I'm going to convey something to you that I have experienced in a writing group.  As you can see from my work, I love meter and rhyme.  I enjoy the structure that I can bring to my poetry.  My influences have been Claude McKay, Oscar Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Nikki Giovanni, William Shakespeare, and Edgar Allen Poe, all of whom used rhyme and meter with brilliance.

In my writing group, there are some young people, slaves to the Internet, who tell me that their professor states that to take away rhyming takes away the poetic net, therefore, making the work come alive in free verse.  An obvious advocate of free verse, I explained and listed the poets above who also rhymed.  I also mentioned that with experience and time, she too, will not elevate her professor as some celestial intellectual, never to be challenged or questioned.

Yes, I have written some poetry in free verse, but I admit I enjoy the discipline of my own style and technique.  I am not perfect, but I am grateful to many people who believed in me, especially my mother.  Without them, I would not have had the courage to put my life and feelings in print her and in books for all the world to see.

Your Style of Writing

Thanks, Edgar