Science or Art, IP, abab Options

[jgdittier]

Is poetry a science or an art,
its form an inmate's solitary state,
enchained by prose's flavor, naught but tart,
encased in walls of brick or solid slate?

When wisdom rules as commeth forth from mind;
if crystal hard, a mold, no choice allows.
Behold, we've verse of scientific kind,
less choice for guffaws, nor for laughs and howls.

If verse is art, the poet then is free
to entertain us any way his muse
can choose, like Charlie on "Berg's" knee,
and none of Milton's methods man may lose.

May bards e'er be the forces to elate,
humanity's approach to verse, sublime
and pray our minds we vow to never sate
and lose these joys we nurse with beat and rhyme.

note "Berg's" =Edgar Bergin, ventriloquist/humorist,
Charlie McCarthy was his dummy

[jgdittier]

Dear James,
You do keep the board active and it's the active boards that
draw the postings!
Re emotional pieces in free verse, I can understand that dropping R&R opens the door for emphasis on message/expression. I don't know how to write such pieces as I've no such training but do understand that others who have been trained can write in that style.

It was forced rhyme, not Poe, now held in low regard.

Yore for me means past. Those who write in the style of yore are poets of yore.

"Why a necessity? If they were very inventive could they not do better?"  Are you talking about style of yore or fv? Our archives of style of yore poetry would be perhaps 10% of what exists as it's (my opinion) 10x harder to write R&R with all the modern restrictions.
As to fv, more invention might be used to include R&R? No?

I'd use modern as defined in a dictionary, not in a poetry text book.

It seems we both appreciate a respect for freedom in what we call poetry. You appreciate the freedom to be relieved from established
meter and rhyme. I appreciate the freedom to write within the constraints of meter and rhyme but it a style far removed from prose.

Cheers,      jgd