How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

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David Campbell
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How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by David Campbell » Sun Jul 31, 2011 12:26 pm

There's been some more discussion about free verse as against bush verse in an old thread of mine (re the newspaper article from back in January), so here's a bit of fun (with an undercurrent of serious comment) to explain what free verse is all about.

How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson…

© David Campbell, July 31, 2011

Now, all you balladeers who take the time
to write in perfect metre and good rhyme,
please settle back and listen in to me
about this modern verse that’s wild and free.
Forget what you have learned from all those books,
today’s verse much depends on how it looks!

For instance, you can make lines
very short,
if haste is the
impression
that is
sought;
and then you stretch them out to make it plain
that you have slowed the tempo once again.

But when you want to make emotion clear,
then break things.....up.....with words way over.......................here.
Or if consumed by incandescent RAGE,
....try.........................scattering.........them
..........................................madly
...............................................................down the
..........................PAGE!

The stanzas can be brief or very long…
there’s no-one who will tell you right from wrong,
and if you want to make it quite absurd
then build a verse around a single

word.

And punctuation can be heaps of fun,
for you can use a lot…or maybe none!

its liberating you can have a ball
by writing down your thoughts ignoring all
apostrophes and commas and full stops
for free verse has no fussy language cops
who get upset when colons go astray
and question marks are banished come what may
though sometimes if you find you’re on the spot
then chuck one in at random well why not?

So take your words and toss them in the air,
then let them land wherever they may dare,
with syllables that multiply like fleas,
and punctuation drifting on the breeze.
But if you do, then stop, and think, and heed
a warning you may find you come to need…
try not to hide your message so damn deep
that excavating readers have to weep
or laugh or frown or give a weary smile,
because they’ve had to ponder for a while
on what the hell it means, and why you penned
this poem that’s so hard to comprehend!

Heather

Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Heather » Sun Jul 31, 2011 12:31 pm

Enjoyed your explanation very much David. I bought a book of modern poetry - mostly free verse, while away in Brisbane. Some of it I quite enjoy but some is so vague that it makes no sense to anyone other than the writer (if indeed they understood what they were writing!) It includes poets such as Kipling, Thomas Hardy, T.S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas and a heap of others I cannot recall right now. It has three or four poems from each poet.

Heather :)

Neville Briggs
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Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Neville Briggs » Sun Jul 31, 2011 1:50 pm

Contemporary poetry is not some one dimensional collection of " free " verse. If you spend the time reading it ( and I do ) you will find that verse and poetry both historic and contemporary, has many, many, varied forms and renderings.
If any one thinks that there are only two opposing forms of poetry; free verse against rhyme and metre, then I'm afraid you are very lacking in understanding and knowledge.

I would urge everybody to be careful of the lure of the straw-man argument. That is; putting up a ludicrous caricature of contemporary verse and attacking this caricature as if it represented a true model of contemporary verse.
C.J.Dennis , sadly, fell for the straw-man argument. Astonishing for a man of his ability and experience. He wrote a piece called " A Free Verse Review "* in which he falsely characterized free verse as nothing more than prose chopped into arbitrary lengths. No doubt some people try to do it that way, but that's not what it is and his absurd construction allowed C.J. Dennis to deride it as if he had demonstrated something. It was easy to scoff at his own construction, it was designed to look silly, and he only demonstrated his ignorance and prejudice.

I urge yet again, that we don't get bogged down in fruitlesss arguments about " free verse " let's work at what imaginative, creative and varied verse that can be produced on the basis of carefully thought out formal principles.

* HUTCHINSON, Garrie,The C.J.Dennis Collection, Lothian Publishing Co. 1987.
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

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Zondrae
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Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Zondrae » Sun Jul 31, 2011 2:50 pm

G'day David,

I am not sure how to classify this one. Can you help.

Neville , your thoughts would be appreciated too.

The Mouse Adventure
 Zondrae King (Corrimal) 06/11

I was sitting in my lounge room with the television on
but I really wasn’t watching. I was crocheting that night,
when I sensed the slightest movement from the corner of my eye.
So I froze in that position, just my eyes turned to the corner.

Then
I saw it.

In halting
steps,
quite
timidly at first
and I wondered
why
it
ventured
in the house.

Then with such determined scurrying, legs in harmony and fast
in one long final burst, it reached a safer place.

The weather, unexpectedly, had turned during the week,
I wondered if a mouse, at large, would feel the sudden cold.
Or did she see the light that shows beneath the kitchen door.
and sense the promised bounty that all country homes contain.

Did she feel the heat that emanated from the large TV?
Was she looking for a hidey hold as safety from a foe?
Did whiskers feel my breathing or the heart inside me beat?
did she know my eyes were on her as she scurried all about?

Feeling braver now
exploring
round,
along the skirting board.
and the only sound
disturbing us
- the televisions drone.


I watched
until
she came upon
a hanging power cord
and
with whiskers help for balancing
she followed til the end.

Oh no! a dreadful, tickling was building in my nose
and I could feel that inevitable sneezing from the cold.
I knew the noise would frighten her - I thought I would explode
- she‘d surely run away. aahh aahh aaahh chew!

She jumped,
straight up,
about a foot,
and then
she took off fast
in a sudden hoppy, skippy run
as quick as tiny legs could go.
Rushing back behind the curtains
speedy through the kitchen arch.
Skidding...sliding........ sideway........round the corner
on to outer parts.

And then I couldn’t see her. She had slipped into the night
and I wondered where she found a little hole to creep inside.
I searched and found a mouse-sized entrance near the standard light.
I blocked the hole and hoped that she would find her food elsewhere.
Zondrae King
a woman of words

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Bob Pacey
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Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Bob Pacey » Sun Jul 31, 2011 3:53 pm

Ah yes Zondrae that certainly is free. hard to read I will grant you but non the less free.


Bob
The purpose in life is to have fun.
After you grasp that everything else seems insignificant !!!

Neville Briggs
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Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Neville Briggs » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:20 pm

I wouldn't call it free verse, because the whole thing is mostly in iambic metre.
To me, it is a type of blank verse, which I wish we could have more of in the bush poets.

The longer lines are certainly iambic blank verse, the shorter lines are a sort of a mixture where you have broken up the metric structure a bit into a more flexible scheme.( it's still iambic really )


I certainly didn't find it hard to read, on the contrary it was very enjoyable.
I think that the style and mood of the poem is perfect for the theme and I think that the end result trumps any queries about technical points.

Loved it, Zondrae. Well done I say.
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

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Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Bob Pacey » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:30 pm

To each their own Nev but not sometihng I would like to see on the site all that often considering our guidelines.

Plenty of other sites where that could be posted.

Bob
The purpose in life is to have fun.
After you grasp that everything else seems insignificant !!!

Heather

Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Heather » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:33 pm

We should still be able to discuss it though Bob whether it's our thing or not. :)

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Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Bob Pacey » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:36 pm

Never at any time said we couldn't.


Bob
The purpose in life is to have fun.
After you grasp that everything else seems insignificant !!!

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Re: How To Write Free Verse In One Easy Lesson...

Post by Zondrae » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:59 pm

G'day Bob,

I agree with the fact that it does not meet the APA guidelines for Bush Poetry. But then again I didn't say it was bush poetry. Perhaps I should have put it in the General Discussion section. It really was just an experiment and the original, although written in this fashion did have a rhyming pattern for the stanzas that appear as a block. Even the strung out sections had consistent rhyme which I had to go back and take out.

Don't you ever have the urge to try something different?
Zondrae King
a woman of words

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