The Line and Length of a Poem or Let the Length or Not Be With You

Sometimes, I write short poems.  Sometime, I write long poems.  Sometimes, I write poems that aren’t long or short.  It depends on the poem, in my opinion, as to how long it is.

At first, when I wrote poems, they were probably around 4-5 verses or about half a page.  Later on, I wrote longer 2 page poems.  I even wrote a poem novel.  A poem novel is a novel like story told in mostly prose poems, or free verse maybe even rhymes.

I read poetry all the time and noticed some of my favorite poets were writing or wrote short poems.  Also some of those short word count short stories came to mind as well.  I thought I would try my hand at writing short poems.  Oh I’ve written some haiku and light verse poems.  These short poems would be short free verse poems.

To me, the poem will let you know the line length.  You will feel it as you write or edit it later.

I spent some time writing shorter poems.  Sometimes, I even wrote poems that filled a page but the lines were only one word each, maybe two.

I tend to write in the style of using a matching word count on each line.  By that, I mean that I’m using exactly 4 words on each line or maybe 3 words on one line, 4 words on the next and so on.

I write how I feel it best fits the poem.  I have written a few longer poems.  One of my favorites is a 3 page poem in my poetry book “The Architect of French Fries” published by Presa Press in 2019.  It’s a poem about what might happen in the event of a nuclear war.  The poem is based on a very real conversation I had sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Washington DC in Spring.  The restaurant was playing Christmas music the whole time, even in Spring, giving the conversation, and my poem, a very surreal eerie feel.

I‘ve written a couple of other longer poems, both for 2 new poetry manuscripts I’m finishing up.  The first one is 8 pages long about computers.  The other one in the other manuscript is 17 pages long - yes, 17 pages!  It’s about writing.

I want to shout from the virtual rooftops, or screens, that hey yes you people who hear me read poems at readings (locally) and then comment your poems are sure short, you sure get to the punchline really quick, that hey yes, I do write longer poems and oh yes I’ve just finished one that is 17 pages long!  Now, it’s not a dense poem, like other poets might write.  If I want to write a novel, novella, story, then I will not put it in a poem.

I think the line length will come to you as you write.  I think you do need to consider the message of your poem when you write, and don’t make it so long or so dense that readers lose interest or can’t understand it.

The words, verses, use of space and lines and what your poem is saying is so much of what the poem is about versus how long or short it is.  No matter what, your line length is yours and yours alone!