Originally posted at Youthpad.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m not a big fan of poetry. Especially free verse. Yes, there are certain exceptions but on the whole I’d rather be thrown out of a spaceship with no chance of rescue than be read poetry to. Somehow, poets have this superiority complex over ‘heathens’ who write prose. So to get my point across to such so-called poets writing free verse, here’s a poem written by me:

Lemme discuss this new trend in poetry
called ‘free verse’, which I detest.
If you’ve studied English literature
you’d have noticed some poems,
which have no set rhyme scheme.
Oh, the agony I suffer
whenever I come across such atrocities.
Forced I was, to read such shit
when I was in school.
Oh, the joy I feel
now I know that I no longer have to do that.
When done properly,
free verse can be quite readable.
Alas! More often than not it’s just a tool
for people who can’t write poetry
to save their life.
Write a few sentences,
somewhere midway in the poem
throw in a few hoity-toity words -
’sepulchural’, ‘guttural’, or maybe even ‘jiggery-pokery’
- hit the enter key a few times,
and voila!
And if you don’t ‘get’
what is going on in this post
- why, it’s an attempt at parody of course!
Great respect for rhyming poems I have
none for free verse I do;
next time you come across such a ‘poem’
tear away the page, you should.
This poem, by the way,
was my first – and last.