Does Anyone Here Do Poetry?

[_Steven_]

I'm going to be entering a piece at an academic fair in the next couple days and I'd just like someone who's no stranger to poetry to tell me what they think.

Burn the bridges with a mouth full of matches
Spit gasoline on the past and hope it catches
Paper hearts are burned down to ashes
Fading sparks are turned now to blackness
Light breaks through heart shaped smoke rings
To scorched Earth we'll replenish with these rose seeds

or

I burn the bridges with a mouth full of matches
Spit gasoline on the past and hope it catches
Paper hearts are burned down to ashes
Fading sparks are turned now to blackness
But light pierces through heart shaped smoke rings
To scorched Earth I'll replenish with her rose seeds

They didn't specify what type of poem or how many lines it should be so I'm kind of lost. Should I drop something short and powerful or long and elaborate?

[mcZu]

Uh, I write poetry all the time, however, I do not know the terminology of poetry to be honest. Aside of a few terms of course.

Whether you would like to drop a short poem, or a longer poem is up to you, man. It depends on what you want to say, and how much you want to say.

If I had to choose between those two, though. I would probably choose the first one.

But reading those two stanzas makes it seem more like traditional rap verses than poetry. I know, rap is poetry, but if you're going to enter an academic fair I'd suggest you should apply some classical poetry techniques to your writing. Such as odd-rhyming, abstractness, play around with the structure. Etc...

If you need any more help, you know where to find me, Steven.

[_Steven_]

Uh, I write poetry all the time, however, I do not know the terminology of poetry to be honest. Aside of a few terms of course.

Whether you would like to drop a short poem, or a longer poem is up to you, man. It depends on what you want to say, and how much you want to say.

If I had to choose between those two, though. I would probably choose the first one.

But reading those two stanzas makes it seem more like traditional rap verses than poetry. I know, rap is poetry, but if you're going to enter an academic fair I'd suggest you should apply some classical poetry techniques to your writing. Such as odd-rhyming, abstractness, play around with the structure. Etc...

If you need any more help, you know where to find me, Steven.

I just don't know how to differ my writing when doing poetry. Besides matching syllable counts more exact this is rap to me.

[mcZu]

The way I like to differentiate it is when I write rap, I write to a beat, always. When I write poetry, I write either acapella or to some classical music.