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This week: What is Free Verse Poetry? Edited by: Crys-not really here  
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What is Free Verse Poetry?
I received an e-mail here at WDC a few months back, after I did one of my first Poetry Newsletters. A member wanted an explanation of free verse poetry. What exactly is it? What are the "rules"? Despite my 10+ years of writing free verse poetry, I didn't have an answer for him, so the e-mail sat in my inbox, unanswered. I decided to do some research on free verse, and today I wish to talk about some misconceptions about it.
Free verse is incorrectly assumed to be a "modern" advancement in poetry. However, it has been around for centuries. It wasn't until the 20th Century that free verse became popular, partly because people believed it to be easier to write than poetry in form. There is an assumption that free verse is "poetry without rules," but that can't be farther from the truth! Instead, free verse should be described as "poetry that plays by the poet's rules." Unlike a sonnet, where the poet must follow a very strict syllable count and rhyme scheme, free verse can be constructed any way the poet sees fit. Free verse does not have a meter, and it generally does not rhyme, but well done free verse does have a rhythm and may employ any number of poetic devices, including repetition, assonance, or internal rhymes. The poet cannot simply put words on a page and call it poetry. Without poetic devices, poetry is actually prose.
The poet is also responsible for choosing where line breaks and stanza breaks occur. It's a sort of haphazard process for me. I often chose where to end a line or stanza based on aesthetics, and then go back to the poem later to make more sense of what I've done. There are a number of ways to break up both stanzas and lines, and I hope to cover that in a later newsletter.
Because the poet makes the decisions about form, many poets argue that free verse poetry is actually harder than writing sonnets, villanelles, or haiku. Some poets who prefer writing in form express how hard it is for them to put their thoughts and feelings down on paper without a structure to fit them in. For me, free verse poetry is actually freeing. It allows me to write exactly how I feel or what I've experienced. The challenge is writing a poem in a way that the reader can experience exactly what you intend them to.
Despite the challenge of writing without structure, free verse is one of the most popular types of poetry. The prevailing thought that free verse is "easier" is probably why there's an abundance of poorly-written poems. Poets need to realize that free verse does not equal "free-for-all."
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Thank you to everyone who wrote in about my last poetry newsletter about National Poetry Month!
Very nice suggestions. I will be reading a poem of mine at a Cram at the Poetry Fest at our library on Saturday and I had one published in the zine that they will give out to attendees of the Fest. -Christine Cassello 
Thank you for including my poem "On the Bus" in this month's newsletter. -Prosperous Snow celebrating 
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Poetry: May 19, 2010 Issue [#3725]
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