Free verse is wonderful because it has very few distinct rules and boundaries. Instead of fitting content to form the content shapes the form. The rhythm of can vary throughout the poem as the poet changes line length and meter to emphasize words and sounds. Though the words often do not rhyme, they flow along in their own uneven pattern.

Free verse is patterned after speech and images rather than by strict metrical schemes and rhyme, yet it is poetry because it contains complex patters that weave into a coherent whole. Readers should be able to determine the rules and boundaries the author has established for the poem. You cannot create poetry without rules. Like all poetry free verse should embrace basic poetic precepts and be concise.

Walt Whitman provides numerous examples of how to write free verse in his signature collection, Leaves of Grass. “Aboard at a Ship’s Helm” is one of my favorites.

ABOARD, at a ship’s helm,
A young steersman, steering with care.

A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,
An ocean-bell-O a warning bell, rock’d by the waves.

O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.

For, as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the bell’s admonition,
The bows turn,-the freighted ship, tacking, speeds away under her gray sails,
The beautiful and noble ship, with all her precious wealth, speeds away gaily and safe.

But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!
O ship of the body-ship of the soul-voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.

Jacob