My favorite verse forms

It’s been a long time since I wrote poetry, honestly too long. When I was writing poetry fairly regularly , I wrote a mixture of free verse and formed verse, and enjoyed both. Verse forms are fun because they’re an exercise in constrained writing , which provides just enough structure to make the poem a sort of puzzle to be solved. The rhythm, rhyme, and repetition baked into the form can also improve the experience for the reader, provided it’s done well , of course. So, for the May 2026 bear.blog carnival