What's mildly irritating you today?

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Juniper

No, I see the value in free verse - it's all very artsy and out there and open to interpretation, much like modern art. I just don't care for it. I don't want to have to work that hard at understanding something. Life is hard enough, why do we have to make it worse?

I do like structured poetry, like cinquains, haiku, etc. That is FUN.

But you don't necessarily have to work hard at free verse. Sometimes it is simply beautiful images that make perfect sense and don't rhyme.

This poem stayed with me for years because of the wonderful image of an Autumn day being able to keep you warm in Winter. This one because it ties in with the embarrassment but also sly excitement of a love-bite, and the wonderful image of being turned inside out by desire. This for the sheer cleverness - it amazes me - one day I will write a similar poem, but it will be hard work. And finally (although I could go on all day!) this lovely one from U A Fanthorpe, who writes proper, structured poems with great care and detail, which just don't happen to rhyme. I know most of My Brother's House by heart - it just has lines that stay with you, "I regret the passing/ Of my brother's house. It was like living in Rome/ Before the barbarians."

(all links are to poetry posted in the Cellar)

I will stop now. Tastes in poetry are as individual as tastes in music and there is no right and wrong. I just wanted to put some structured non-rhyming poems your way.