Can it be free verse if it rhymes?

.
The problem here is to deal with an issue that Oxford created last summer. One of the classes was the creative writing course taught by a good guy and a really terrific poet. I had no real interest in poetry and didn’t really pay much attention until it became obvious that all the others in the class wanted to be poets. They didn’t wear black turtlenecks or swig Red Mountain wine, but I noticed they did tend to snap their fingers when someone was reading a poem.

When we came home we had a Blog where we could post work and get comments from the other class members. Somewhere in this yearlong process I somehow, and I don’t know how, became interested in poetry. So poems I started to write.

I didn’t let a little thing like complete ignorance slow me down, I just started going with the flow. As I recently said to a friend, I’ve read maybe 20 poems in my life and I’ve written 10 of them. Even I can see something may be wrong with that picture.

Off I go to Oxford, my position is they created my current problem so they can straighten it out. I am taking my first class in poetry, but it’s class specifically dealing with two British poets, Robert Graves and A.C. Swinburne. While we won’t be dealing with form specifically, maybe something will rub off. The guy who taught the Shakespeare last summer is teaching this one, so I don’t go in completely blind. If he does half as well with the two poets as he did with the Bard, I will be a happy guy.

I hope at the end of this class to be able to answer the question, “What is a poem, anyway?” Boy, I sure don’t seem to know. I write these things that I think are poem like but what do I know? As I’ve said to a couple of people, my first book of poetry will be titled, “It’s a poem because I say it’s a poem.”

So, off I go to see if I can get answers before I go to far down the primrose path into blank verse oblivion. I have to find out so I can be sure if my all time favorite poem is really a poem.

Roses are red
Violets are purple.
Sugar is sweet
And so is Maple syruple