Free Verse Poetry

A big HELLO to everyone who stopped in last (my first post), time I posted. I'm hoping I get a few more "followers" - looks like I'm the only follower, so it would make me feel wonderful if someone else joined in. I don't have a schedule for posting as yet, so it will be whenever I can. Once a week, or once every two weeks.

As I've said I would touch upon types, or genres, of poetry. Some of you may think that poetry is merely short lines, or only a few words in a line, center-spaced and that's that - and of course this is a wonderful form of the free verse (my poem "Tetons" below is a good example). Yet, some people feel that poems need to rhyme. The free verse came into being because a number of 20th century poets decided to go against the grain.

If one were to examine poetry from its beginnings you would understand it goes back as far as human kind with odes, pastorals and epics. There are also allegory, pastoral, and dramatic monologue, and many more.

Let's take a look at free-verse in this poem.

Tetons

Last morning

drying out

moving on

down the road.

Raining,

naturally.

Pelican and osprey

marshal the sky;

maybe a bald eagle too.

At Jackson Junction

an RV with Alaskan

plates drove down

191

We can't remember...

did we go to Utah in '86?

(poem by Lorelei Bell - unpublished)

This is a sort of travel log poem. It tells a story, it paints a picture, you know where the writer is, and what they are doing, what she is thinking. As form, it is centered because it worked best with this poem. I could have written it out like this:

Tetons

Last morning drying out moving on

down the road.

Raining naturally.

Pelican and osprey

Marshall the sky;

Maybe a bald eagle too.

At Jackson Junction an RV with

Alaskan plates drove down 191

We can't remember, did we go to Utah in '86?

It's good to experiment with how you want the poem to read. The line Raining needed to be placed by itself, as well as the word naturally because it was important to the poem. The couple have been camping and got wet, "drying out" tells you this, and the word "raining" reiterates this because it is part of the story. This one is more compact, too, but if read out loud the words tend to fall into one another. It's good to experiment with how you want your words to be placed on the page, and be mindful as to how you want the words to stand out. You want a mix of syllabic counts in a line too. Too many similar syllabic counts in each line can make the poem pedantic and boring. The workings of a free verse is to keep the reader from doing a sing-song in the reading.

I think when I discovered Lorine Niedecker's works of poetry she inspired me to write in a near-Haiku-like way that evokes the surroundings, or landscape. That is a very difficult poem to write.

Here I'll share another one that gives a sense of place, and tells a story. It's called Miner's Cabin, written in 2009. It was written during another camping trip up in the Rockies.

Miner's Cabin

Beheaded ghosts

immersed in darkness

skitter through mouse holes

beneath the old kitchen sink.

Shredded curtains dance

like pale phantoms

in dark corners across

worn plank floors.

Wasps have guilt a nest

 on one main beam.

Discovering me, one

flew about my head.

Discarded antique

bottles with rusted lids,

and a tin-colored fork

in the weeds by the privy.

You get the sense of place: an old abandoned cabin, and you know how old, and how out of the way it must be if there is a privy nearby and bottles so old they're antique. I actually collected a ketchup bottle from the waste and it was extremely old and unusual.

The above was an extended version from a shorter poem I wrote called "Lovely Gloom"

Lovely Gloom

Beheaded ghosts (4)

immersed in darkness (5)

skitter through (4)

mouse holes. (2)

Shredded curtains dance (5)

like clouds in (3)

an approaching storm. (5)

Lorelei Bell copyright 2005

Beside each line you will see I've put down the number of syllables. The rhythm keeps changing, holds your interest while reading this--as well as the picture it paints.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post, if you have any thoughts you want to share here, do so. I hope a poem will be birth from some inspiration for you today.