Of Poetry and Free Verse

Thoughts of poetry and the problem of free verse are once again brought to the forefront of my mind. In a comment by Ashley, she makes reference to my dislike of the form.

Before describing my thought on the matter, I want to make this preface: I do not consider myself a better poet than writers whose form is primarily free verse. I do respect them and value their insight a great deal.

My issue with free verse is that its over used and terribly misunderstood. Speaking in generalities, the majority of free verse, by far, that I’ve read is better presented as prose without the line breaks. To give them credit, free verse is much harder to write well than more structured forms form of poetry, whose form lends itself also to the meaning of the words.

The truth is that I like free verse very much. The book of Psalms (as presented in the authorized version) is one of the best examples of exemplary poetry without a defined rhyme or structured rhythm. But there are some distinct differences between the Psalms and much of the free verse writtentoday. The Psalms are full of poetic devices such as alliteration, parallelism, and cadence. Most free verse (at least the ones I’ve read) are devoid of many of such devices, especially cadence. The lack of cadence makes it difficult to read and thus enjoy. The majority are better served when presented without line breaks as a coherent paragraph, making them much better prose than verse.

For Further Reading:

• Robert Frost’s definition of free verse
• Definition of free verse as prose written in cadence
• on free verse and poetry

On the KJV and Poetry:

• on the poetic qualities of the Hebrew Language
• on the position the KJV had in the English language
• on how the KJV influenced the English language
• on the character of the KJV