Is there nothing sweeter than the melodious flow of poetry? ...chocolate for one. Or honey. Or anything with sugar in it, really. But I digress. The occasionally melodious flow of poetry is like a kraken: sneaky and subversive, until it's too late and the tentacles of free verse suck you down into brine-y oblivion...or something like that.

There are countless formats to writing poetry, but I'm a personal fan of the free verse style. For one, it gives the most options in writing whatever imagery and themes you want to portray. Sure, I like a haiku or a sonnet every once and a while. But at least with free verse, you're welcome to pretty much do as you please – in the name of poetic license no less. (If your poet license has expired, then don't attempt to do free verse, or any type of verse, for that matter. Or you may get into trouble.)

But, presuming that your poetic license is still valid, then free verse poetry gives you the widest range of format to portray whatever concepts and imagery happens to be your focus at the moment. You don't have to worry about stanzas, rhyming schemes, syllable counts, grammar, or even punctuation. Spelling still counts, though. Spelling always counts.

As with all things in this reality, there is a downside to free verse poetry, and that is academic recognition. For some Gods only known reason, structured format poetry is still considered more poetically appropriate and accepted in higher education and "professional" groups. I think they're just grumpy because they had to learn all the structured format rules and now they're not mandatory anymore.

Now that's not to say that structured formats should be ignored completely. Look at the iconic poets like Shakespeare (Yeah, okay, he's also a playwright, but you get the idea.) But then you can branch off to poetic styles like Urdu Mushaira gatherings which make me think of open mic night in a hipster club...if mics weren't so mainstream and all. Some poets go so far as to effectively write flash fiction, trim out words, chop off lines, sprinkle some punctuation, and voila - unstructured poetry.

Just shows that any style has its followers and its superiors.

Will you become one of them? Your chances are about the same as winning a roulette game against a blind demon. Chances are no, but that's not to say you can't become proficient, popular, or accredited while writing poetry. (If you do, remember us little bloggers.)

You'll stand a better chance of success if you're good at marketing and salesmanship. There aren't many poet advertisers out there in this world, so a lot of it will be up to you. Whether it's free verse or structured, your poetry will speak for you. Just find it the proper venue and make sure the acoustics are good. Magazines, collected poems, competitions. They're all ways to get your work and your name out towards the general poem-loving readers.

Don't be like me, writing dozens of various poems, tacking them on a wall to poke and prod, then letting them collect dust in a binder under a stack of story drafts in a corner of my room. What are your preferred poetic styles and outlets? Are there any of you out there who writes nothing but poetry?