You like those poems
Americans write
where some lines
are just
one
word

Emphasis

And nowadays
it’s all the rage
to write poems
with slashes/which
really have no/
purpose/that
a line break
wouldn’t achieve.

And as for rhyme…
No one’s allowed
to use that
except
Performance
Poets
who force in rhymes
where they’re not/needed
making their poems
cheesy as fuck
like a duck who’s
outta luck and
down to the last buck…

Musicality?
If you like your /music
obvious.
Bubblegum in 4/4.

And while we’re
on that subject
what’s a metaphor
for?
Beats/ me

Image credit:cal gao
Marc Woodward

http://marcwoodwardpoetry.blogspot.com/

 

Marc Woodward is a poet whose work has been widely published, and a musician (though now retired due to Parkinson’s Disease) who has performed and taught internationally.

He won the 2025 Hippocrates International Prize for Poetry in Medicine and has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, commended for the Aesthetica Award and Acumen prize and is a Pushcart nominee.

A New Yorker by accident of birth, he has been resident in rural Devon, England for a loooooong time.

Recent collections:

‘Fright of Jays’ published 2015 by Maquette Press;

’Hide Songs’  published 2018 by Green Bottle Press.

’The Tin Lodes’ (co-written with Andy Brown) published 2020 by Indigo Dreams Press.

‘Shaking the Persimmon Tree’ published in 2022 by Sea Crow Press,

‘Grace Notes’ - a collection of music related poems written in collaboration with Andy Brown, Sea Crow Press, 2023.

 

He can be found on Insta @marcowoodward

and Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/marcowoodward

 

and on twitter @marcomando or at www.marcwoodwardpoetry.blogspot.com