Poetic Licence?

Is poetry the highest form of creative writing? There are those who will so lay claim but of course this is debatable. For me, poetry is the essence of creative writing but more important is the fact that all writing requires, no, demands that the writer strive for excellence.

Please people, I agree that poets possess poetic licence to break conventional rules of writing but at least one should be aware of the rules that are being broken and why (e.g. local or Caribbean dialectal constructs); rules should not be broken 'vikey vie' i.e. thoughtlessly and erratically without any deliberation.

Poetic licence certainly does not give one the right to arbitrarily write bad grammar (e.g. tense, subject/verb singular/plural agreement, etc), bad punctuation, bad spelling, typos and generally sloppy writing. Please proof read or edit your poems before posting or publishing.

And while we are at it, let's dispel the sorry myth about getting inspiration, writing a poem and not daring to touch it afterwards even if it is full of crap. If you recognize an error or something that can be improved, give it some thought and make corrections; and please, correct the typos picked up, even after posting, cause if you don't readers will recognize them.

Althea Romeo-Mark says "...a freshly composed poem is like a block of marble or a large piece of wood that must be chiseled and carved until it reaches a shape of perfection that pleases the eye. Similar with a raw poem, you chisel away excess words until you reach a form that is concise, concrete and conveys meaning in brief, vivid phrases that evoke a response in the reader."

Let's take some pride in our work. If we don't we are doing a disservice to both ourselves and other poets who would like readers to take poetry seriously.