I recently discovered a new form of short poetry, the Two-by-Four. It is a poem of two words to a line, over four lines. I found it on the website of a South Australian poet Paul Szlosek, who has a fine interest in poetics and writers/writing. I love short forms of poetry, and this one is a neat little package, with no time for wasting words, ideal for readers with no time to waste!
In the original form there was no title, but I’m inclined to go along the way the website owner I mentioned went, and use titles, in the interest of clarity of understanding. This is the link for that website, go along there, to read more about it. Then come back here and read my own attempts are writing Two-by-Fours. And after that, why not have a try yourself, and to write some of your own Two-by-Fours!
Not Me
Some people
say poetry
must rhyme –
I don’t …
Political Correctness
More than
anything else,
it’s just
being nice …
Well that was fun to do, and if a writer can write two fine pieces of work in less that half an hour, then that is a fine form of writing for sure. I’m quite happy with this little poetic form, for sure, and I can see myself writing many more of them in the future!
Thank you very much Paul, for bringing this form of short poetry into my poetry world! If you have any thoughts about these little poems feel free to leave a comment!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 
You are very welcome, Carolyn, and thank you so much for spreading the word about the two-by-four (there doesn’t seem to be much about it on the web). Oh, I just love your two two-by-fours! I really think you mastered the form, displaying such wit.
Hehe, I really wish I was a South Australian poet, instead of being from New England in the USA. I always had a fascination with Australia which almost rivals my obsession with obscure poetry forms.
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Hey Paul, I love this poetry form, I wrote a whole pile more of them today,and introduced the form to members of my writing group – some of them got stuck right into it, loving it, and I love the way you can so easily get into the essence of what needed to be said, it’s great!
I definitely think I’ll produce a small book of them, and maybe do workshops in writing them, and maybe other short poetry forms, next year. Fun with words!
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Hey Carolyn, Thanks for sharing this short form of poetry. I will definitely give this a go.
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Hi Marie, I talked about this poetic form at the Chapter and Verse meeting today, some of those present got going on writing them straight away, they’re sure fun, I got there early and wrote more than twenty of them, before anyone else got there. Fun!
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So Marie, have you written any Two by Four poems yet?
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