“Quilts” is a short lyric poem. Lyric poetry is one of three key poetic genres laid out by Aristotle: lyric, epic, and dramatic. This genre schema is still used today, though English language poetry is often broken down into further subgenres. A lyric poem is usually short, though it can build up to hundreds of lines. Modern lyric poetry focuses on the observations of a speaker or voice in the poem; the poetic topics are ordinary and can be personal, in contrast to the lofty topics of dramatic and epic poetry.

“Quilts” is in free-verse. This means that the poem is unrhymed and nonmetrical. The poem also has sparse punctuation, with only one colon (:) used to demark where the speaker makes her plea to the reader; this singular punctuation mark stands out as a way for the poet to speak directly to her reader. Giovanni instead uses line breaks to show the reader where to pause. Her long lines are usually followed by shorter ones so that these pauses are staggered. This structure further emulates the image of a frayed tablecloth when read on the page; the staggered lines look jagged and somewhat tattered like the edges of worn-down cloth.