Problem - A sonnet without a meter - what is its name?

Question

Okay, so I was set on doing a sonnet yet when I started researching I found out that it was COMPULSORY for sonnets to be in iambic pentameter. The thing is I CAN NOT WORK WITH METERS. I get all mumbled up because I have to mix my overdeveloped verbose in a poetic sense which is easy and following a structure which too is easy but with a meter I also have to make sure all the five iambs are there and I cannot do it. It gets too in my way.

Advice? Tips? And most of all, what shall I call this poem written in the structure of a sonnet but not with the iambic petameter?

Answer 1

It doesn't have a name - it's a fourteen line poem in whatever rhyme scheme you've determined. You can call it a "non-traditional sonnet" if you like, but there is no name for what you're describing.

Answer 2

There are many sonnets written now that do not follow the iambic pentameter rule. Some folks try simply to have ten syllables in a line, and some don't even follow that. The rhyme scheme tends to be more important than the meter, but I've even seen poems that don't follow any sonnet rhyme schemes called sonnets.

If you check out books like "Rebel Angels," which is a collection from the neo-formalists, or "Strong Measures," you'll find that a lot of them keep aspects of the forms, but not everything.

If worse comes to worst, you can always just say you wrote a poem inspired by the sonnet form.