Today, poetry has taken on a dizzying number of new forms and topics. From acrostic to found poems, haikus to free verse, and prose to spoken word, there is no set form for contemporary poetry. And topics range from philosophy to a piece of trash on the ground. The beauty of this is that poets have so many different forms to explore with not rules to hold them back. There is no shame in throwing out all tradition, abiding by all the tenets of a form, or doing a little of both.

Popular on Pinterest and Tumblr for her unique poems blending tradition with new styles is 21-year-old Australian “word reader, word weaver & magic believer,” Erin Hanson.

Hanson’s writing is unique in that it is varied in content and consistent in form. Almost every one of her poems includes a regular rhyme scheme (usually every-other line). The rhyme scheme gives each poem a light bounce that makes it seems almost like a nursery rhyme. For example, this excerpt is from one of her poems:

Let me tell the tale

Of a girl who didn’t stop,

Who climbed up every mountain

Without a pause upon the top.

She’d dance until each blade of grass

Was clothed in drops of dew,

And the sun knew her name

But the silver moon did too.

Hanson’s poems are easy for anybody to pick up and read because she doesn’t use a lot of big, complicated words. This may be partly due to the fact that she is a very young writer. Beginning writing around ages 11-13, Hanson seems like a child-prodigy. The poem cited above is dated 2015, when she was just 19 years old. Today she is still considered young for the amount of success she has achieved in writing and publishing her first poetry book.

The success of her poetry is no surprise, though, because of how much sincerity and talent is put into each piece. Hanson writes about a variety of topics. From metaphors about life to laments about society, images of nature to motivational anecdotes, there is a little bit of something for everyone in Hanson’s poems. Some of my favorite are her poems about life. She has a deep understanding of things, a wisdom almost unnatural for her young age, that draws me in.

In an interview, Hanson tells that her motivation for writing is simply “I figure it’s just natural after reading stories that you would want to try and create your own.” She followed this with, “it was something I enjoyed doing, so I just kept at it.” Hanson was not and is not concerned with writing for a particular audience, saying “My only hope is that I keep writing in the future, even if it ends up being only for myself like it used to be.” Erin Hanson is an exceptional writer that has taken advantage of the freedom that is allowed in contemporary literature. Whether you are looking for a quick, lighthearted poem or an insightful verse, you will find more than enough options in Hanson’s work.