Fixed-Form Poem Scaffold Generator
The hard part of a sestina is not the writing, it is keeping track: six words, thirty-nine lines, and an order that changes every verse. Get it wrong and the poem is not a sestina. This lays the frame out line by line — which line repeats which, which of the six words closes each line, what rhymes with what — so you can spend the afternoon on the words instead of on the bookkeeping. It does the same for a villanelle, a pantoum and a triolet.
What this generator does
Works each form out from its own rule rather than copying a table. A sestina’s end words are rearranged verse by verse — last, first, second-last, second, and so on inwards — and the frame shows which of your six words closes each of the thirty-nine lines.
How to use this tool
- Choose the form you want to write in.
- For a pantoum, choose how many verses; for a sestina, give your six words or take the ones suggested.
- Build the frame, and write into the blank lines.
- Where a line says to repeat an earlier one, that line comes back whole.
Understanding the controls
- Form
- Four forms built on repetition. A sestina repeats words at the ends of lines; the other three repeat whole lines.
- Verses
- For a pantoum only. Every line is used exactly twice however long you make it, because the closing verse takes its other two lines from the opening one.
- Your six end words
- A sestina lives or dies on these. Words that can be read more than one way — as a noun and as a verb, say — give you somewhere to go by the fourth verse.
Common use cases
- Writing a sestina without keeping the end-word order on a separate sheet
- Teaching a fixed form by handing out the frame rather than the rule
- Drafting a villanelle when you have the two refrains and nothing else
- Checking a poem you have written against the shape it is meant to be
- Setting a workshop exercise where everyone works to the same frame
How this generator works
The finished frame is checked against the properties the form has to have. A repeat must point at a line already written and must carry that line’s rhyme. A sestina’s six words must appear once each in every verse, in the traditional rearrangement, and applying that rearrangement six times must give back the order it started with — which is the reason the form is six verses long. A closed pantoum must use every line exactly twice.
Randomness and fairness
Only the suggested end words for a sestina are drawn, using your browser’s secure generator. The frames themselves are fixed: a villanelle is the same nineteen lines every time, because that is what a villanelle is.
For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.
Limitations and good to know
- It gives you the frame, not the poem. No line is written for you.
- Four forms. Rondeaus, ghazals, terzanelles and the rest are not here.
- Rhyme is marked by letter, not checked — whether your words actually rhyme is your business.
- It does not count syllables or stresses. Metre is a separate matter from the pattern of repeats.
Privacy and your data
Any end words you type stay in your browser. Nothing is transmitted, stored or measured.
Related generators
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- Poetic Metre GeneratorLines built to a chosen metre from stress-marked words, with the finished line scanned again to confirm the pattern holds.
- Restricted Vocabulary Challenge GeneratorBanned letters and required words from your own list, checked so the set can never contradict itself and so every word you gave is accounted for.