Activity

@sir-leeds, I agree with you that poetry should be genuine, but I disagree with your diagnosis. If you’re sacrificing meter and rhyming scheme for genuineness, all you’re left with is genuineness–no poetry at all. There are some themes that poetry was not meant to cover: some topics/themes that cannot be both what you describe as genuine and also a poem. That doesn’t mean that the topic/theme cannot be excellent elsewhere. But I would say that if you have to sacrifice the heart of poetry (meter certainly and arguably rhyme scheme) in order to reach the soul of genuineness, you are trying to squeeze a topic into a poem that would be better art somewhere else. An essay, or a short story, or some other medium.