by Cyn Bagley

Created on: August 03, 2011

I think we are in rat's alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

- The Wasteland (II. A Game of Chess) by T.S. Eliot

Free-verse poetry has become the major form of the day. Many poets believe the free-verse means exactly that, that the poetry is free from any constraints. However, in my opinion, that is not so. When a poem is written well, it has consistence in tone, sound, images, and even meter. In fact, when I was looking for a definition of free-verse poetry, I found this answer from

Wise Geek: "Free verse is a modern form of poetry which does not follow any specific rhyme or metrical scheme, although it does not completely abandon the basic poetic precepts of heightened language and sonics."

One of my favorite free-verse poems is William Carlos Williams' The Red Wheelbarrow. The image of a wheelbarrow glistening with raindrops still sticks in my mind. And the poet uses so few words to paint this scene. The poem is breathtaking.

What bothers me when I read modern free-verse poets is that many don't take the time to pick the right words to paint pictures into my mind. For instance, one of the big mistakes of some poets (I have done it too) is to use abstracts, expecting every reader to have the same emotions from the same words. It is a big mistake. You might think the term "mother love" would bring the warm and fuzzy emotions to the reader. However, in my case when you use those words, I think of a controlling and out of control mother, who expected me to show her my love by cleaning her kitchen with a toothbrush.

Any abstract bothers me. A few that I have seen are the following: Love, Hate, Justice, Injustice, so forth and so on. These are ideas without concrete examples.

Another problem I see with free-verse poets is the need to make statements. Statements are not poetry. They belong in the abstract pile.

What makes a free-verse poem great are the following: sound, image, and feeling. A poem needs to be connected to an object or person. So we first talked about using the words "mother love" in a poem. If instead you wrote, "she leaned into her son, touched his hair, he suckled at her nipple. A smile quivered on her lips" then you would have described "mother love." Then we would understand what you were trying to express.

I had a professor a few years ago that said that poetry was condensed feeling. That a poet needed to use every syllable. Each one weighted with meaning. Since the day I showed her my poetry, and began to understand her meaning, I have found that free-verse is suited for experimentation.

So don't let me discourage you. Please experiment. Understand that the best free-verse poetry sticks in your mind through image and sound. Also, if you use the wrong sound (meter), it can contradict what you are trying to write. The best way to get an ear and eye for free-verse is to read it. And, don't forget to read the masters.

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