Wow. I have tears in my eyes. First off, I don't ever even try to write poetry because of all the "rules" (and I SUCK at rules!!!) but I have written some songs, so I suppose those almost count as poetry... although I didn't follow rules for those, either!
This really struck a chord with me
You try to break out of the cell,
to break up the clot in your throat,
to break it down into small chunks, that will make sense,
to those that did not have pieces of themselves broken off.
I have been struggling with depression lately and it has felt more than a little overwhelming lately for reasons I can't begin to put my finger on... but these words really captured a lot of what I've been feeling.
Thanks for sharing.
VERY moving poem, maybe in part because you didn't follow "rules" :/
I actually think of songs as a more structured form of free-verse poetry :D
Also, about rules. It's not that I actively break rules, or that I just write willy-nilly, but I let the poem go where it wants to. And there's a difference between going against rules, and just not following rules. Actively going against rules, if you do it all the time, is about as constraining as following rules, you know? I often break the rules in specific places, and that makes it serve a point.
But it is always about what the poem calls for, rather than slavishly going for something without considering it carefully.
Also, this poem, I went for the universal with this one. It naturally covers the way I feel about these things, and how I've felt when I wrote this poem, but I went and tried to be "universal," also in order to show that going for "no abstractions" ends up with you not being able to reach for generalizations, which sounds sweet, until you realize that "generalizations" is what the universal is made out of.
Scar Tissue, my poem from last week is on the other end of the spectrum, where I commit the opposite poetic sin, where I make use of personal imagery and mythology. That one is intensely personal. It's also part of why this piece came to be - I still felt the same thing, and I thought, "I don't actually have anything more to say. I already said everything I had to say of what I felt," and then realized that I still wanted to speak.
And that the bit of wanting to speak with nothing new to say is also indicative of depression.
Hope you feel better Byn. I know, I really do, how hard it can be.
Thank you. For me, it's not that I refuse to follow the rules, my writing just doesn't work well within the bounds of how poetry is "supposed" to be... of course maybe I don't really understand what the actual rules are. I just know what I enjoy reading and this was one of them! I guess I really like to read things that speak to me, things I can relate to, so this spoke to me in that way as well.
Glad you liked it!
Am looking forward to reading your non-rules-following poetry. I'll be happy to give you critique in private as well on the Isle if you want directions.
To be frank, I feel many poems would've been improved if the authors were just relaxed enough to go for free-verse over rhymes, you know?