HFCC Learning Lab
Creative Writing 9.26
How “Free Verse” Works
The following poem is written in what is usually called “free verse” or “random line”
poetry: there is no pattern in the lines in terms of syllables or specific number of stresses per line,
nor is it rimed. There are, however, patterns in the poem.
When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer
1. When I heard the learn’d astronomer
2. When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
3. When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
4. When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture
room,
5. How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
6. Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
7. In the mystical night-air, and from time to time,
8. Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
---Walt Whitman
Form cannot be separated from content in free verse any more (perhaps less) than it can
in more traditional poetical patterns.
The content of this poem can be summarized quite easily (and unsatisfactorily): the
speaker is obviously dissatisfied with the attempt of the scientist to rationally and systematically
explain the universe; he goes outside and finds a much more satisfactory explanation in a sort of
mystical communion with the universe.
As for the plan, the “rhythm” or pattern of the poem: the eight lines break into two
distinct four-line parts. The first four lines comprise a compound introductory clause which sets
up the condition from which the speaker wants to escape. As the speaker becomes more and
more bored, the lines become longer. The items in series in lines 2 and 3 reflect the lists of the
astronomer; and the fact that these dependent clauses cannot make a complete thought reflects
the unsatisfactory nature of the scientist’s explanations.
Lines 5 through 8 comprise the independent clause which completes the sentence. As the
speaker goes out into nature to find the explanation which can satisfy him, the thought is
completed, and to add to the effect the lines themselves become shorter. When the poem and the
problem are at last resolved in line 8, the line is a simple, plain one. Thus the sense of the poem
is represented in its form; thus are the false complexities of the scientist (false, at least, according
to the poem) contrasted with the simplicity of the speaker solution.
This is the structure of only one free verse poem. Each such poem must create its own
interaction of form and content.
“Free verse is not cheap”, as one critic-poet put the problem. Unlike the poet who writes
in a predetermined form, the couplet, the sonnet, the sestina, etc., the free verse poet must create
both his/her content and his/her form, and they must work together.
Thus, contrary to what most beginners believe, free verse is extremely hard to write.
Most often it is merely rather dull prose laid out in lines of varying length to resemble a poem.