Let My Ballad Go

I keep running into the attitude that free verse isn’t poetry. Who says it isn’t poetry? Free verse has meter. It is just its own meter. I know the difference when I am writing prose and poetry. The two sound very different in my head; they have two different voices. I played around with an example.

Here is a prose vignette.

* * * * *

The red rose, tilted within the cobalt blue glass vase, was framed against the silver-blue sky outside the window. The vase sat on a small deep-brown Queen Anne table, which gleamed in the morning light. The smell of lemon furniture polish still drifted through the air. The door beside the table opened and a young woman walked in with a handful of mail. She sorted through the mail until one letter caught her attention. Dropping the rest of the mail on the little table, she eagerly ripped open the letter and read:

“Dear Mary,

Every day I miss you. Yes, we keep busy, but it isn’t the same as having you here. I wish I could tell you more about what I’m doing, but I can’t. I keep thinking about you and how much I love you. Oh! It is time for the mail to be picked up. I must close now.

Your Love,

David.”

Mary sighed and dropped the letter on top of the other mail. She stood there looking out the window over the yard and to the street beyond, waiting, waiting, waiting, for her beloved to come home.

* * * * *

And yes, I even play around a bit at the end of that prose piece. But it is decidedly prose. I could continue expanding that piece to a full short story, but choose to illustrate one moment in time and not go into even more detail.

And now, here is a free verse poem about the same moment. It is much more sparse. It leaves even more up to the reader’s imagination. I’m sure if I worked hard enough at the poem, I could turn it into a more formal poetical structure. But I don’t always have hours to spare. So, if I have an emotional or picturesque image I wish to share, I go with that.

Tilted red rose,
blue cobalt glass vase,
rich brown Queen Anne table,
framed by the silver-blue sky.
The mail comes.
“Dear Mary,” it says,
“I miss you,
I love you.”
Gazing through the window,
I wait for you
to return home.