To Form or Not To Form...That is the Question

For the 2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge, poets write a poem a day in November. Day 11 is to write a poetic form and/or anti-form poem. Some poetry adheres to form, like river-banks to curb a tide... Some skim the surface for sun-pearls... Some poetry adheres to form, like river-banks to curb a tideThat rushes like a gushing storm where folly and wisdom collideWhere we are at the mercy of the littleness of what we think Yet wild with wonderment and love for possibilities of ink Sometimes hunger and thirst unfurls a torrential tug of warThat foams and frets, surges and swirls like floodwaters without a shoreUntil meter and form command the chaos where thought's battles wageAnd resistance melts in the hand that moves between the mind and page Long live the age-old song and dance of sonnet, ballad, villanelleThy iambic lyric enchants the wanderer of parchment fell And kindles in fathoms of thought a fresh onslaught of noun and verbTo taunt Troubadour's jaunt and jot with font that only form can curb To thee of footloose fantasy and rebel to rhythm and rhyme Who prefer free verse odyssey to forms withstanding tests of time Blessings on thee, but do not scorn the poetry that lilts and brims And winds between the banks of form to storm thought's holy grail with hymns Form is not tyranny, my friend, nor superior to the spawnOf fine and noble prose to bend the rules that form insists upon So, here's to every work of art wrought with humble regard for inkAnd reverence for every heart touched by some littleness we think Some poets love the challenge of surrendering to tempo-ties Like a tango where word-impassioned lover's clash and compromise Darling, the world of words unfurls ballrooms and oceanic sweepsSome skim the surface for sun-pearls, some dredge its diamond-metered deeps  Janet Martin