Folk poetry (sometimes referred to as poetry in action) is poetry that is part of a society's folklore, usually part of their oral tradition. When sung, folk poetry becomes a folk song.

Folk poetry in general has several characteristics. It may be informal and unofficial, generally lacks an owner and may "belong" to the society, and its telling may be an implicitly social activity.^[1] The term can refer to poems of an oral tradition that may date back many years;^[2] that is, it is information that has been transmitted over time (between generations) only in spoken (and non-written) form.^[3] Thus as an oral tradition folk poetry requires a performer to promulgate it over generations.^[4]

The definition can also be extended to include not just oral epics, but latrinalia, many forms of childlore (skipping-rope rhymes, the words of counting-out games etc.), and limericks;^[5] as well as including anonymous or improvised poems.^[6]

Narrative folk poetry is often characterized by repetition, a focus on a single event (within an overall epic narrative if present), and an impersonal narration, as well as use of exaggeration and contrast.^[7]

It is thought that epics such as The Iliad, and The Odyssey derive from, or are modeled on earlier folk-poetry forms.^[8]

• Ethnopoetics, the science of collection of folk poetry
• Elias Lonnrot, collector of Finnish folk poems, edited into the epic Kalevala.