Does poetry always have to be in a form? Can you not just write from the heart or from experience?

If you "just write from the heart or from experience" without form, it is just prose, not poetry. BTW, "prose poetry" is an oxymoron.

Personally, I think all good writers write from the heart or from experience, but not all good writers make good poets. Being neither a good writer nor a poet, I’m left with just my own humble opinions about what I think it takes to be one or the other.

Did you ever feel that words could not describe a particular feeling or experience? If you can imagine an emotion, or a thought, or an abstract idea that you can’t possibly convey to someone else using just words alone then I think you are close to appreciating the difference between prose and poetry. For the poet selects his words carefully for their explicit and suggestive meanings, and for all of their subtle nuances. Then he arranges them into a form that applies meter, rhyme, alliteration, and an array of homonyms or polysemes, to produce mental images that reveal the multiple layers of a profound idea. I firmly believe that poetry should be read aloud so the sounds of the words can add still further meanings that will be resonated by the sense of hearing. Poetry requires more effort from both the author and the audience, which accounts, at least in part, for fewer poets speaking to a smaller audience. Poetry is not the best medium for simple concepts or for simple words having simple meanings. Poetry, not only requires analysis, poetry demands it. One should never stop looking for the meanings in a poem because the poet will only make his meanings clear to those who invest the time to scrutinize his words.

Joyce Kilmer could have said that he thought that a tree was a wonderful sight to behold, that it revealed to him some of the mysteries of life, or that it suggested that men were not all they thought themselves to be. He could have that but instead he said,

"Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.”

Q.

love to write poetry, it influences many thoughts thoughout the mind and the world ! Poetry is abstract in the mind but once printed or written it exposes what someone is thinking . Sometimes somone may get a painting while observing it but some just say it looks like a bunch of colors and lines and shapes, when you write poetry explode onto the paper like an artist explodes on his canvas. Keep writing poetry.

I was just about to post a little verse up on my hub and I was thinking about form; frustrated from knowing that what comes to the surface of my heart does not always conform to required form. Further, if... keep reading →

I very rarely write in form. The funny thing - the wonderful thing about poetry is that when you write from the heart, it takes a form all its own.

You can write poetry anyway you want too.

I write a lot from my heart, I ask God for words.....Kind Words....

and he gives them to me. I write about people, things they might be going through, what I see in them, or hear, or even feel.

Poetry can be expressed through many styles. I really don't know any of them specifically. But I don't write alot....I journal alot. I study...

I get on the computer and answer questions:)

Peotry is an extension of your emotions and how you feel,it's about expression form everything anything nothing or something it's what ever you want it to be.

I believe you can! Poetry, like life itself, is whatever you want it to be. Personally, I believe a lot more in conveying emotions in words than concentrating on doing something most people would not notice anyway! My first, and only Hub "how to write a love poem" talks about this :-) Good question.

David.

I wonder what definitions of poetry there are? I see them as simply compressed language. No, they don't have to be in a form at all.