A perspective from the other side.

First, I must admit that I AM a poet… but I wasn’t always. A retired mainframe computer programmer, I wrote computer code and technical manuals for over thirty years. I am now an editor and novelist by trade, since that’s where the paychecks come from, but I am a poet in my heart.

Poetry—free-verse and formed—is an art form. You can enjoy modern abstract art, and still retain a respect for the classic masters. So too, should both forms of written art be appreciated.

Mental gymnastics? I agree, but it doesn’t mean these exercises are performed to display some assumed intellectual superiority. The “rules” aren’t constraining for classical poets, but are challenges to our skill at molding the language into shapes which deliver our message, while staying inside structured lines.

Does this make me less of a communicator?

I hope not.

In the end, the message matters, not the medium.