This is sort of reiterating a little rant I made in a post over in the 'Poetry' section, but basically I'm struggling with how to write in free verse and looking for guidance on that. I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing as I never got a look at poetry at school and I didn't study anything relating to literature at all at university/college. In terms of formal verse, it seems pretty straightforward if one is adhering strictly to a given form (e.g., a sonnet), but I can't really work out what makes free verse tick. I've tried analysing free verse poems to see if whatever formal elements they do contain can tell me anything (e.g., patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables), but I haven't had much luck finding patterns (yep I guess it was a fool's errand looking for this in free verse). Generally, I've learnt quite a bit about the nuts and bolts of poetry from listening to craft lectures on YouTube and reading Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook, but I'm pretty lost on how to put it all together when it comes to writing a poem without a form to adhere to. Up to this point, I've tried writing things down in whatever way feels right, but I always end up stuck there because when I try to go back and try to apply some kind of rigour it just makes the poem worse. Maybe one needs to pick a general structure before the writing starts e.g., favouring trochees for a descending rhythm in a certain stanza? It just seems too easy to write whatever feels right with no real effort. As a related question regarding formal verse, I'm also wondering how closely formalists tend to adhere to a given form when writing a poem? I've tried analysing formal poems to work this out as well, but I've wondered to what extent I'm stymied here by the limits of my knowledge and probably flawed scansion. Thanks!
I didn't know that formalist was a term Re: poetry. Interesting. I'll admit it sounds a bit silly but I still like it. In fact it's sort of exciting, conjures images of people slapping their hands with crude clubs in back alleys, their bodies marioneted by clashing ideals that threaten to draw as much blood as economic reform. Maybe the formalists are uniformed and assume squad formations. More to the point: your goal seems to be formulated bass ackwards. It strikes me the same as saying, "I'm an aspiring novelist. So what's special about novels anyway? What do people see in them?" As far as free form goes in particular, I certainly can't point you in any direction because I admittedly don't really get it either. In my opinion, it might as well just be prose. That said the freestyle community is large and it has an undeniable impact on art. You still need to have your own inspiration portfolio in the same way that a novelist has books he reveres, though, and the answers should come from your formative experiences with them more than from a top down professor/teacher POV. It doesn't matter if you can articulate it or not, but an innate drive to mimic should at least exist in the first place. You'll unconsciously discover macro patterns if you read enough free verse, and you'll pursue them naturally if you like them. Other than your drive to create it, it doesn't entirely seem that you like it in the first place, or that maybe that qualifier hasn't been fully established yet. I could be wrong, of course, as I don't know you or how long you've spent reading poetry for its own sake. As far as structured poetry and its adhesion to form... there's a fine line that seems to be walked between contrivance and structure. I mean, it's art, so it can adhere as much or as little as you the artist see fit, but writing 'chimbley' just to make the rhyme stick is so reductive that it's usually better not to.
Thanks very much for the thoughtful response Not the Territory! I guess I'm trying to say I very much enjoy reading free verse poetry, but my trouble is with working out how to compose a decent poem in free verse myself. I certainly have a desire to mimic! I very much like the idea that the key to improvement is reading for pleasure rather than taking a conscious analytical approach. This is kind of what I was hoping to hear. I've been struggling to discern consistent patterns with a lot of 'formal' verse, guess it's largely a question of experience and knowing what works. Cheers!
Pay attention to the other things associated with poetry, like assonance, consonance, ononmatopoeia, alliteration, repetition of words or phrases, and stressed and unstressed syllables (though don't use them to make regular feet). Just these things by themselves can impart a strong poetic tone (and I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting, or haven't learned yet). Look for good pages on poetic devices, you'll find many more. Also things like imagery, personification... these should all be included in poetic devices. And even though you're not using proper meter, still pay attention to the rhythm and cadence of your lines or sentences. I would also play around with rhymes or half-rhymes that aren't at the ends of lines. Be careful though, you need to exercise good judgement to not get carried away with this.
Thanks very much for the thoughtful response Xoic! I'm finding my feet trying to pay attention to these things in a way that's spontaneous to some extent but not thoughtless. This is really helpful. Cheers!
Cheers back at'cha! The thing about poetry,and this is true about writing in general, is to read a lot of it and struggle through the writing of it a lot as well. Yes, it's also necessary to learn about form and poetic devices and all that, but you can only get so far that way. It's like learning a language, or how to ride a bike, or how to walk. All the technical stuff doesn't matter at all unless you're absorbing the knowledge (hearing people around you speak the language, or reading it, seeing how people walk or ride bikes etc), and practicing it yourself. That means read a lot of peotry and write a lot. And my suspicion is that it's a lot easier to learn about it if you're reading and writing poetry with recognizable form, ie with rhyme, regular meter, and the rest of it. I think free verse is in some ways the deep end of the pool. I mean because it does away with all the obvious aspects of formal poetry. Trying to start with free verse would be like trying to learn for instance persuasive speaking before you've learned how to properly speak at all. You need to work your way up through the levels, which begins with learning forms and meter and rhyme etc. And I mean by actually writing a bunch of it yourself. As with any art form, there are teachable parts and unteachable parts. Nobody can teach you the unteachable stuff (obviously), it just needs to be absorbed. But the only way to absorb it is to be learning the stuff that is teachable. Along the way you're getting the unteachable, if you have the soul for poetry (or whatever it would be called). It's analogous to subtle inflections in speech as an example. You can't just expect to learn subtle inflections and subtextual implications if you're still struggling to write Cat and Dog. You have to work your way through the entire Dick and Jane series and work up through first grade reading level and then second etc, stage by stage, before you can master the subtle unteachable aspects. Of course in these times many people skip all the basics and just want to leap ahead into doing something modern that doesn't require any formal training, like abstract art. If someone who didn't train in drawing and color theory etc tries to do abstract art it generally doesn't look very good, and they can't tell because their eye is completely untrained (this relates to the Dunning Kruger effect if you're aware of that). This is why the good abstract art (if you believe there was any such thing) was done by a generation of artists who had to train hardcore and learn to draw and paint realistically, and to very high standards, before they were let loose. They understood the formal aspects of visual art, such as rhythym, contrast, balance, emphasis etc (it's actually very similar to the elements of poetry and good writing in general). Without that understanding you can't even tell if art without recognizable form is any good, much less make it yourself. And the only way to learn this stiff is through formal training as far as I know (except there do seem to be some outliers, who get called prodigies or geniuses, who are able to see and absorb it without any formal training. Most of us aren't that, and anyone who is wouldn't be here on a learner's message board). I'm interested in learning some things about poetry so I can hopefully write what's known as a lyrical novel or novella at some point, but I started by studying formal poetry. Not in school, but on the internet and through books. If you're interested, here's a link to my poetry thread where I was doing those studies. That's me starting at the shallow end of the pool, hoping to work my way up stage by stage. I may never make it, but at least now I have the bare beginnings of an understanding, and hopefully have begun to absorb some of the unteachable elements of it.
I’m really not a fan of free verse. My mother has written some beautiful free verse, but: a lot of poets just write prose and then give it random line breaks and justify it by calling it free verse I find that I can’t write free verse without it falling apart. I need the constraints of meter and rhyme (or another end-word restriction such as exists in the sestina) to make my poetry work.
98% of all my poetry has leaned heavy towards rhythm and structure with consistant rhyme schemes. I didn't understand free verse either. I've been writing a collection of free verse after reading Li Qingzhao. I use the emotional or overall theme/message of the poem as the structure and rhythm with syllables for the lack of rhyme. Its pretty easy to come up with interesting stuff in free verse but also easy to write flat nothing that mine as well be prose.
It seems to me that your question ('Do poets really adhere to...forms...?') really becomes a sociological one. A recent review (of Hecht's works) from David Orr in the latest New York Times Review of Books touches on this topic. In pertinent part, Orr wrote: The question for poets is always, "How do I write poetry?" — and for a long time, the answer, provided in part by Eliot, was, "By knowing a lot about poetic tradition and making a show of it." It's not the most obvious answer (the more one thinks about it, the stranger it seems). But for Hecht's generation, it was a reliable answer that led to measurable rewards and it did so because a cohort of poets, editors and critics agreed that it would... ...Yet the question "How do I write poetry?" and the question "How can I be seen and respected as a poet?" aren't the same. In fact, they're frequently in tension, because the preferences of the "club" are so twisted by that group's tiny size and self-dealing that to satisfy them often says more about acceptability than artistry.
I recommend looking at some ee cummings. My take: There's still structure there that he works around in every poem (often after inventing it himself, just for that one poem), just not a pre-set structure of the words, like grammar...the structure often reveals itself slowly as you are reading the piece. Like you are feeling around in the dark to ascertain the shapes of the objects around you.
Some might say, that free-verse is for poets that can't rhyme... Not I, there's so much good free-verse poetry out there... My humble definition of poetry - a poet can express in a couple of lines, what it takes a prose writer to say in a paragraph. It's a shortcut to the emotion. Must say, I'm surprised by Eliot's admission "By knowing a lot about poetic tradition and making a show of it." - my view is that authority from tradition kills art. Really interesting posts Mark
When I write free verse I prefer to keep the line breaks out- that is, it's prose poetry. My poetic "training" is in formal verse and, while I've moved away from that, I don't really know what to do with line breaks without a formal structure. I know other poets do fine with it. For me I don't see a point in line breaks if you're not scanning lines. I have contradictory thoughts about this. If it's a poem someone should be able to tell it's a poem without line breaks- a lot of "poems" are indistinguishable from ordinary prose when read aloud. If you read, say, the King James psalter, one can tell it's poetry even though the translators have rendered it into prose- usually very sonorous prose. Even if one is a free verse poet, substantial practice and experimentation in metrical forms provides a good foundation for grasping musicality and rhythm. On the other hand, everything can be poetry. Poetry has been revealed as a pervasive force that emerges from unlikely corners. Looney Tunes is poetry.
If anything can be poetry than nothing is poetry. Free verse and the more structured blank verse differ greatly from prose.
Respectfully disagree. As a starting point, here's the definition again: po·et·ry /ˈpōətrē/ noun: poetry; plural noun: poetries literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature. There are any number (countless) examples of prose that I believe are also poetry. Often, single scenes or even individual passages from stories achieve this. Song lyrics. A significant chunk of LeGuin's literary canon. I think we run the risk of flattening "poetry" into a set of rules, confusing cause and effect, if we follow the line of reasoning you're suggesting. IMO, Poetry is anything that evokes the feelings and ideas mentioned (in the definition), regardless of forms, styles, particular rhythms, or even intent. A grocery list could be a poem, and quite by accident, at that. The same way unintentional paint stains could be a beautiful piece of fine art. OTOH, a poet could try very very hard to make a poem by employing well-established techniques and forms, ...and still not really write poetry. Goodness knows I have. ;-)
Free verse poetry is something I tend to call sound bite poetry: Off the cuff, totally organic work that manifests within moments, revisions, proofreading, and edits done and over within thirty minutes of drafting the piece. It is the difference between a concept work and a piece that looks organic, but turns out to be a farmed pearl. Both can turn out great results, one just takes a heck of a lot more effort. e.g. Actual and as seen on social media... There are just certain things that function at an entirely different caliber than the baseline majority. Innate ability vs. technical merit Free verse as a species sets up its own set of inherent biases and often becomes a dumping ground term for word vomit stream of consciousness prose ramblings that epitomize the 'anything can be poetry' and/or 'oh, you write 'poetry'' cliches.
