. Elliot used quatrains.

Read the example below:

Homemade Boat
This boat that we just built is just fine -- (a)
And don't try to tell us it's not. -- (b)
The sides and the back are divine -- (a)
It's the bottom I guess we forgot... (b)

-- Shel Silverstein

Quatrains are written with different rhyming schemes. Take a look at the examples above to see how it rhymes. The first line rhymes with the third and the second rhymes with the last. In this way we say the poem has an a-b-a-b rhyming scheme. Not all quatrains rhyme in this way. Take a look at the poem below and its rhyming scheme.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright -- (a)
In the forests of the night, -- (a)
What immortal hand or eye -- (b)
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? -- (c)

- From William Blake's "The Tyger".

Here we see that the first two lines of the quatrain rhyme then there is a third line which does not rhyme with the last line of the poem. The rhyming scheme used here is a-a-b-c.

• Write a quatrain to share with the rest of your class. Your quatrain can be funny or serious. Use the examples of the rhyming schemes above to help you. There are two points to remember about your quatrain -

  1) Your poem must contain four lines
  2) It should have a rhyming scheme labelled in brackets at the end of each line, as with the poems above.

• And remember most importantly : HAVE FUN!