: Re: Everything I write ends up being a rhyming poem, or lyrics maybe I have been writing for awhile and decided to write a memoir, except I can’t seem to write anything but poetry. However,

@Sarah872

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Back before written language became common, nearly all long literature was in verse because it was the only way people could remember it. And as recently as a hundred years ago, it was still common for people to write long epic narrative poems.

Even today, it's it's unusual, but not unheard of to have longer narrative works in verse. One famous recent example is Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish (a novel by...). However, something much closer to what you have in mind might be the famous "choreopoem," "for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf", which is generally staged as a play, but which is also available as a stand-alone "novel." I don't have examples at hand, but I've seen more than one recent young adult novel written as a collection of poems, generally using current slang and styles --so it is possible to publish successfully in that format.

Your best bet, at this point --as for most poets! --would be to find a local community that appreciates and supports the type of art you produce (most larger communities have at least one --if yours doesn't, you might have to start your own). Poetry is a performance art at heart, so it thrives on that direct audience connection (particularly for slam poetry). If you are successful in that context, it will give you a platform towards finding a larger audience.

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