(The following is my description of natural poems and the rules for creating them. I'd love to read your natural poems.)

A natural poem is a type of poem created by Mike Gurak in the early 1990s. He set out to create a short poem that was slightly different than the poems he was used to. He created the type while simultaneously writing the first natural poem, How Sank The Red Sun Slowly. Mike was inspired by three types of poem: the sonnet, the haiku, and the limerick.

Natural poems follow these six rules:
1. They are about how nature nakes the poet or others think and feel.
2. They must be able to be written as a single sentence. Commas are allowed but semicolons are not.
3. They are 5 lines long.
4. The rhyming pattern is A A B B A.
5. The first, second, and fifth lines consist of 7 syllables each. The third and fourth lines are 4 syllables each.
6. The even number syllables in each line are stressed.

Natural poems are deceptively difficult to write. Often the poet will have to find the right word that also has the syllable pattern needed and meets the rhyming pattern. Mike encourages others to write and share their own natural poems.
© Mike Gurak