R and M or FV? Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

There is quite a debate for the poets in us, as to whether Rhythm and Meter or Free Verse is more popular at competition sites.

Here is your opportunity to tell us your thoughts.

Which do you prefer and why?

~Cleo  :read:

[Guest_Tao_*]

Hi Taita,

Glad to see you're okay. Didn't that hurricane past right through Tampa? I was wondering where in Florida you were located, but all’s well that ends well.

Thanks for firing the first salvo in this debate. Since you’ve professed your love for one, I’ll dare to champion the cause of the other. You’ve seen my not so smooth R&M, though I try. I also have FV posted here at MM, though probably more like hybrids. I tend to think I’m neutral on the subject, but that remains to be seen by others.

Human beings have always tried to apply structure to nature, the most comprehensive of which has got to be mathematics. There’s a formula to it, there must be! But even science admits that parts of nature are chaos and there are many “undefined” symbols in math, pi for instance. And just as other disciplines of human endeavor invariably end up as manifestations of patterns of nature, so does poetry. Like stock market returns and fashion, things run in cycles and over the long haul - revert to the mean.

As you said, there is good R&M as well as FV. I’ve read bad R&M and it came across worse than children rhymes, or worse yet, a bad commercial jingle. God knows, I’ve done a few that sounds like that. I’ve also read horrible free verse – scantly qualifying to be so-called poetry. Free verse should hardly be mere run-on sentences strung together or the discordant random placement of a few outrageous words. But then, different strokes!

If poetry were meant to be purely sang as songs, then they are songs. But if poetry were meant to detail an interview between the local café owner and his patron, it should be prose, an article. But the beauty of this beast is that it is neither. To me, poetry comes from the soul, and just as we drive different cars, souls speak in different tones.

I hate Rap! Yet it is R&M. It has rhyme and meter and in some cases the subject matter is pertinent. It is very much considered poetry by some. But it's just not my taste. And that's what it comes down to.

Good FV is not easy. It has an internal rhythm of its own and, I believe, if done well, rolls off the tongue like honey and good R&M. To find order in chaos, that takes skill! And, perhaps, once in a while, rules are meant to be broken, stretched?

You sir, have the floor... :)

David