Why I Love Poetry Forms

Coloring Outside the Lines is Great

(but it does mean you first need to know where the lines are…)

Photo by J. Kelly Brito on Unsplash

Flipping through the pages of a poetry journal or seeing what pops up when you search for ‘poetry’ on Medium, you could be excused for thinking that rules and poetry make poor bedfellows.

Short lines or long, rhymes or no rhymes, standard-length stanzas or no stanzas at all, it seems like anything goes when it comes to what constitutes a poem. The endless possibilities and total flexibility of poetry are what make this particular form of written expression so much fun to write.

I’ve written plenty of free verse precisely because breaking free of any rules appeals to my rebellious heart.

Here’s one (proceed with caution, it’s on the graphic side):

The Spinster and the Bear

and another (originally performed as a spoken-word piece):