acrostic poetry

hi friends! one of my friend asked me do you write acrostic poems? i said no but i didn't know what acrostic poem is. but my answer was not a lie as i don t write any kind of poem. but i needed to learn it. i googled it up and i wanted to share what i have got so that if one asks you what is acrostic poem, you can answer:)):

Acrostic poetry is a form of short verse constructed so that the initial letters of each line taken consecutively form words. The term is derived from the Greek words akros, "at the end," and stichos, "line." The word acrostic was first applied to the prophecies of the Erythraean Sibyl, which were written on leaves and arranged so that the initial letters of the leaves always formed a word. Acrostics were common among the Greeks of the Alexandrine period and with the Latin playwrights Ennuis and Plautus. Medieval monks and poets also made this form of poetry popular during the Middle High German and Italian Renaissance periods.

An example of an acrostic written by the popular Edgar Allan Poe was found in his cousin Elizabeth Herring's album. Based on the handwriting and signature, it was probably written between 1831 and 1834.

ELIZABETH

ELIZBETH -- it surely is most fit
[Logic and common usage so commanding]
In thy own book that first thy name be writ,
Zeno 1 and other sages notwithstanding;
And I have other reasons for so doing
Besides my innate love of contradiction;
Each poet -- if a poet -- in persuing
The muses thro' their bowers of Truth or Fiction,
Has studied very little of his part,
Read nothing, written less -- in short 's a fool
Endued with neither soul, nor sense, nor art,
Being ignorant of one important rule,
Employed in even the theses of the school --
Called -- I forget the heathenish Greek name --
[Called anything, its meaning is the same]
"Always write first things uppermost in the heart."

The acrostic spells "Elizabeth Rebecca," Poe's cousin; her full name was Elizabeth Rebecca Herring. Miss Herring says that Poe wrote her love poetry in the early days.