I hope you won’t mind

A little free verse for this poem.

I suppose I could follow a format

Or rules or such,

If it were required of me.

I mean, in some areas of life, rules are desperately needed,

Like in games,

Or classrooms,

Or societal norms

(Okay, that last one’s a stretch,

Those should always be questioned…

At least, in my opinion).

But with something like poetry,

You can’t always follow set rules and formats.

You should rather follow your heart.

And…well…my heart says free verse.

 

But so what about rules?

Poetry’s supposed to be fun.

Right?

 

At least, that’s the impression Shel Silverstein gave me.

I’ll always look back fondly on his poems,

On reading them in my room in private

Or reciting them aloud for Drama.

“Ladies First”, “Kidnapped”, and more.

Sooo much fun.

Slightly dark.

But they always made me smile.

He didn’t have a set format that he always followed.

Sure, they all rhymed.

But otherwise…

It was about the fun!

For me, anyway.

 

“But poems need meaning!

They say something important!”

Do they though?

…Okay yeah, a lot of them do. 

But you don’t always need a format

(Or rules)

To do that.

 

Just look at Walt Whitman and “O Me! O Life!”

That was free verse,

With no set structure

Or rhyming scheme

(In fact, I don’t see any intentional rhymes).

Yet it still questions life,

And it’s “endless trains of the faithless”,

And it’s “cities fill’d with the foolish”.

It still says

“What good amid these, O me, O life?”

And it gives an answer:

That we are here,

That life, “the powerful play”,

Goes on.

That we may live in it

And “contribute a verse.”

 

Not bad for a poem with no structure and rhyme, huh?

 

So what do these two examples teach me?

That you don’t need a set format,

That you don’t always need to follow the rules

In order to say what’s on your mind.

Or what’s in your heart.

You can be silly and have fun.

Or you can be serious and spout profound meaning and wisdom.

Just…

Be you while you do it.