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Homeschool Learning Network
Free Verse I
Name ___________________________
Date _____________________
Seemingly at the far end of the spectrum from the highly structured poetry of sonnets and ballads,
limericks and rhyming couplets is free verse. Free verse is not, of course, “free” in the sense that
you don’t need to pay to listen to it or read it; most “verse” is free that way. Neither is free verse
“free” in the sense of complete freedom from rules.
1. In what sense is free verse “free” then?
2. This begs another question: What is the difference between poetry and prose? Why is free
verse poetry and not prose?
3. Free verse began, it is often said, as a 19th Century French movement known as vers libre. Do
some reading and then explain the difference between vers libre and modern free verse.
4. Poet Robert Frost didn’t think much of free verse. He preferred to write blank verse instead.
What is the difference between free verse and blank verse?
Besides the French poets, one of the early American practitioners of free verse was Walt Whitman
(1819-1892), best known for his collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass. In many ways Leaves of
Grass was the embodiment of Whitman’s lifetime: re-composed, refined and re-published in ever
changing forms until the time he died.
Below is an excerpt:
The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd feet,
And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner.
5. In what way is this poetry and not prose?
6. What rules of prose, of conventional written English, have been relaxed here? Why do you
think the author chose those particular rules to relax?
7. What is a gall in this context? What is the meaning of the last line?
A particularly famous poem from Leaves of Grass, immortalized in popular cinema, is “Oh Captain!
My Captain!”
© 2002 The Homeschool Learning Network, all rights reserved. The Homeschool Learning Network permits teachers and parents to reproduce this
page for non-profit and educational purposes only. http://www.homeschoollearning.com
Page 2 of 4
Homeschool Learning Network
Free Verse I
Name ___________________________
Date _____________________
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
8. How is this poem like the previous poem, and how is it different? What patterns mark it out as
poetry, not prose?
9. Who is the captain? What is the prize that has been won?
10. What is the overall metaphor of the poem? Why do you think that Whitman chose this
metaphor?
The poetry of Whitman is still, in many ways, highly structured. Pushing the limits of free verse
was the poetry of the Dadaists, one of whose early practitioners was a Romanian-born man named
Tristan Tzare (1896-1963). Tzare is best remembered for “writing” poems by pulling random words
out of a hat. What follows is excerpted from one of his more structured but still very surrealistic
poems.
Modest chair people painted grey
who don't want to be anything
but chairs for others to sit in.
© 2002 The Homeschool Learning Network, all rights reserved. The Homeschool Learning Network permits teachers and parents to reproduce this
page for non-profit and educational purposes only. http://www.homeschoollearning.com
Page 3 of 4
Homeschool Learning Network
Free Verse I
Name ___________________________
Date _____________________
11. Tzare’s poetry is often highly surreal. What does surreal mean in this context?
12. What is the poetic benefit of Tzare’s surrealism?
Here’s another stanza from the same poem:
Long thin thread people
of white unwritten thread
rolled on a spool
convenient to carry in your pocket.
13. What kind of people do you think Tzare has in mind in this case?
Respond to the following statements. Do you agree or disagree?
14. “Free verse is one of the easiest forms of poetry to write.”
15. "For my pleasure I had as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down." (Robert
Frost)
Some free verse is freer than others. Write an example of:
16. An acrostic poem.
17. A four-line stanza of blank verse.
18. A poem where the last word of each line is the first word of the next.
19. A poem where every word begins or ends with the same consonant sound.
20. A poem where every stanza describes a different season of the year.
(For ideas, look at the examples given in the 6th-8th grade worksheet for this week.)
© 2002 The Homeschool Learning Network, all rights reserved. The Homeschool Learning Network permits teachers and parents to reproduce this
page for non-profit and educational purposes only. http://www.homeschoollearning.com
Page 4 of 4
Homeschool Learning Network
Free Verse I
Name ___________________________
Date _____________________
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
1. Free verse is “free” of the rigid constraints of rhyme and meter. Perhaps free verse would
better be called freer verse.
2. Prose is ordinary English composition. Poetry is word play where the customary rules of
English (capitalization, spelling, punctuation, grammar) composition have been relaxed in
search of a deeper meaning in the words.
3. The difference between the vers libre of 1880s France and modern free verse is probably a
matter of degree: in particular, the degree of permissible relaxation of the rules. The French
poets began by moving away from strict meter and verse. Some modern “sound poems” don’t
have any recognizable words to them at all.
4. Blank verse has meter without rhyme: the meter is consistent throughout. Free verse may
have meter or rhyme or both, but neither meter nor rhyme are consistent.
5. Whitman is playing with the cadence of the words, which are arranged not in sentences but in
lines, lines that together make something of a run-on sentence.
6. Spelling and punctuation are both irregular.
7. Oozing sores. Whitman is not afraid of the man, nor does he feel superior to him. Instead he
treats him fully like a brother. Whitman’s anger at slavery and racism appear at different points
through his work.
8. Spelling and punctuation have similarly been relaxed; but the lines are arranged in more
recognizable stanzas, and the overall feeling is more structured. Besides the cadence of the
words, there is considerable repetition and some amount of alliteration… even some rhyme.
9. The “captain” is President Abraham Lincoln. The “prize” is the end of the Civil War.
10. The central metaphor is of a ship and of its captain both completing their respective journeys.
11. Surrealism is reality twisted in odd and unexpected ways: the familiar made unfamiliar,
dreamlike.
12. One gets a very clear image of just the kind of people Tzare is talking about: unassuming
people who allow other people to dictate nearly every aspect of their lives…. to treat them like
furniture.
© 2002 The Homeschool Learning Network, all rights reserved. The Homeschool Learning Network permits teachers and parents to reproduce this
page for non-profit and educational purposes only. http://www.homeschoollearning.com