When you write poems: flow v. rhymes?

The biggest question!

Do you write flowing poetry?

your eyes met mine
i lost myself in them
they lured me like
cats to catnip

or
... Rhyming?

i saw you there
i missed your hair
i felt tired of losing you
as if you had became me too

is there a better one?

It depends what I'm trying to say with my poem. I don't think there is a "better" one, and my favorite poems use a mixture! Wordplay/alliteration/rhyming is a part of poetry for a reason, and can emphasis flow if used correctly.

I agree with silkrat! Typically if I'm doing something that's a bit lighter tone / sillier / gotten bored with my usual poetry forms, then I'll really try for rhyming cause I think it's fun to interrupt my thinking/writing poetry c:

I typically go more for flow, but there is a time and place for rhyming. Typically, if I do have rhymes in my poetry, I keep them internal to the line, and also use alliteration to assist with the flow of the poem. Writing a metered poem makes it very hard to keep a rhyme scheme, so in essence, it depends. I have written both. One of my favorite poems that I have written is called the Clocktower, and it has a rhyme scheme. My second favorite does not. If you have a full project that your quotes are embedded in, I would love to get some context to the stanzas that you have.

Like silkrat and keystrings, I might use either or a mixture, depending on the poem! I don't think either one is 'better' than the other.

I think what I tend to do is write a poem that is mostly unrhymed and then end up with a couple of lines that contain rhyme for emphasis. In revisions (which are probably the most important part of my own poetry process) I might add or subtract rhymes depending on whether I think they sound good or whether they emphasise the part of the poem I want to emphasise.

Nowadays I tend to be stingy with my rhyming because I focus a lot on a narrative/ meaning / image and I don't want a stray sound to detract from my central idea. But there's definitely forms of poetry where the sound devices (such as rhyme) are the central idea, such as abstract poetry as explained in this Writer's Digest article.

If I have to make an decision, I am more of an flow kind of gal than an rhyme gal. Most of my poems first come in an flow already set in my head voicing itself to me, so I write as best as I can with that flow already. I won't proudly say its proven to not get rejections but some of them DID get published, so there is that.

I don't easily come up with good rhymes. Its weird like that.