the hardest step in not sucking major butt in poetry

I didn't start out a poet. A lot of people are like me, a lot of people write plays, short stories etc etc to find out what they like and go with it. By the time I began writing poetry I walked headfirst into the biggest trap you find right inside the doorway.

Everytime I began a line with the best of intentions, with a clean and clear idea to present...I would write it and then when I began the next line a part of me would say "Well, you know a poet is supposed to rhyme the last word of that last line. C'mon kid what is your rhyme scheme here? You haven't thought of one? OH...I see your just going to take this line off....lazy moron." Needless to say it was not my kindest inner voice but it was based off of all the preconceived expections i had of poetry. The idea that what makes poetry poetic is rhyming and thats it. If it rhymes it is and if it doesn't it isn't.

If your laughing at my stupidity then you should come to the North Star Cafe, a lot of new people fresh into performing or reading will get up there and suffer the same problem. What problem? What is wrong with rhyming all the time? Well outside of writing verse that sounds like roadblock from GI Joe it takes you out of the theme and point of your topic, it puts you in a frame of mind where all you want to do is find something even moderately related with "that sound" to it.

My solution is simple, poetry is what we all agree is poetry so just write it. Just write what you need to write the best you can and if it sucks it won't be poetry it will be deleted or thrown away. If its good work on it, understand its individual form, like dating. You don't try and fit that person into a box that fits anyone within a genre you take that person as unique and just listen and understand. Don't force anything. The same applies.