Poetry...

I have never been a big fan of poetry. I don't think it has to rhyme to get your point across. I did use to have a friend that wrote me pretty poetry but he doesn't do that anymore.

You are a 100% correct. Poetry does not necessarily have to rhyme.Such a poem is said to have blank verse.Also a poem can be 100s of pages long or just a few lines. I write poems too. Some of them rhyme while others don't. Paradise lost by John Milton, which is one of the most famous works of Milton, was also a poem with blank verse.

A lot of poetry doesn't rhyme. I don't think it matters that much. I guess it depends on what kind of poetry the reader enjoys, but if the poet has something to say, odds are their is someone out there who will enjoy it, whether it rhymes or not. Haikus, for example are fun to read.

The only kind of poetry I write now is sonnets. I love the discipline of the the rhyme. It keeps me on task. I find I wonder all over the place with free verse. I have had a book of my sonnets published. Cat-House Sonnets, 100 poems celebrating cats, has won the Muse Medallion from the Cat Writers Association.

Poetry doesn't have to rhyme at all! I absolutely hate rhyming poetry because it usually sound so forced; like you said: it sacrifices the feeling of the poem. There are some well written rhyming poems out there, I just hate writing them myself.

I have written poetry ever since high school. I always thought of poetry only in rhyme form until I became interested in haiku and free verse. Now, poetry is just something that speaks to the soul. It doesn't necessarily have to rhyme anymore to be a poem.

Hi eternal_ink, You are right, poetry doesn't have to rhyme, in fact few write poetry that rhymes today. It's just has to be you and how you feel. The poetry that I've written does rhyme but that's what works for me. I was always a fan of the older poets who always wrote that way, besides it comes easily to me because that's who I am. Blessings.