What makes it verse is the line breaks. And because you have the freedom to
put them wherever you want, the decision where to break the line becomes one
of the main technical challenges facing the poet. (If you decide to do away
with the line breaks altogether, you have prose poetry, which a colleague of
mine insists is not poetry at all - but we've had the prose poetry
discussion already.) Perhaps it's more accurate to say there are free
*verses* rather than a single free verse mode. Whether you use stanzas
(regular or otherwise), whether you admit or exclude rhyme, whether you
keep all your lines roughly the same length or mix long and short ones,
whether you allow the lines to flirt with fixed rhythms or keep them
determinedly irregular - these and many other issues help to distinguish the
various types of free verse and allow poets to achieve a great range of
effects. So it's not an escape from the technicalities of verse, though
there are, sadly, plenty of poets who treat it as if it were.
Best wishes
Matthew
-----Original Message-----
From: Printmaker <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 26 July 2001 23:06
Subject: Re: Definitions
>Henry wrote:
>>
>> Can someone
>> define
>> "free verse"
>> please?
>>
>> Can someone define "free
>> verse" please?
>>
>> Can
>> someone define
>> "free verse"
>>
>> please?
>>
>> Pretty please?
>
>
>Ha Ha very funny
>
>If its completely unstructured how is it verse? mmmmm?
>
>And if its structured, what are the 'rules'?
>
>Still trying to reconcile the definition
>"its not even good prose"
>as a requirement of good poetry
>in light of much of what is posted here
>
>confused, hopefully temporarily
>
>jospehine
>
|