Now that I am involved in online poetry chats and forms, I find that the ongoing discussions regarding rhyming verse vs prose sometimes chafe at my resolve to simply do what I do: I rhyme. It fascinates me that there is such resistance, among some, to the idea that poetry, as in verse, obeys rules. In reaction to one such forum discussion, I wrote the following poem:
Q & A on Rules
Q:
Oh, Classic Verse, it seems a curse
Has long consumed your heart
With rules on rhyme and time, and worse:
To confiscate your art.
Why bow you so to what you know
To be but a cheap device?
Let thoughts unfold, be uncontrolled,
And fluid form suffice.
A:
Ah, but you see, in verse I'm free
To work within the lines
Which censor ambiguity
And elevate my rhymes
To rhythmed regularity
In balanced, toned array
So I can treat upon the meat
Of what I want to say.
I find these online discussions helpful and encouraging, and I have grown in my appreciation of the other poets there, even as I agree to disagree with some that poetry need not follow any rules.
Q & A on Rules
Q:
Oh, Classic Verse, it seems a curse
Has long consumed your heart
With rules on rhyme and time, and worse:
To confiscate your art.
Why bow you so to what you know
To be but a cheap device?
Let thoughts unfold, be uncontrolled,
And fluid form suffice.
A:
Ah, but you see, in verse I'm free
To work within the lines
Which censor ambiguity
And elevate my rhymes
To rhythmed regularity
In balanced, toned array
So I can treat upon the meat
Of what I want to say.
I find these online discussions helpful and encouraging, and I have grown in my appreciation of the other poets there, even as I agree to disagree with some that poetry need not follow any rules.
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