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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/44326
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/44326
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Like most kids, I went through the All Poetry Must Rhyme phase.

Then a little later in school, rhyme was less essential (especially in English, a less rhyme-compatible language than many other Romance ones) -- it was all about Meter and Structured Forms.

But I know there's more than that. Some people focus on crystalline imagery and perfect words. Often it seems to be "all about the line breaks."

But if I typically write precisely, with a bit of internal flair, what differentiates

- me writing up about dream for a casual blog post, 

from

- me writing about a dream to be one poem in a collection in a chapbook (or submitted to a magazine or whatnot)?

(Similar to [What makes a poem a poem?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/29092/what-makes-a-poem-a-poem) , which seems about the continuum between prose and poetry - looking mostly at formal, pre-published works. My question aims more at the casual side: **how casual can it be and still be a poem?**

Related -- I don't think "_amount of effort_" is what counts -- oral tradition built on rhyming units or phrases with distinct rhythmic value (rose-fingered dawn), and rappers/lyricists are similarly immersed in rhyme and meter, so work that would be hard for me could be easier for them; and others struggle with academic writing, but in undergrad, I could do that 20 minutes before the paper was due.

Original score: 7