Auto erotic inspires a new (old) debate . . . free verse v "poems"

Sorry for delay again, Liana. I don't know everything about the origins of poetry, but formal poetry was considered to be the only acceptable form for so long that when T.S. and friends started popularising what was termed as 'free verse' as part of the modernist movement it came in for some pretty heavy criticism. Walt Whitman was largely disregarded in America for his efforts, and was only later considered to be ahead of his time. Yay indeed for throwing away the rules that say poetry is reserved for a particular breed of person, but it's very easy to get equally snobbish ourselves (and I say that from experience of my own elitism,) and this is what, somewhere near the beginning of my drawlings, I was trying to come in between. Eek. "so glad i am comparable to a woman who says poetrys a load of shite anyway... cheers Hen." Well, I would be too if I said, "That's not proper poetry!" which I have on many occasions. The comparison is in the matter of taking one's subjective response and phrasing it as a factual . Thus, "I don't like poetry" becomes "poetry's a load of shite" and "I don't like these poets" becomes "they only *think* they can write poetry." I didn't come up with the comparison to insult you, but to cause you to consider this - like the dramatic point in the odd action film where the hero wonders what the difference is between himself and his enemies if they both kill with gleeful abandon.

Paul - I might well be hurling around the wrong word when I say "snobbish" but I associate snobbishness with any suggestion of superiority based on rules that have not been agreed upon. By that definition, you don't have to think of poetry as a higher art form to be snobbish, just exclude (as you seemed to be doing,) certain constructions from the category of poetry because they didn't fit with a set of rules laid down which surely only cater for an aspect of poetry.

Paul - Your idea that free verse is prose randomly split up is wrong, quite wrong. Free verse also has rhythm, and whether you like it or not, it is a form of poetry. Those "random line breaks" are there for a purpose!! To guide the reader to read it in the correct style, to accentuate a word, to show a breath when the poem is read, to give emphasis to a particular line, to allow a meaning to sink in, create a double meaning, to create tension (no not the kind you feel)..... there are oodles of reasons. There are many many different styles of poetry, and free verse is just another form. I find such forms as pantoums, villanelles, and sonnets puzzling, for me, they are a bit like mathematics with words. Not much fun, either to write, or read. (for me) Do you find it difficult to read free verse because there are no rules that you can see to adhere to? many people can only do things - paint, write, live - under a set of rigid rules. Personally, I can scarcely bear rhyming poetry.... so few people can do it properly. I have seen poems that scream the last word at you before you get to it... its like a vase falling over on a table - da da da da da DUM da da da da da DEE da da da da da DUM da da da da da DEE Ugh......... Poetry should never be sacrificed for the rhyme, but sadly it often is... some poetry should never be allowed to hit the paper. And that goes for free verse too.. Free verse, unfortunately, encourages many people to think they can write poetry, because of perceptions similar to the ones you outlined above. Sadly, they can't. I wonder if you have just never read any good free verse? You say you like auto erotic (me too, a fabulous poem). Try some others - some of the poets on here; Ivoryfishbone and Eddie Gibbons (not sure if there is any Eddie work on here anymore, but he wrote Auto Erotic under the name Hitchaiku) You can buy Eddies book from a banner at the top of the page, I recommend it. Try Carol Ann Duffy, (Dame) probably the best known free verse poet, who work is on GCSE syllabus (not bad for a prose writer that writes stories and hits the enter button randomly) *goes off to eat cornflakes and drink tea* P.S - there are many isps that offer unmetered access. I didnt think anyone actually paid for their phone call when they went online anymore?

i would take issue with the idea that rhyme can be "thrown in" for good measure and musicality ... rhyme when handled properly can be stunning ... at its worst full end rhyme (liana's vase falling) it makes a poem sound childish ... i am a staunch fan of half rhyme and internal rhyme ... in so called "free verse" the music of the line comes from the rhythm and the way the words conspire to make something that sounds right, that feels right in the mouth ... without doubt there are "prose choppers" and you will find them here on abc ... but i think the prose chopping argument is just far to easy an argument to level at poetry that doesn't end rhyme ... i think it is as easy to write bad poetry that rhymes as it is to chop up some prose and call it a poem (also bad) ... the thing that confuses the average reader is that one LOOKS and SOUNDS like a poem as it has the so called conventions and is easily understood to BE a poem ... the other looks like a collection of words on a page ...

Liana: "Your idea that free verse is prose randomly split up is wrong, quite wrong. Free verse also has rhythm, and whether you like it or not, it is a form of poetry." Rhythm doesn't define poetry - prose has rhythm (it's impossible to avoid - "the ghost of some simple meter lurks behind the arras in even the freest verse,") and there are such things as prose-poems, remember. There are poems which are, as Paul describes, only prose with seemingly random line breaks put in, not necessarily for a specific purpose. There's no clear defining line between the two, and our way of distinguishing between them is based on what 'looks' like a poem, or a piece of prose. Hence, when I was 17, I refused for a while to believe that Bloodaxe's 'New Poetry' book contained any poetry at all, because none of it 'looked' like what I had come to recognise as poetry. You can invent further rules if you like (attention to rhythm, rhyme etc.) but you can bet your ass an abundance of people have stepped over them - either prosers writing poetically, or poets writing prosaically. If you go round applying your rules to them ("You think you write poems, but ha! You don't!") then you run the risk of coming across as some kind of whiny pedant, or heathen, or radical, depending on your viewpoint. There's a clear distinction between drawing conclusions on what makes poetry and what makes prose BASED on what form they most commonly take, and making up distinctions based on what you think SHOULD be the form they take. Critics who work by the latter approach have gone down in the history books as short-sighted and bereft of artistic vision. Liana: "Free verse, unfortunately, encourages many people to think they can write poetry, because of perceptions similar to the ones you outlined above. Sadly, they can't." Without wanting to sound confrontational, this is a pretty pompous statement, Liana. To say that people can't write poetry, but only "think they can" just because what they write doesn't fit your standards is, I feel, pretty mean. Furthermore, neither you or I are qualified to say that of people - if we don't think their attempts at poetry come up to our standards then we can choose not to read them, or suggest ways in which they could endear themselves to us (by focusing on rhythm, say, as I feel a lot of good poetry does,) but it is overreaching our own authority to suggest that we have complete control or recognition of what is meant by 'poetry.' Let's love full-on form poetry, chopped up prose and all in between equally - I've seen briliant examples of each, all of which have earned the write to be regarded as poetry in my book. I certainly think it's something of a cop-out to stand half way between the two extremes and call it the definitive position.

That's "the right to be regarded"....eeeeee.

Pompous it may be, I stand by it entirely.

And whilst i think of it..... "Rhythm doesn't define poetry" You are right, of course. I stumble a little in seeing why you are making that point though. Did I make you think I disagreed? I did say that it was only my opinion "for me"+"personally"in that post - maybe i didnt say it enough - because thats all it is, an opinion. I am not surprised entirely when you say that you refused to read the bloodaxe books... but thats another thing. You have to read read read and absorb (which I have no doubt you do, and I am STILL doing even at my ripe old age) to truly form an opinion, and it still remains just that, only an opinion. Prose and poetic prose are another issue, as you well know. And why do I stand half way betwen extremes, if it was me you were referring to? You puzzle me again there. As for inventing rules in poetry.. I am a big believer in breaking them. Free verse came about because of such a thing, did it not? Oh... and when you say that I can choose what I read.. actually, no, I can't always do that, as you should know.

As I'm not a poet I won't get involved in this one at this level but I will answer the original question as to why I find poetry 'difficult'. I read like a hoover - at least three novels a week. I have done so since I was 10 years old. I suck up writing, get involved in plot and description, love many different forms of prose. I find academic books very difficult. I find poetry difficult. Why? Because of the way I read. I go very fast. Peotery demands slow and intelligent reading. When a poem - like Auto Erotic - captures me then I read it over and over again. The language of peotery is, by its very nature, careful and sparse. Images are sometimes hidden, meaning is often, at worst, obtuse or, at best, multi layered. I love good poetry. I find it hard to discover and certainly read a lot of bad poetry as a consequence.I wasn't aware that Eddie Gibbons was hitchaiku when I came across Auto Erotic - I just loved the piece. I also love Fish and Bobblehat's work here. I like martin t, ralph, jude and a number of others work here. I find much of the rest just plain difficult. It's me, not poetry, but I suspect that I am not alone. I have to make an effort and I am prepared to do that - but I have to be hooked at first read. That's the poet's dilemma but when he/she overcomes it then we begin to achieve greatness!

Yes.. I too read fast, but not poetry. savour the words, look at how they are delivered, then you will see the beauty in it. Its almost a different thing from actually "reading" hardly reading at all.... absorbing may be a better way to describe it.

Great contribution to this debate from Eddie. Look at his rhyming version of Auto Erotic at: http://www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewstory.cgi?s=29261 Discuss!

i read the rhyming version..i just didn't get it... whilst reading the original...i was marvelling at the how smooth the gears were..recognising the sordid pleasure in such considered deception...getting a buzz from the heightened sense of time when things get tricky... but the rhyming one..i was just reading a poem....for me..the technique had obscured the feelings... xxx

I preferred the original un-rhyming version of Auto Erotic, thought that was good. I found the rhyming version harder to read and not as absorbing. It felt too forced man, the other non-rhyming poem had a quality that felt like the language was freer and moving like a river unforced, in this version it felt more like it was being squeezed to fit into a tight box. I think personally I prefer free-verse. Though there are some people on here who can write good rhyme poetry, like sneak for example, he is a good rhyming poet; but generally I prefer the free-verse poetry, unless someone is exceptionally good at rhyme. Free-verse feels more freer, I guess that's why it's called free-verse. When I read free-verse it gives me an impression of words flying across the page un-inhibited rather than them being like a caged bird. I always like to think that language is evolving and so the rules are there to be broken. If people didn't dare to go beyond the rules, then nothing new and fresh would ever come about. Free verse is like a breath of fresh air sometimes, I love it. In regards to rhythm, I think rhythm is a natural thing that every writer has and if they haven't found it yet in their writing will do if they don't try to force it: it is their voice, sometimes I find speaking out loud whilst I'm writing can help me connect with my rhythm. I think it's a natural thing, not a learnt disciplined thing. Rhythm to me is as natural as our heartbeat, our breathing, but a personal experience to each one of us. And so you don't really need to sit and think about what kind of rhythm you are going to write a piece in; rhythm seems to come naturally, like a flowing river, spontaneously like dancing. When you're at a party no two people dance exactly the same; yet everyone can dance, when they let go of their inhibitions. But I could be wrong here, is just my own experience of it.

If anyone couldve persuaded me it would be Eddie, who is brilliant. But sadly, no.. the second one doesn't do it for me, though I admire his skill. Funky has hit the nail on the head with his "feels like it is being forced" Thats the problem I always have with rhyming poetry, it feels forced to fit convention... but (and i'll say it again to save confusion) it's only my opinion.

Yet it is the very form itself of Shakespeare's sonnets that I love so much. Without the form they wouldn't work! The set pattern creates the formality of the atmosphere in which he writes, it is the slow dance of courtly love. He also chooses at times to bend the rules, as we do in love, and that in itslef makes a point. When they're good - and they have to be very very good - then both forms work!

sometimes when i am writing free verse...i discover a rhyme or rhythm occuring..i feel like one of those people who make dogs out of balloons...stretching and twisting the meanings to come up with this illusionary construct....

Or his arms where the bruises remain As witness to their feverish clutching, their frantic meshing, their disengaging I like the poem a lot. I can savour the words "their frantic meshing", in the way advocated by Liana. But sometimes it is good to let the reader complete the scene in their imagination. For me, it would have been sufficient, and effectively understated, just to tell me that he had bruises on his arms.

First of all, Liana, I have come across Carol Ann Duffy. A lot of her stuff does nothing for me; it's funny that only "Prayer" made it into the Nation's Favourite 20thcent. Poems. See below. Oh by the way, I don't use the internet enough (or at peak times, at all) to justify the monthly subscription fee. May change soon though. I like this site a lot. Well, you know what I'm gonna say already, don't you? I like the "rhyming" version of Auto Erotic better - but not so much for the rhyme, just the way it had a bit more momentum. I did say at the start, let's not get sidetracked by the whole rhyming thing - it's a bit of a red-herring. I like coming up with rhyming poems, and using form, because it's a challenge to say what you were going to say anyway by putting different words together. But verse doesn't need rhyme - look at any Shakespeare play. Sometimes this discussion turned into Free verse v rhyming, and I never wanted that discussion. I can take or leave rhyming poems (though I do it myself a lot) , but I do like to see people playing with meter, form, rhythm. This thing about "forcing" is a bit grating; as if wearing any form of straitjacket is artistically stifling. Songs need some sort of form to be any good. The Beatles played and experimented with form and went on to be one of the biggest bands in the world. Napalm Death eshewed all song writing conventions - and they are sh*te. The public at large expects poems to rhyme. I saw a poet on TV today getting all snotty about "the non-poetry crowd" (ugh, patronising git) who thought his poems should rhyme. "Why should they?" he sniffed. BECAUSE THEY LIKE THE SOUND OF RHYMING; IT SOUNDS MUSICAL; PEOPLE LIKE IT; KIDS BUY RAP MUSIC BECAUSE IT SOUNDS GOOD - NOT JUST FOR THE F-WORDS AND THE 70s SAMPLES! In the art world, most creators have to build a reputation and learn how to come up with all sorts of form before earning the right to throw cans of paint around. I consider people poets when they have proven they can use all forms. Carol Ann can. Our Eddy obviously can. Can YOU? Now I'm going to practise what I preach and have a go at free verse (not something I've tried since the sixth form!) It'll probably be crap, but at least it won't take long! (only joking, free versers!)

By the way, Liana, I challenge you to name a poet who made it on to the GCSE syllabus who has only ever written free verse. Are there any? If not - I argue that you need to be able, in some way, to use a range of poetic forms to be considered "a poet". But, paradoxically, you can be a poet without having used free verse in your life. And Philip Larkin is the best poet of recent times. That's all I'm going to say now. Over to any else.

Don't shout at me! Duffy may only have one poem in there, but what is in the Number One spot? Jenny Josephs "Warning".... ahem, that's free verse..... Duffy hasnt been going for that long.... born halfway through the century, and unpublished for the most part, its hardly fair to quote her as being a failure because she doesnt pop in the book more than once. My bet is, should there be a nations favourite 21stC poems, she will be in there in spades.. but thats something we cant prove - yet. And can i just say...philip larkin is only the best poet of recent times in your opinion. Hes ok. He does it well. (in my opinion too, but hes not the best. Duffy is. *grins*) Evidently we disagree.. and there is nothing wrong with that. What I dont like is the sniffy way you say that free rhyme is somehow unworthy of being poetry (return happy right finger, remember?) and being easy to do. It's not. Its easy to do BADLY, as is form driven poetry. So, come on then, bring on your effort, lets have a look! *smiles* To end, whilst studying poetry, i wrote to form. Please dont assume i cannot. I just don't LIKE it! Ps...Napalm Death dont do a lot for me, but then nor do the Beatles.

Sorry... free verse, not free rhyme.. its late, I've been here all day, ok?!

I like free verse and I like rhyme and I do them both when I got the time but when I'm pushed I just writes prose cos you can tell thet truth and no-one knows

This is an interesting read I just came across, though strictly it should be in "the other" forum.. you need to stick with it, after the first four or five paras it gets more interesting :o) http://www.geocities.com/sheenaghpugh/alley.html#4

There's nothing sniffy about my belief: that some free verse is closer to prose than poetry. Unworthy? That implies poetry is a superior art form. As I've already said, it's not in my opinion. Prose is just as worthy. Snooker players hate it not being classed as "sport" by some people; but what's wrong with "game"? Just the way we load different words. Poetry means to some people "literary Nirvana". I don't except that. I never questioned your credentials as a poet (Christ, hardly my place) - I threw open a question to all ("Can you?") and then realised it may be misconstrued as addressing you, as I did a couple of times elsewhere. I'd posted it by then. So sorry for the misunderstanding. I assumed someone like yourself, an established editor, would have a comprehensive poetic backround. You are a poet of course (even by my rather provocative definition at the end of my last post!) and I think - if you don't mind me saying - a pretty good one. I'll argue your case now: another definition of poetry is "saying as much as possible in as few possible words". That can be done with free verse. I just like my old definitions. You know where you stand? Doesn't everyone need rules to live by, by the way? Duffy is NO failure; getting a poem in that book is a huge achievement for a start. I meant, the only one she got in was rigid and rhyming. "Warning"? Still puzzles me how that got to be number one. There you go. I'm bringing nothing on while you're in this mood, madam! Of course the Larkin thing was my opinion. Can we put our differences behind us now? Impressive points made on both sides of the fence I think. Do you like me again? (If you ever did in the 1st place!) Paul Greco

Oh, and I didn't shout at you, I shouted at that plank on the TV. I'll have to make it clearer whom I'm addressing. And how could anyone not like the Beatles?

hrmm...... urmmmmm..... *looks over glasses sternly* ok then, you twisted my arm....

Shall i tell you why they are shite? *just kidding*

Well, I'm pleased that my poem has opened up a lively and passionate debate. My own preference is generally for 'free verse', though I do enjoy writing rhymed stuff occasionally. I hold Duffy and Larkin in equal esteem. I am also a great admirer of ivoryfishbone and Liana, two of the finest writers on this site. I don't believe they have anything to prove to anyone regarding the quality of their work, despite their preference for unrhymed poetry. I am confident they could produce high quality rhyming poetry if they chose so to do. But it is not their preferred form, and that's all there is to it. I agree with Funky that the rhymed version feels as if it has been squeezed into a tight box. This because it was written as an exercise, whereas the original unrhymed version was written 'freely', i.e. I did not know where the poem was going when I started it - all I had was an image of a car zipping up/down a road. I think that rhyming poetry is a good starting point for new writers - there's a kind of safety in set forms. I wrote a lot of rhymed stuff early on. These days I lean towards non-end rhymed work. I think there is more skill involved in writing poems that have half-rhyme and internal rhyme. I aspire to this type of poem and hope that I can produce better examples of it in my future work.

darlin larkin once proposed something like... " poetry is the poet's business...everyone else can f*** off "..i like that attitude...

Sorry to reply late, Liana. "You are right, of course. I stumble a little in seeing why you are making that point though. Did I make you think I disagreed?" Your objection to 'prose-choppers.' Presumably, they don't qualify to your mind because their work is not structured around rhythm. The fact remains though that *even if* a writer were to take a lump of prose and chop it up, in a completely random fashion (roll a dice and put a line break in after that number of words, say,) the very action of chopping up prose manifestly turns it into a poem. Not an attempted poem, not a 'bad' poem, but a poem. The reader's entire approach to the piece is changed through the action - their expectations shift, and they confront the piece as a poem. What's more, the line breaks affect the rhythm in such a way that the poem is always going to be slightly different depending on where you put the breaks. You can argue about the relevance of the effect, but the effect is there. As for 'bad' poetry, we've surely been through that plenty of times. Throwaway poems operate fine (I seem to get all my throwaways cherry-picked and all my more considered pieces ignored,) pure voice poems operate fine, symptom poets operate fine - there doesn't seem to be any guaranteed way to write a bad poem. The poems that go down best in, say, Tony's book, are, one might say (although I don't) more 'lightweight' - since their effect is all immediate. Poems that at first confuse, and require more confrontational reader participation won't go down well, I imagine, in an online writing forum - I don't think the environment fits. Old T. S., were he starting out today, would be a fool to gauge the success of 'The Wasteland' on how us lot react to it here, because, let's face it, the vast majority, me included, would think it a load of crap, and not bother. Same goes, I reckon, for a great deal of classic poems - unless we know what we're looking for, and the poem fulfils our expectations, we're not going to be particularly impressed by poems on this site, which is why the apparently successful ones are mostly ultra-economic, simple odes which describe a situation or relationship, often prosaically (the kind Paul clearly thinks should just be prose.) "I am not surprised entirely when you say that you refused to read the bloodaxe books... but thats another thing." Well, I learned. And it wasn't 'me' that refused to read them. It was out entire English class, who were by no means all big-headed poetry-lovers and smartasses, who for a long time could not see any value to many of the poems because they appeared to be just sprawls of bad prose thrown about the page to no effect. Initially, the poems failed completely to work on us - they did *not* work their magic - they were clumsy and dull. And I think it's fair to say that the vast majority would go down in the ABCTales camp as 'difficult.' The 'quality' of a poem so often depends on the approach of the reader. I'm not slagging off Tony - there's nothing 'wrong' or inferior in failing to be moved by difficult poetry - but one must accept, as he has, that it has so much to do with us as readers. "You have to read read read and absorb (which I have no doubt you do, and I am STILL doing even at my ripe old age) to truly form an opinion, and it still remains just that, only an opinion." Thing is, I don't really see the point in drawing lines between poetry and prose that we know are immediately broken down by the many exceptions to the rule. Any 'opinion' I have on what is good poetry and what isn't, or even what IS poetry and what isn't, is based on my tastes. I'm pretty much alone, as far as I know, in finding almost all the poetry on ABCTales fair to good, but not very distinctive. I'm pretty certain it's damn easy to write a good poem, one way or another, but when I'm sitting in front of a computer screen, I'm not prepared to put enough work in to feel a poem acting on me. I can happily agree with what most of you write about each others' poems, and yet not be particularly moved. So I could start eking out the reasons why that poetry has little effect on me, and slap it down as an opinion on what makes good poetry. I could say, for instance, that it's all just far too plain - stale and mediocre. I might say that it doesn't count as a poem because it doesn't say anything new, doesn't speak to me - that kind of stuff. But what would be the point? It's unlikely to convince anyone, and all it does is put into derogatory terms my own tastes and approaches as a reader. Negative effect for no objective advancement, if you ask me. So I remain very firm in saying that it's above our station to judge whether other people count as poets, and there's absolutely no need to do so. "And why do I stand half way betwen extremes, if it was me you were referring to?" The same extremes I and a lot of other poets stand between - strict form poetry, where the words and meaning must be stencilled into a set image, and utterly loose visual poetry, which can just be a collection of letters thrown onto a page, or maybe even a paragraph. "As for inventing rules in poetry.. I am a big believer in breaking them. Free verse came about because of such a thing, did it not?" Yep, which is why I saw it as something of a copout for you to now put your foot down over what, of other people's work, cannot be classed as poetry, since less than a hundred years ago there'd have been a fair number of people putting their foot down against your own. To address Paul's points as well, any rule or form, or structure, has an effect. That effect is often positive, which is why, as he says, people like poems to rhyme. They like the effect. It is, however, completely unnecessary (not to mention actively placing idealogical restrictions on other people's freedom,) to say that because a particular arrangement produces a likeable effect, anything that doesn't work to the same effect, yet mimics or resembles the form, cannot be classed under the same name. It's as snobbish as Paul's poet with his 'non-poetry crowd,' and comparable to the man or woman who simply says, "Poetry's a load of shite anyway."

Hitch says, "I think that rhyming poetry is a good starting point for new writers - " Well, that just about sums up where I am. I've just started to put my thoughts to paper. I've written a handful of 'rhymes' and I've posted a couple of them on ABC. I'd hoped to learn something more about poetry. I left school when I was fourteen and the only thing I learned about poetry was that if you couldn't memorise it then you were in trouble, again. My mind isn't closed by any preconceived notion of what I think poetry should be. I'm reading things on this site that are deeply moving and beautiful beyond description. I really don't care whether they rhyme or not and I haven't a clue about form or meter or any other artificial construct for that matter. I'm not well enough educated to argue on such things but I do have feelings and I'm trying to express them in the only way I can, for the moment. I can learn about poetry but that's not essential to my recognition or understanding of an emotion or an aesthetic. I wondered if what I'd written was poetry at all and was relying on others, here, to help me in that respect but this exchange has troubled me with its discussion of greater and lesser gods.

Actually Hen, in the library at Uni on Monday, I picked up a book on literary terms, and just out of interest, checked on "free verse" I was taught a long time ago by an old schoolteacher in 6th form, that free verse was the original poetry, the origins of free verse can be found in biblical psalms..and this book indeed confirmed it. i spoke to one of my lecturers about this, and he said that it began with walt whitman. it didnt though, he just broke the rules that sprang up around poetry, the ones that silently declared it was for the pursuit of academics only... yay for walt i say..... so glad i am comparable to a woman who says poetrys a load of shite anyway... cheers Hen.

I think Hen was having a go at me with that one, Liana. Hen, you can't classify everything under one banner. And I'm not "snobbish" because - how many times must I say this? - I don't think of poetry as a higher art volume. I think it says tons about other people's prejudices that they assume that it is a classification to be strived for. I'm starting to lose interest in this debate (which admittedly I started!) since I'm starting to melt on my position anyway. I wrote this - http://www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewStory.cgi?s=29476 (Shameless self promotion. Heh heh.) - to fulfil the declaration that I'd try to write free verse, again. After reading a bit of T S Eliot, I realised that you can give a feeling (illusion) of rhythm with repetition. And of course a little rhyme gives a little nod back to the old school, helping again to create this illusion. I felt comfortable writing in this way, and I certainly will again. I'm starting to form opinions on good free verse and bad free verse. I'm making progress, and much happier. It surprises me Ian claims to know nothing about meter - his stuff seems to have a reasonably hard rhythm. From memory anyway, I'll have another look. Maybe you're a natural, Ian! Don't be "troubled". This is not about "greater and lesser gods" ; it's just a few weirdos with nothing better to do than debate the parameters of poetry. I don't think the greatness or lessness (a word?) of anything is defined by the form it takes. But I don't think there's anything wrong with categories - they help us find what we want.

Correction: "higher art form" not "higher art volume"

i have lost the thread ... or do i mean the will to live? ...