People think they can write poetry. And with free verse, certainly everybody thinks they can. But the fact is almost nobody can write poetry. People mistake the ability to write verse with the ability to write poetry. Doggerel is also not poetry.

The real problem is that we have been telling students that anyone can write poetry, they just have to express themselves, put their feelings on the page or some such nonsense. People have more respect for musicians than poets in no small part because you KNOW you can't play an instrument if you can't play an instrument. You can't fake it.

The same, though, is actually true of poetry. If you can't draw me a photorealistic drawing, you are absolutely not an artist. If you can't write a couple lines of iambic pentameter without even thinking about it, if you can't write me a sonnet, then you aren't a poet. Neither of which means those have to be your preferred styles. But if you can't draw a photorealistic drawing, that just tells me you are throwing paint around because you simply can't do anything. To be an artist means you have mastered a set of skills. You're not being creative if you can't do it right in the first place. You're just excusing your inabilities.