Free verse is great,
when used by great poets,
but it seems that it has more recently become
a way for amateur poets
to be lazy.

To take opinions,
expressed in prose
and convince the world its poetry.
What is the beauty of poetry if not
in seeing how the poet commands
the language?

To write a sonnet,
To write a limerick,
To use iambic pentameter,
The poet must form the language
to fit the structure,
accomplish the meter.

The poet has to find
creative ways of expressing
a thought that fits within the structure.
Free verse does 'free the poet' to express ideas.

There is a lot of great
free verse poetry.
Because it allows
for an arrangement of ideas
without a strict form.

Sadly it also
frees the poet to be,
Well, un-poetic.
Is it a poem, really,
with not a single simile,
no metaphore, hyperbole,
no alliteration, no assoonance,
no meter, no rhyme?

If your not using
any poetic devices at all,
is this really poetry?
Or just prose in disguise?