Fu

[Tinker]

Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry
Overview of Chinese Poetry with Index

Fu 賦 or Chinese descriptive poetry is mentioned where ever I find Chinese poetry described, however examples are rare in English and one source suggests the form has apparently disintegrated into cumbersome rhymed prose. In English fu has been referred to as "rhapsody, "rhyme-prose," "exposition," and sometimes "poetical essay."

The form was popular in the Han dynasty when the poems were very long, covering the subject from every possible perspective and displaying the poet's writing skills more than communicating emotions. It remained a major genre through the Six Dynasties but the poems became much shorter, more personal and expressive than the Han fu.

I could find no structural criteria spelled out other than the poems are made up of varied length lines in rhymed couplets. There were often question-answer segments.