Poetry Forms

There is a page of "Poetry Forms" at Sol-Magazine which could prove useful to beginning poets, or might even introduce more experienced poets to a new form or two. I have seen some other sites, but will link to them another time.

Sometimes poetry can be the perfect answer to an urge to write creatively without being such a long piece of writing like a novel or even a short story. I used to just write stuff that "sounded" like a poem, which I suppose was bringing out a natural rhythm, and there isn't anything wrong with writing that way, but it is also enjoyable to take an established form, such as haiku or sonnet and work with those, following the rules.

The discipline of fitting your ideas to the forms of poetry can be useful practice for all writing. The same thing holds with writing those little 5-paragraph essays. If you have neglected developing your writing skills in any disciplined way, you can start with these short pieces and work on those without feeling like you are spending too much time on it. And it'll fit in with your daily schedule of work, kids, pets, errands, etc.