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

There were a few common mistakes made in several of the poems submitted to the March 2009 Poetry Contest. Those entering the April 2009 Poetry Contest should take the following suggestions under advisement. These suggestions were derived from insights Lance Larsen*, a creative writing professor at Brigham Young University, shared with me.

• Chopping up prose does not create poetry.
• A poem should make or have a point. Yes, there is a layer of abstraction, but a poem should not be so abstract that is means nothing.
• Poetry should have tension and opposition.
• Make arguments through imagery and metaphors.
• Use fresh language and avoid clichés.
• Be concise. Poems should be composed with the fewest words possible.
• Use concrete examples that entice and elicit the senses.
• Link form and content in appropriate ways in both closed form and open form poems: rhyme, meter, stanza pattern, enjambed vs. end-stopped lines, alliteration, assonance, caesura, juxtaposition, syntax, diction, and other figurative patterns.

Jacob

*Lance Larsen received a Ph.D. Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. He has taught creative writing and poetry courses at Brigham Young University since 1993.