But does it metaphor?

[plonq]

Free form poetry is something that I hesitate to classify as an art, or even acknowledge
as worthy of reading, let alone the subject of serious English studies at college.
To wit, to some people a "poem" is just creating a loose asymmetry.
Each line is a bit shorter than the one written above, but to me
that is just semantics, and formatting, and trite trickery.
While I cannot claim to be a master in the subject,
I have never understood free form poetry.
Maybe it's my uneducated, inner boor
who sees it as nothing more
than a lazy writer who
just won't take time
conforming to
meter or
rhyme.

Comments

[boinggoat.livejournal.com]

IMO it's not poetry if it doesn't rhyme.
You shouldn't go around saying "I'm a poet" if you can't rhyme.
The rhyming requirement is the only thing that makes poetry challenging at all. Without rhyme, it's just writing.

[aldisara.livejournal.com]

well, as someone who has read a lot of poetry as part of serious English studies in college, i do think that poetry is more than just versification. there is a lot of really great free verse out there, and although it does not have an overall meter or rhyme scheme, it does have structure. And frequently there is rhyme and meter buried in there, even if it is irregular. I can't remember the exact quote, but I do know that Pound put it pretty well in saying that, in free verse, poets are composing in the sequence of the musical phrase, and not in the sequence of the metronome. Think of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"--it's written in free verse but you can't deny that it is poetry, and you can hear the rhymes and iambic pentameter lines drifting in and out.

but if you were meaning more along the lines of gimmicky poetry like "concrete" poems (like this), then i'm with you there. and i like your little parody there :P