Structural Classification of Contemporary Short Poems

Concise Writing is an important style in contemporary literature. In Western countries, this trend originated from haiku and minimalism, but in Persian poetry it has a long history and various forms. The earliest form can be seen in Gāhān in which each stanza stands by itself. A number of short poems can be traced in Manichean and Sassanid periods as well as in early centuries after Hijrah. This long history and great variety has made it difficult to classify the short poems. This article through explaining different point of views on short poems, introduces a kind of classification that falls into three groups: First, those poems like closed couplet, tetrastich, quatrain, and fragment; Second, the unprecedented poems such as now-khosravāni and seh-gāni; and Third, the poems in free forms like sketches and the unconventionals.