I don't consider poetry to be a commodity like any other one.

True, and it's very important in Russian poetry too. I guess the most used meters are anapest and iamb. It also depends somehow of the language used. BTW, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have a great sense of rhythm (look at the limericks for ex). And look at the rhythm in this (long) poem of Robert W. Service (The Cremation of Sam McGee): "Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he'd often say in his homely way that 'he'd sooner live in hell'. (etc.) I find it great !

Thanks. By the way, I'm a fervent supporter of haiku (respecting the 5 - 7 - 5 scheme!) and it's not at all so easy to write a good haiku. But it forces you to look around (in my case, more towards nature, but it might be city, or anything), because I never write a totally imaginary haiku, they are always based on a real-life observation.

Hi, personally I didn't write anything for years (but I read a lot, and even commented others' works). When I started writing a bit again, it wasn't bad perhaps, but it always revolved around the same theme, and I had the impression that I really had nothing to say. On the other hand, when I imposed constraints on myself (a set theme, for example, or compulsory rhymes in the case of ‘classical’ poetry), the result was often much more unexpected and interesting (often humorous, even sarcastic, but not always). I don't know if that can help, or even if it applies to other people, but that's my own experience. All the best!

In France, the main concern of translators of foreign poetry is to understand ‘what it means’. I always reply that it's poetry, not an essay, and that the meaning is only one of the elements of the text: poetry is above all music (especially in highly intonated languages like English, German or Russian, but even in French). Unfortunately, today, the musical aspect is all too often overlooked in favour of meaning. I recently read a bilingual version of poems (in German) by Ingeborg Bachmann, where the translator insisted on meaning. Honestly, if you don't speak German, you might well ask yourself what's so interesting about Bachmann's work. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

1/ Commercial success is absolutely not a criterion of quality. Look, Rupi Kaur has 4.4 million followers on Instagram... 2/ Poetry hasn't interested the masses for a long time, apart from Rupi Kaur and her ilk; 3/ The way in which poetry (among other things) is received differs according to each individual (it is said that ‘tastes differ’). The only poets who are more or less the subject of a consensus are those we were taught at school (and they usually are dead), but who actually reads and appreciates them?