yeah, haibuns are fun to write, especially since I haven’t read up much on the form. I just do it the way I want to. One of these days I’ll have to start revising them.

I have worked in publishing for twenty years now, and there are people who just want to close off part of the world to justify what they are doing. That sounds harsh, but it’s true. I know a guy who’s a well-known experimental writer/VJ who once said that people just shouldn’t write psychological novels anymore–all novels should be experimental because of all the changes in culture and technology. I had another guy express chagrin at poets because he was writing a novel and thought he should get more credit for writing more words than poets. (If that’s the standard, then Sidney Sheldon is a genius.)

Do whatever the hell you want with poetry.

This teacher probably didn’t want to deal with rhyme because it’s very hard to write a good rhyming poem.