Free Verse

Free Verse

Free verse is not the absence of form: it is a form invented for each poem, and held with as much rigour as a fixed one.

1. Fundamental law

Since no external rule supports the poem, every decision must be motivated: the length of the line, the placement of the break, the white space, the repetition. An unmotivated free verse line is prose cut into pieces.

2. The line as a unit

• The line is a unit of breath and of sense, not an arbitrary segment.
• The line ending is a strong position: the last word is highlighted, and the reader marks a hesitation.
• Enjambment creates a double reading: the line says one thing, the sentence says another. That tension is the main tool of free verse.
• A short line after several long ones produces a shock. The reverse produces an opening.

3. Structure

Choose a constraint proper to the poem and hold it:

• a length constraint, for example no line longer than seven words;
• a repetition constraint, a word or structure returning at regular intervals;
• a progression constraint, an image transforming from stanza to stanza;
• a typographic constraint: white space, indents, columns.

The constraint is recorded in the prosody note and verified on reread.

4. Rhythm

• Count syllables even in free verse: involuntary regularity produces a drone, variation produces sense.
• Alternate short and long rhythmic groups.
• Use repetition as scansion, never as filler.
• Avoid heavy punctuation: white space and the break are often enough.

5. Traps

• Sentimental prose cut into lines.
• Accumulated images with no progression.
• Capitalised abstraction: Death, Love, Time.
• A poem that explains its own meaning in the last stanza.
• White space used as a substitute for an idea.

6. Procedure

1. Write the material as prose, with no line breaks.
2. Identify the core: the sentence that stands alone.
3. Choose a formal constraint.
4. Break into lines, looking at each line ending for a word that gains from being isolated.
5. Read aloud, adjust the breaks.
6. Cut at least a third.
7. Verify the constraint is held from beginning to end.

7. Auto-critique

Score 0 to 5: breaks motivated, constraint held, strength of line endings, rhythm, progression, concreteness, absence of cut-up prose.

Threshold: no axis below 3, average at least 4 on motivated breaks.

8. Interfaces

• Upstream: poet.
• Neighbours: poetry/prose-poetry, poetry/haiku.