Free Verse: Poetic Forms
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at free verse, which is arguably the freest of poetic forms.
I've written more than 100 poetic forms posts, but I'm just now getting to free verse. Maybe that's because there are no particular rules attached to writing free verse, because it's so, well, free. Even blank verse and prose poetry have rules, but free verse is open to interpretation.
There are still line breaks, but they happen at the poet's discretion. Maybe the poet breaks the lines based off a certain line length (that may be tied to syllables or not). Or maybe the poet wants that line lengths to be varied. And some critics of free verse will even complain that free verse is prose with random line breaks.
However a poet comes at a free verse poem, they still have plenty of poetic tools at their disposal, including assonance, consonance, and metaphor. So free your mind and your poetry with this poetic form that's completely freestyle.
*****
Play with poetic forms!
Poetic forms are fun poetic games, and this digital guide collects more than 100 poetic forms, including more established poetic forms (like sestinas and sonnets) and newer invented forms (like golden shovels and fibs).
*****
Here’s my attempt at free verse:
dream, by Robert Lee Brewer
We entered the auditorium
without the normal fanfare
and adulation. In fact, we
slipped through the cracks
with our backs against
the walls, dragging our feet
through all the empty halls
with our eyes down, lights
off, coughing and shrugging
our way through the exit
hoping to text our next
thoughts as we had them
in our deep, deep sleep.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
