How do you define "free verse"?

[AuntShecky]

What, exactly, do we mean when we call a piece of writing "free verse"? Robert Frost's famously disparaging quip defines free verse as "playing tennis without a net." Even so, perhaps we can start by considering what free verse is not.

It is not metrical verse, which in English means lines written in a regular pattern of a prescribed number of stressed and unstressed syllables. Under this broad definition, there are two main categories: narrative, such as epics and ballads; and lyrical, which encompasses scores of sub-genres, such as odes, sonnets,villanelles, et al.

It is not "blank verse," which specifically refers to lines of unrhymed metrical verse, almost invariably iambic pentameter. This is the form found in nearly all the dialogue of Shakespeare's 37 plays and most of the rest of Elizabethan drama.

Free verse, by contrast, is not constrained by meter. Lines of free verse are not all the same length; they may appear uneven, if not jagged, on the page. In place of meter, a poem composed in free verse nonetheless attempts to present a sense of rhythm: in lieu of a distinct pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, it sets up rising and falling cadences, often by the use of repetition.

Repetition, along with a comprehensive pallette of poetic tools --metaphor, simile, alliteration, allusions, etc.-- can be found in both metered and free verse. Anaphora and internal rhyme are not confined to metrical verse, but free verse usually does not feature end rhyme, which can only be effective when the final syllables of the rhyming lines are both stressed.

Not only can both metered and free verse use these poetic devices, so can prose, especially in writing aiming for rhetorical or aesthetic effect. There's the rub: what is the difference between a poem composed in free verse and a piece of prose merely broken up into short, irregular lines?

And for that matter, how do we distinguish between "free verse" and a "prose poem"?

If you see a posting on the "Personal Poetry" forum which appears to seem more like prose to you, what elements could be added to transform the piece into an authentic example of "free verse"?

Tell me, fellow LitNutters, in your own words, what is "free verse"?

[Delta40]

Uhm all that. I'm awful at discussing the technical side of poetry. It's rather like I shall know it when I read it but I express myself badly when it comes to these things. Free verse could be said to be poetry without boundaries. Rather than be restricted by rules and structure, one can go beyond and isn't it exciting that poetry can evolve rather than trapping us within prescribed guidelines? We have the amazing zoom camera lens because the man who developed the technology didn't know that it couldn't be done. He had no appreciation of the science in the first place. I see free verse poetry this way. Who knows what will come next.

[cafolini]

I tend to agree with Delta in this regard:
"We have the amazing zoom camera lens because the man who developed the technology didn't know that it couldn't be done."

[AuntShecky]

Yeah, but what does one do when she posts a piece which she believes lacks"boundaries" and is told that she has posted "prose"?

[Delta40]

Would you say that most of my poetry is free verse or prose Aunty? It's a tough one I agree and I'm a grassroots poet with six stitches in the back of my head! Seriously I feel something is prosey when somebody has written a paragraph and then broken it up line by line but even then it's fair to say it's not that simple because I've read some amazing lyrical literature that could pass for free verse if done like this but if it doesn't meet that criteria and this form has been applied as if it was some kind of flowing narrative then it doesn't strike me as free verse. I know I'm about to get a fail...

[Nick Capozzoli]

This is a good question. How about this definition: free verse is "poetry" (which we can take to mean writing that is not "prose") and that does not follow any accentual, accentual-syllabic, or syllabic pattern? That leaves open the question of what sorts of such writing constitute poetry.

[cacian]

there is no free verse what there is is free words . just an opinion
free verse is perhaps suggesting there is no format to follow ie as in numbered rhyme/cinquain/haiku and this sort of studied forms.
on writes following their instinct.
'''playing tennis without a net'' is perhaps suggesting that ones imagine the net rather then it being put in place and play the sport.
ie to write poetry and to imagine there is a form they consider a verse. experimentation comes to mind. one does not need to rely on conventions to write a piece.

[MorpheusSandman]

what is the difference between a poem composed in free verse and a piece of prose merely broken up into short, irregular lines?

Prose broken up into short, irregular lines is not prose; it's free verse. The best distinction I've heard is from Terry Eagleton who said: "Poetry is the art-form in which the writer, rather than the printer or publisher, decides where the line ends." That's pretty much it; if the writer is deciding on the line breaks, then it's poetry/free-verse, if it's all in one chunk separated only by paragraphs, then it's prose.

And for that matter, how do we distinguish between "free verse" and a "prose poem"?

A prose poem is an oxymorn. They don't exist. It's like asking for a skinny fat man.

If you see a posting on the "Personal Poetry" forum which appears to seem more like prose to you, what elements could be added to transform the piece into an authentic example of "free verse"?

To me, bad free-verse that reads no differently than most prose is still just bad-free verse and not ACTUAL prose. For that matter, there's a lot of prose that's more "poetic" (like Joyce) than most poetry. In general, I'd advise them to lean more on sound, imagery, figurative language, rhetorical forms, and strive to invent their own forms. A trend I've noticed a lot in current free verse poetry is that poets break their stanzas up into unrhymed couplets, tercets, and quatrains that are quite even length on the page. This creates its own kind of form that still isn't "restricted" by meter or rhyme. But, like anything else in poetry, the form should be used meaningfully.

[AuntShecky]

Would you say that most of my poetry is free verse or prose Aunty? It's a tough one I agree and I'm a grassroots poet

Without hesitation, I would say that your work is definitely poetry, Delta, the real thing. "Grassroots" is apt, especially applicable to one of your recent offerings That piece was so good it reminded me of Ginsberg, even Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman, you probably know, was the first "modernist," poets who broke the ground for free verse. But, according to my handbook, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, free verse is quite older than that--going as far back as some of the poems of Blake and Goethe, but get this-- "it has precedents in translations of the Biblical psalms."(!)

Free verse really didn't take hold until the late 19th, early 20th century. Whitman, as we established, was one of the pioneers. The French symbolists and the moderns started writing free verse as a conscious effort to break away from the traditionalists. But I'm not sure Whitman was so much concerned with making literary statements as he was with celebrating life.

[Paulclem]

Prose broken up into short, irregular lines is not prose; it's free verse. The best distinction I've heard is from Terry Eagleton who said: "Poetry is the art-form in which the writer, rather than the printer or publisher, decides where the line ends." That's pretty much it; if the writer is deciding on the line breaks, then it's poetry/free-verse, if it's all in one chunk separated only by paragraphs, then it's prose.

Was that in his "How to read a poem"? I remember a similar conclusion to that where he asks what a poem is.

I agree with what you say. Any phrase, sign, piece of writing could be used poetically by a poet, and is thus designated as a poem. One poem I read was a series of problems from a maths textbook. It doesn't sound very promising, but the gist of the poem was to illustrate an attitude to war and casualties. It was very effective. (Just did a quick search, but couldn't find it).

[MorpheusSandman]

Yep, that's where I got it from. Furniss/Bath made a similar point in their excellent Reading Poetry textbook (right now an Amazon seller has a new copy for $11; I'd advise everyone to jump on it at that price!), essentially saying that prose poems were an oxymoron and don't exist.

[MorpheusSandman]

Walt Whitman, you probably know, was the first "modernist," poets who broke the ground for free verse. But, according to my handbook, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, free verse is quite older than that--going as far back as some of the poems of Blake and Goethe, but get this-- "it has precedents in translations of the Biblical psalms."(!)

In fact, Whitman took his inspiration for free verse from The Bible, hence his heavy use of anaphora, which is a staple in Biblical poetry. A lot of Blakes prophetic works come quite close to free-verse, but he generally maintains a 14-syllable line, which was still quite radical back then.

But I'm not sure Whitman was so much concerned with making literary statements as he was with celebrating life.

Whitman flat-out said that he felt America needed to break the grip of "old world" poetry in order to create a poetry of its own. This equating of formal traditions with nationalism (or gender, race, or anything else, really) is not exactly new in the arts, but I've always thought it was ill-conceived and often little more than a shield against having to live up to certain standards. Patrick Gillespie made an excellent point about this in an article on Poemshape on why so many poets don't write in rhyme anymore, and he uses Whitman, Pound, and Eliot as examples.

[AuntShecky]

.

Whitman flat-out said that he felt America needed to break the grip of "old world" poetry in order to create a poetry of its own. This equating of formal traditions with nationalism (or gender, race, or anything else, really) is not exactly new in the arts, but I've always thought it was ill-conceived and often little more than a shield against having to live up to certain standards.

You're right-- he did want to create poetry that was uniquely American, but he also was overflowing with desire to write about Walt Whitman.

Patrick Gillespie made an excellent point about this in an article on Poemshape on why so many poets don't write in rhyme anymore, and he uses Whitman, Pound, and Eliot as examples.

That's true. About twenty some years ago I read an article by Miller Williams stating that he had attended a high-level poetry conference in which poets who attempted to present any works that had the slightest whiff of meter or rhyme were all-but-laughed off the stage.

But guess what-- though rhyme may have been verboten, modern poets have meter never really abandoned meter. Quick-- who's the most iconoclastic poet you can think of. e.e. cummings? Ole Mister Lose-the-caps, mess- with-the- punctuation himself, right? Check out these lines:

now air is air and thing is thing: no bliss
of heavenly earth, beguiles our spirits, whose
miraculously disenchanted eyes

and watch this:
now AIR is AIR and THING is THING: no BLISS
of HEAVenly EARTH, beGUILES our SPIRits, WHOSE
mirACuLOUSly DIS enCHANTed EYES

Sure looks like old-fashioned iambic pentameter to me.

And what about Ezra Pound's protegé, T.S. Eliot. In his signature poemthere are several passage with lines ending by using the device the dreaded r-word:


On Margate Sands,
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.

[Nick Capozzoli]

Prose broken up into short, irregular lines is not prose; it's free verse. The best distinction I've heard is from Terry Eagleton who said: "Poetry is the art-form in which the writer, rather than the printer or publisher, decides where the line ends." That's pretty much it; if the writer is deciding on the line breaks, then it's poetry/free-verse, if it's all in one chunk separated only by paragraphs, then it's prose.

Eagleton's definition of poetry, which I didn't know about before, is beguiling in its simplicity, but I don't buy it. It implies, as you say, that prose broken up into short, irregular lines is not prose; it's free verse. If that's true, then any prosaic writing can be transformed into poetry by breaking it up into short irregular lines (just so long as the author rather than an editor/publisher decides how to lay out the lines on a page).

I guess that this definition could be used to distinguish between prose (where line breaks and page layout are not critically important) and "verse," where they are essential. That still begs the question of what constitutes "poetry" as opposed to "prose." WCW's Red Wheelbarrow is a great example where the author's chosen line breaks are essential. I think we agree that the Red Wheelbarrow is poetry, and a good poem at that. But it is not poetry just because it is a single sentence broken down into shorter lines. We can take any prosaic statement such as: My dog, Rex, loves to run on the beach fetching tennis balls! and write it out as follows:

My dog,
Rex,
loves
to run on the
beach
fetching
tennis
balls!

Is that "verse?" rather than "prose?" I guess so. Is it "poetry?"

You
decide!

[AuntShecky]

Eagleton's definition of poetry, which I didn't know about before, is beguiling in its simplicity, but I don't buy it. It implies, as you say, that prose broken up into short, irregular lines is not prose; it's free verse. If that's true, then any prosaic writing can be transformed into poetry by breaking it up into short irregular lines (just so long as the author rather than an editor/publisher decides how to lay out the lines on a page).

I guess that this definition could be used to distinguish between prose (where line breaks and page layout are not critically important) and "verse," where they are essential. That still begs the question of what constitutes "poetry" as opposed to "prose." WCW's Red Wheelbarrow is a great example where the author's chosen line breaks are essential. I think we agree that the Red Wheelbarrow is poetry, and a good poem at that. But it is not poetry just because it is a single sentence broken down into shorter lines. We can take any prosaic statement such as: My dog, Rex, loves to run on the beach fetching tennis balls! and write it out as follows:

My dog,
Rex,
loves
to run on the
beach
fetching
tennis
balls!

Is that "verse?" rather than "prose?" I guess so. Is it "poetry?"

You
decide!

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary during the time of 9/11 was famous for his convoluted diction,("Known unknowns") so a couple of guys published some of his press conferences and said it was "poetry," not unlike, this editing duo remarked, the works of Wallace Stevens.

Similarly (I don't know if it was from the same guys) there was a book of "poems" by the late NY Yankees former shortstop and longtime announcer Phil Rizzutto. Phil's commentary was great: along with the occasional comment on the game being played, he provided long rambling discourses about a restaurant in Cleveland which he once visited in 1947, as well as sharing his concerns about driving home as soon as the last out was recorded.

So I guess poetry is whatever someone says it is. But I'll bet you the rent (well, figuratively) that they next time I post some free verse in my poetry thread, some LitNutter will say it's "prose"!