**It forces you to think about word choice and word order. This helps you develop and reinforce language skills.

**By dividing a poem into beats and feet, you create the same patterns as music. For many, this musical quality is one of the primary reasons to listen to poetry.

**It was the choice of poetic masters for thousands of years and some consider it to be the only true poetry.

What are the reasons to avoid meter?

**Structure adds predictability. I love Emily Dickinson, but I am distracted by the fact that I can sing any of her poems to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas".

**Meter can force you to avoid the most meaningful word or phrase in favor of a word that "fits".

**Meter often forces people to use "padding" words to fill out a line.

**After 4000 years of iambic pentameter, we could use a little break.

There is nothing wrong with writing poetry in a metered form. Just don't become a slave to the meter. Also, be bold enough to move beyond iambic pentameter to some of the lesser used and often more interesting styles of meter.