Free Verse
3
TLC / College of the Canyons
What is Free Verse?
Free verse is a form of poetry free of distinct rules that first originated in France and was coined vers
libre (free verse). This is a form that has few rules: it does not have to rhyme, stanzas may be different
lengths, lines are usually different lengths, there is no metrical pattern (i.e. iambic pentameter) and the
first word of the line is often not capitalized. The purpose of free verse is not to disregard all traditional
rules of poetry; instead, free verse is based on a poet's own rules of personal thought patterns and
breath patterns. Rather than fitting content to form, the poet has the freedom to create the form
accordingly, to emphasize specific words and sounds.
Examples:
Here is an example of a free verse poem by Carl Sandburg:
Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
In this poem, Sandburg uses a metaphor, comparing fog with the stealth and swiftness of a cat. The shortness of
the first stanza evokes the image of the two “little cat feet” (line 2). The longer second stanza represents the cat
on its haunches, looking over the city. The poem omits rhyming or alliteration to suit the characteristics of fog,
quiet and unassuming.
Here is another example of a free verse poem by E.E. Cummings:
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
who
a)s w(e loo)k
upnowgath
PPEGORHRASS
eringint(oaThe):l
eA
!p:
S
a
(r
rIvInG
.gRrEaPsPhOs)
to
rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly
,grasshopper;
Updated May 2016
Student Resources by The Learning Center, College of the Canyons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License.
Free Verse
3
TLC / College of the Canyons
In this poem, Cummings plays with conventions of line, meter, and format to create meaning. The free verse of
the poem allows Cummings to regulate how the reader reads. Cummings is upgathering, leaping, disintegrating,
and rearranging words to reflect his subject: the grasshopper. Because its name results from the action of hopping
from one blade of grass to the next, Cummings plays with the idea that the insect cannot be called a grasshopper
until it has hopped grass; with the form, he describes the incomplete action with incorrect words until the leap,
when the grasshopper can be named.
Varieties of Free Verse
Free verse can be categorized into five varieties, according to Henry Tompkins Kirby-Smith, the author of
The Origins of Free Verse.
Five types:
1. Phrase-reinforcing: arranging lines into natural phrases
2. Phrase-breaking: interrupts the natural phrase at unexpected times
3. Word-breaking: splits a single word between two or more lines
4. Word-jamming: squeezes words together
5. The prose poem: everything else
Most importantly, free verse does not mean that anything goes; it simply gives writers the freedom to
create forms of poetry that suit their individual purposes and styles.
Significant Poets that Employ Free Verse
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was a major experiment in cadenced rather than metrical
versification. The following lines are typical:
All truths wait in all things
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon.
Matthew Arnold sometimes used free verse, notably in "Dover Beach." But it was the French poets of
the late nineteenth century—Rimbaud, Laforgue, Viele-Griffin, and others—who, in their revolt against
the tyranny of strict French versification, established the Vers Libre movement, from which the name
“free verse” originates.
In the twentieth century free verse has been used widely by most poets, of whom Rainer Maria Rilke,
St.-John Perse, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, and William Carlos Williams are
representative. Such a list indicates the great variety of subject matter, effect and tone that is
possible in free verse, and shows that it is much less a rebellion against traditional English
metrics than a modification and extension of the resources of our language.
You can browse free verse poems here.
Updated May 2016
Student Resources by The Learning Center, College of the Canyons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License.