Does a poem need some sort of discipline to it?

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By the question in the title, I mean to ask whether - in order to be of good quality - a poem needs to have some sort metre or rhyme. Is, do you think, free verse poetry just too unfixed and arbitrary to be of any worth? Do you go further yet, and say that something isn't a poem unless it conforms to a strict metre and rhyme-scheme? Or are you of the opinion that poetry shouldn't have to be limited by metre or by rhyme?

I am not sure on this issue. I don't think rhyme is necessary, but totally free verse seems, to me, too undisciplined.

it needs something, a rythm at least, or the words have to be at least beautiful and they have to make you think.

No.

Art is art... there don't need to be any rules.

Of course, there's good and bad poetry but that's all subjective.


A binary poem...

11001011 11001011
001 001 001 11001011
110 110 110 11001011
11001011 11001011

As you can see it has structure and rhyme... but is it good poetry? probably not.

no

I feel it requires some sort of discipline, especially if you desire to do it professionally. Structure is jsut as important as imagery and the other aspects of poetry. It's much more hit and miss than prose, as different styles have different appeals.

Of course, if you're jsut writing it for fun, there's nothing stopping you from writing, not even being undisciplined

I tried to translate it, but it doesn't divide by eight, so I got nothing.

~



If there were entirely no rules, then I think there would only be one kind of art. This might seem a nutty thing to say, but I'll explain why I think this - it is possible to tell the difference between two types of art by what is accepted in them (traditionally, physical movement is used in dancing but not in painting, for example). If there were no rules then there would be nothing to distinguish between arts, for anything would be allowed to be put anywhere and thus there would only be one, universal, kind of art. It would be a mess, I think.

Of course, that doesn't mean there need to be strict rules, only the general ones that distinguish poetry from painting (poetry in language, painting in picture [and I understand these are traditional rules and not immutable law]).

But, I think that when it comes to poetry, fully free verse tends to come off as a chaos, because it isn't so controlled an environment - causing the poet to just write whatever they feel.

Ok, you might think that sounds like an odd thing to complain about, since the poet is supposed to be writing what they feel. But I think it is possible to do that in a disciplined fashion, and that if a poet can write exactly what they want to write while working in a discipline then it is superior to writings by a poet who is not working to discipline.

I think this because I believe order to have its own beauty, so a poem written in discipline will have an extra dimension of beauty when compared to one without order.

I'm not meaning to say that a free-verse poem is certain to be worthless (and so, I think I failed to express my question correctly in my original post) - but rather that I think a poem of some set form will, if all other things are equal, be the better poem.

I think like anything, having a set of rules helps you enrich the quality of what you can come up with from within those confines.

My best advice is this - know what you wish to set out for. If you can figure that out you'll be able to more easily find a structure that will aid and enhance your point rather than put you in a creative straight-jacket.

I tend to be one personally that when I read poetry, what seems to matter more are the quality of the phonetics to the idea - the kind of rhythm and swagger it has. Having it rhyme at the end of every bar seems almost a little callow. If you have something that's driving, dramtic, urgent - you structure the flow as such. If its supposed to have a descending kind of feel - build that in with the sounds of the syllables, choice of words, etc. That's where the art really happens - making the idea of the poem meet the audible texture of the words themeselves and their cadence.

Good advice.

I went to an art gallery in Paris once where they had an exhibition, which turned out to be meat sliced in various "artistic?" ways.

IMHO, it wasn't good art but equally, it wasn't confined by the structure.

The intent of any artistic effort is to give the observer, reader, listener something new in their life. It can be done in many ways. In poetry rhythm and rhyme can be amusing and helpful and the novel use of expressions and words does wonders. Robert Frost once remarked that poetry without rules is like playing tennis without a net. I sometimes use anything that will help me give the reader something new and interesting and hopefully, exciting. If you can find those things in your own writing, it's likely someone else will find it too.

Here is one of mine:

LISTEN, DANTE

Awkward structures sail
On rigid rails of velocity and gravity
Amongst the planets of the Sun.
Metal ears and crystal eyes
Pay stiff attention
To the visibles and invisibles
Which stream through space.
Whispers call out
To those indoctrinated
In their arcane tongue.
Secrets tell of terribles
Of our family of worlds.
Jupiter and Saturn
Would embrace you heavily
To death,
While stuffing noxious gas
Into your lungs.
Venus and Mercury
Would, in a snap,
Bake you to a crisp.
Our moon, of two minds,
Would fry you in its day
And freeze you at night.
Gentle Mars
Might alot a moment out of misery
Before it snuffs you out.
Aside from Io,
Where volcanic fury
Would tear you to shreds,
And Europa, where you might enjoy
The clash of surface ice
Over freezing underwater turbulence,
All other planetary grounds
Would suck away your heat of life
And choke you in a vacuum.
The skies are resplendent
In varieties of hell.
Earth is heaven.