What Exactly are the Rules of Poetry?

Poetry is like pornography in this respect - no one seems able to define it, but they know it when they see it. Poetry is an elusive concept for many. They think that if something is written in four-line verses, then it must be poetry. Or if it is written in short-line, truncated sentences, then that qualifies as well. Some seem to think that anything written about love or sex or flowers is poetry, while others think that making a list of single words will suffice. If you can make your political views about how you hate the President rhyme, then you must be a poet laureate! There are many readers out there who would certainly applaud you for it.

So are there rules regarding the writing of poetry? Yes.

And no.

If you are writing a Shakespearean sonnet, for instance, you would construct them with three four-line stanzas (called quatrains) and a final couplet composed in iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.

Iambic pentameter means a line with 5 iambic feet. Since each iamb is two syllables, that means each line should have ten syllables. Yet if you read enough sonnets, you will see that writers will break the "ten-syllable rule" at times.

Does this make it less of a sonnet? Of course not.

Let's take a look at punctuation.

I've run into some readers who will ding a writer left and right if they don't use punctuation. While I generally do use punctuation, there are times when what I write seems to defy its use. I will acquiesce to the demands of the piece and let it work on its own merit, and I'm OK with that. E.E. Cummings (sorry for the uppercase letters e.e. lol) either used punctuation in traditional and nontraditional ways or left it out altogether. He was about flaunting an anti-establishment approach to his work.

Would e.e. cummings be criticized for this experimental and bold approach? He probably was in his day, but he is now accepted for what he was - a groundbreaking poet.

So what about the rules of poetry?

Perhaps they are more like guidelines than rules, for they seem to be somewhat flexible.
However, they should not necessarily be tossed out with the bathwater.

There is at least one rule I can think of that is very pertinent to poetry.

That is this...

DON'T BORE THE READER.