Free Verse
Right, let’s get the ball rolling with a quote from an American poet Robert Frost, who once said “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.” From what I can work out, the quote implying that free verse is a form of poetry where ideas can be thrown back and forth on the page until satisfactory.
The historical context (yes I know…the dull part but don’t give up on free verse just yet!) …here are some quick pointers about this writing genre:
It is said to have first been written during the 19th century in France, the aim was to create unrhymed French poetry of varied line lengths using free rhythms of natural speech, it was labelled ‘ver libre’…that’s ‘free verse’ to you and me. Contradicting the previous point is that some recon free verse dates back as late as King James Bible in 1380s, in the John Wycliffe’s translation of the Psalms.
Although free verse poems do not require rhyme, some poets will be sly and add rhythm through punctuation such as commas and also through repeated phrases. Poets were able to express their emotions through either rhyme or no rhyme.
I know you’re all thinking free verse must be easy to write due to not having to follow any rules, but you daren’t disagree with arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century…T.S.Elliot who wrote ‘No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job’. Careful consideration is to be taken when choosing exact words due to the sound pattern. Due to the lack of fixed form, free verse poems have the potential to take unique shapes, simply because the writer has more control over the development of the poem and has the license to express emotion.
Here is an example of ‘ver libre’ by Carl Sandburg – Fog (1878)
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
React!