hipster flare16 Jan 2003

Here's my point, if you don't keep to the form of a particular type of poem, then classify it as "freeform". The idea behind a poem following a certain style is the fact that the poet recognizes the constraints and used the constraints to free their creative process. Maintaining a form continues a tradition---and I'm all for doing your own thing--Don't get me wrong. But you can't call a tent a house just because you want to- to hell with an agreed upon format. Go ahead and do your own thing, expirement with rhyme schemes, etc., but doing so slips your poem into a different category. that is my point. your poems have ceased to be limericks as soon as they deviated from the traditional format. I do believe that you are capable of writing a limerick that meets the definition of one. These, however, are misclassified.