FREE VERSE FOR RHYMERS: Lessons from the Other Side

THE BASICS OF FREE VERSE POETRY

We all know that writing – any kind of writing – must be tight and engaging. No extra words. No tangents. Every syllable must push push push that poem or story forward toward its inevitable end. And as we’ve talked about in previous lessons, those syllables have to sing.

A good way to become familiar with the economy and choice of words necessary for such writing is to read and write free verse. Whether you’re a rhymer, poet, or prose writer, you can learn a lot by stripping away the rhyme schemes and meter and exposition and letting your story or poem stand there in all its naked glory. Without all the fancy plumes, does it still hold up?

The three free verse poems in this lesson illustrate how much can be done with character development, rhythm, and story structure in just a few well-chosen words. Each poem has a corresponding exercise on the practice sheet so you can apply the techniques to your own WIP to help you hone your writing.

If you need a refresher on free verse technique, refer to Lesson 12: The Basics of Free Verse, but do keep in mind that the “poems” produced in the exercises in this lesson are for your eyes only (or the class if you wish to share). That means NO PRESSURE — just let it flow. This course is not about producing mind-blowing free verse poems, but instead using the techniques to hone and enhance your other writing.

The first exercise on character is short, the others a bit longer and more difficult, so don’t feel you need to do them all in one sitting. You may decide to do only the exercise for character development and leave the rest for the future, and that’s fine. But if you are ever stuck, I do believe these exercises can help unstick you.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Creating specific, realistic characters is of course a major part of writing a successful story. Can you succinctly conjure your main character as poet Janet Wong does in this poem?

Points to Ponder 

In two tercets and a total of twenty-five words, Wong creates an entire relationship with an emotional backstory.
The poem feels both effortless and sincere because the poet has reproduced the natural rhythms of spoken language – something that is often lost in rhyming texts. There is nothing forced about the language.
Careful word choice supports the image of the narrator as a girl who is “soft” – just like all those F sounds in tofu, soft, falling, tough, full of fire.
Although this is free verse, the poet makes use of slant rhyme and other sound devices, as in tofu/soft/tough and ginger/her.
The first two lines and the use of tofu and soft at first give a sense that perhaps the narrator is merely plump, while the clever third line, easily falling apart, adds another meaning to the word soft, as in emotionally fragile (or at least more fragile than the tougher sister).
The choice of the specific words tofu and ginger give us more clues about the culture of the sisters. Those words also make us ponder why the narrator compares her sister to food rather than, say, flowers or spices or animals. What does that say about her?
The second tercet succinctly reveals both the narrator’s desire and her view of her sister.

RHYTHM AND SOUND

Here we will take another look at Marilyn Singer’s poem from Lesson 9: Sound Devices, which is also a wonderful example of how rhythm can paint a picture as well as words can. Remember that your choice of diction and meter will affect the pacing of your writing, so it’s important to analyze whether the rhythm you create (slow and plodding, lickety-split, etc.) backs up the tone of your poem or story (sad, lighthearted, etc.).

Points to Ponder 

Although it is free verse, Singer’s poem contains rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, and repetition.
Form and sound work really well together in This stick here / That stick there. The repeated stick is a short, staccato word that recalls the precision of a beaver’s work, while the space in the line forces the reader to pause and emphasizes the deliberate actions of the beaver in placing the sticks just so.
The same can be said for the repetition of mud, more mud, add mud, good mud, which creates a single-minded, assembly-line image of very focused beavers and mimics their staccato movements.
The heavy D, G, and short U sounds in that repeated line put us right in the mud with the beavers, while the alliterated M sound creates a subtle, monotonous hum that underscores the assembly line focus.
The lack of punctuation throughout further enhances the idea that these beavers don’t take a break and will continue working in their dam factory long after we’ve finished the poem.

STORY STRUCTURE

Keeping the story structure tight and focused is often a stumbling block for writers. Sometimes PB writers keep writing after the story has already ended, or poets write stanzas that a poem could really do without. In either case, the writer has simply gone on too long. In this poem, David L. Harrison reveals a complete story arc in under 100 words.

Points to Ponder 

Harrison’s poem is a concise illustration of story structure and story elements. With sparse but evocative language, the poem:
- establishes the main character and his emotional state (further helped by cowboy dialect)
- introduces the problem (conflicted about signing up for the cattle drive)
- illustrates reasons that gave rise to problem (those durn flies!)
- ups the stakes (busted leg, stampedes, etc.)
- includes falling action moving toward resolution (don’t know what else I’d do)
- shows transformation of character’s emotional state (lookin’ at stars ain’t so bad)
- resolution (sign me up)

Remember that when trying the exercises on the practice sheet, the idea is not to merely write your whole rhyming story or poem down the page instead of across it – that’s not what free verse is. Rather, the idea is to distill your work into one or a series of short free verse poems with the goal of seeing

where you can tighten your writing
how you can use sound, rhythm, and word choice to enhance your story
how you can bring more of the natural rhythms of spoken language into your verse and prose
how your structure holds up without all the bells and whistles of rhyme

Getting to the essence of your story through free verse can help you approach your work with a more critical eye and refine it into a tight, engaging, and musical piece of writing.

lesson 13 assignment

Download and print the Lesson 13 Practice Sheet: Honing Your Writing with Free Verse.

Please share your character verse from the practice sheet in the forum, or stop in to ask questions and get feedback.

more learning & application

Read some poem picture books to see how story, mood, and character can be developed through poetry.
Recommended: A House that Once Was by Julie Fogliano and Harlem at Four by Michael Datcher.
Watch my video: WHAT IS A POEM PICTURE BOOK?

downloads and links

WEB PAGE: Reading Resources

GOOGLE DOC: Renée’s Mentor Texts

WEB PAGE: Poetic Meter Infographic

WEB PAGE: Rhyme Infographics

WEB PAGE: Rhyme Scheme & Stanza Infographic

WEB PAGE: Glossary of Poetic Terms

Need to review?

Use these links to previous lessons.

Introduction
Lesson 1: Stressed and Unstressed Syllables
Lesson 2: The Iamb + Metrical Feet and Metrical Lines + Rhyme Crime #1 (Misplaced Stress)
Lesson 3: Types of Rhyme + Rhyme Crime #2 (Forced and Predictable Rhymes)
Lesson 4: The Trochee + Rhyme Crime #3 (Inverted Syntax)
Lesson 5: Rhyme Scheme and Stanzas + Rhyme Crime #4 (Rhyme Dictates Story)
Lesson 6: The Anapest + Headless and Truncated Meter
Lesson 7: Sound Devices
Lesson 8: The Dactyl
Lesson 9: Figurative Language
Lesson 10: Metrical Variance + Rhyme Crime #5 (Inconsistent Meter)
Lesson 11: Diction + Rhyme Crime #6 (Filler Words)
Lesson 12: The Basics of Free Verse

This lesson is part of the online writing course THE LYRICAL LANGUAGE LAB and is copyrighted intellectual property. No portion of this publication may be shared or reproduced by any means, including duplicating, photocopying, electronic, mechanical, email, recording, the World Wide Web, or otherwise.

Samples and excerpts used in the course are the sole property of and copyrighted by the credited authors.

THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF FREE VERSE

The good news is that there isn’t a whole lot of new information to absorb for writing free verse since this style uses all the same elements as rhyming poetry — it just doesn’t rhyme in a set pattern. The bad news is that many people don’t understand free verse or find it boring or even fear it as some sort of inscrutable bit of writing. If you are one of those people — fear not! I am willing to bet that, given time and opportunity, even the most reluctant free verse writer will eventually find free verse gratifying, useful, and liberating.

Let’s take a look at the four most important elements of free verse, along with some sample poems.

STANZAS

Just as in rhyming verse, free verse poems may be broken into stanzas of two or more lines or left as one long stanza, and the number of lines in each stanza doesn’t necessarily need to be consistent.

LINE BREAKS

Whereas the length of lines in rhyming verse depends on meter, rhyme, and other considerations, line length — or line breaks — in free verse depend only on the author.

There are also various ways to create line breaks, including

indenting
using white space
using end punctuation
using other punctuation like dashes and ellipses
using enjambment (when a sentence or phrase is continued on a subsequent line or in a different stanza)

WRITE a free verse poem.

Be mindful of the concepts we’ve covered so far, particularly diction, sound, and figurative language.

Remember that the goal is to practice lyrical language, not become the next Uncle Walt!

If you are not sure where to start, use one of the sample poems as a model. For example, you could write an apology poem like “This Is Just to Say” or a poem about a family member like “GongGong and Susie” or a poem about a small item as in Valerie Worth’s poems.

Just let it out!

SHARE your assignments in the forum, or stop in to ask questions and get feedback.

more learning & application

Read the following classic poems by celebrated children’s poets, all of which can be found on No Water River by clicking the links. You may need to scroll to find them in the posts.
- Eve Merriam – “Weather” (also a wonderful example of sound devices) and “How to Eat a Poem”
- Janet Wong – “Ears”, “Behind the Wheel”, “Talking in her Sleep”, and more.
- David McCord – “The Pickety Fence”
- Karla Kuskin – “Write about a Radish”
Read my poem “The Boat,” which also shows a revision.
Not sure how to revise free verse? Watch my video: REVISION CHALLENGE – Cutting Word Count, Killing Your Darlings

by Renée M. LaTulippe

We all know that writing – any kind of writing – must be tight and engaging. No extra words. No tangents. Every syllable must push push push that poem or story forward toward its inevitable end. And those syllables have to sing.

A good way to become familiar with the economy and choice of words necessary for such writing is to read and write free verse. As rhymers, we can learn so much by stripping away our rhyme schemes and meter and letting our stories or poems stand there as naked as jaybirds. Without all the fancy plumes, do they still hold up?

The three free verse poems below illustrate how much can be done with character development, rhythm, and story structure in just a few well-chosen words. Read them and try the quick exercises to see how you can apply the techniques to hone your rhyming poems and stories.

Character Development

Points to ponder:

In two tercets and a total of twenty-five words, poet Janet Wong creates an entire relationship with an emotional backstory.
The poem feels both effortless and sincere because the poet has reproduced the natural rhythms of spoken language – something that is often lost in rhyming texts. There is nothing forced about the language.
Careful word choice supports the image of the narrator as a girl who is “soft” – just like all those F sounds in tofu, soft, falling, tough, full of fire.
Although this is free verse, the poet makes use of slant rhyme and other sound devices, as in tofu/soft/tough and ginger/her.
The first two lines and the use of tofu and soft at first give a sense that perhaps the narrator is merely plump, while the clever third line, easily falling apart, adds another meaning to the word soft, as in emotionally fragile (or at least more fragile than the tougher sister).
The second tercet succinctly reveals both the narrator’s desire and her view of her sister.

Try it!

Write a short free verse poem that encapsulates your main character and includes clues to his/her personality, problem, and emotional state, and/or relationship to another character. Then rewrite it as a rhyming stanza.

Rhythm and Sound

Points to ponder:

Although it is free verse, Marilyn Singer’s poem contains rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, and repetition.
Form and sound work really well together in This stick here / That stick there. The repeated stick is a short, staccato word that recalls the precision of a beaver’s work, while the space in the line forces the reader to pause and emphasizes the deliberate actions of the beaver in placing the sticks just so.
The same can be said for the repetition of mud, more mud, add mud, good mud, which creates a single-minded, assembly-line image of very focused beavers and mimics their staccato movements.
The heavy D, G, and short U sounds in that repeated line put us right in the mud with the beavers, while the alliterated M sound creates a subtle, monotonous hum that underscores the assembly line focus.
The lack of punctuation throughout further enhances the idea that these beavers don’t take a break and will continue working in their dam factory long after we’ve finished the poem.

Try it!

Choose a short section of your manuscript or poem and rewrite it as a free verse poem that captures the desired rhythm of your story/character. Is it fast-paced and bouncy or slow and lyrical? Consider the properties of the sounds you choose.

Story Structure

Points to ponder:

This poem by David L. Harrison is a succinct illustration of story structure and story elements. With sparse but evocative language, the poem:
- establishes the main character and his emotional state (further helped by cowboy dialect)
- introduces the problem (conflicted about signing up for the cattle drive)
- illustrates reasons that gave rise to problem (those durn flies!)
- ups the stakes (busted leg, stampedes, etc.)
- falling action moving toward resolution (don’t know what else I’d do)
- shows transformation of character’s emotional state (lookin’ at stars ain’t so bad)
- resolution (sign me up)

Try it!

Write your whole rhyming story or poem in free verse. What did you leave out that was in the rhyming version? Do you really need it?

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Remember that when trying these exercises, the idea is not to merely write your whole rhyming story or poem down the page instead of across it – that’s not what free verse is. Rather, the idea is to distill your work into one or a series of short free verse poems with the goal of seeing

where you can tighten your writing
how you can use sound, rhythm, and word choice to enhance your story
how you can bring more of the natural rhythms of spoken language into your verse
how your structure holds up without all the bells and whistles of rhyme

Getting to the essence of your story through free verse can help you approach your work with a more critical eye and refine it into a tight, engaging, and musical piece of writing.

Now fly! Be free!

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Language is everything, of course, and free verse must use the same lyrical language as rhymed verse.

Points to Ponder 

Stanzas: Worth’s poem is divided into four stanzas. If we look at the bullet points for stanzas above, we see that stanzas can “signal a change in time, place, or perspective,” and that is what is happening here. The first stanza introduces the topic of the poem: stripping off shoes and socks and going barefoot. Each subsequent stanza focuses on a separate good that going barefoot brings: clover, grass, earth. The white space between stanzas is a moment for the reader to breathe and slows the pacing of the poem; in essence, the white space asks the reader to take a moment to ponder the image before moving on.
Line breaks: Worth gives us all sorts of things to look at here. Notice how each line ends on a strong word, thereby putting extra emphasis on that word: tight, sock, blunt, shoe, etc. Each one of those words is an image in itself. Then she places key words in each stanza on their own line: skin, teeth, breath. The first line in each stanza is incomplete yet intriguing, making the reader want to continue to find out what can be felt, what is fine, what is cool. The first stanza is especially effective with the jarring and unusual first line, After that tight.
Diction: Note how Worth uses diction to completely change the tone of the poem after the first stanza. Heavy words like tight, choke, blunt, sock, and weight, with their hard sounds and negative connotations, create tension in the first stanza; the reader can feel their feet being strangled by those suffocating socks. The rest of the poem has light words and long vowels and pleasing sounds: feel, green, breathe, teeth, gentle, cool. The tone changes to one of freedom, lightness, a happy sigh.
Rhyme and Sound Devices: Worth makes subtle use of perfect and slant rhymes (teeth/beneath; tight/weight) and alliteration/assonance/consonance (choke/sock; blunt/weight; foot/feel; clover/growing; breath/earth/beneath).
Personification: The poet intensifies the imagery by personifying nature: clover has skin that can grow; the grass has teeth; the earth breathes.
Rhythm: Though of course the poem is not metrical, note the abrupt, spondaic feel of tight choke and blunt weight as juxtaposed against the more lilting rhythms of the later stanzas.

Grammar: This poem is one sentence, punctuated just as it would be as if written as a line of prose (again notwithstanding the initial capital letters, which are the poet’s choice).