A ballad is a form of poetry that focuses on a story. Ballads can sometimes explore legends or folk tales and can be written in rhyme or free verse. Ballads feature a repeated refrain, couplet or stanza, although this is the only required structure. Blank verse is a similar type of poetry, which does not require a specific structure but is written in unrhyming iambic pentameter.
A five-stanza poem could be written in the styles of burlesque, carpe diem or classicism. These require little specific structure and are classified based on subject matter. Burlesque five-stanza poems tell a story and treat a serious subject ridiculously. Carpe diem poems focus on living life to the fullest, while poems of classicism describe beauty in the formal manner common in Renaissance poetry.
Couplets are two lines of rhyming poetry, where the line pairs form a stanza. A five-stanza couplet poem would consist of 10 lines. Another rhyming form of poetry, a rhyme royal, consists of seven-line stanzas, written in rhyming iambic pentameter.
Another form of poetry that could be used with five stanzas is free verse. As the name suggests, free verse can be about anything and has no defined structure. Terza rima can also be written in five stanzas. This form is composed of 10- or 11-syllable lines, organized in groups of three, known as tercets, which form the stanzas.