Styles and Techniques: Free Verse

Free verse is an irregular form of poetry that does not necessarily follow the rules of rhyme and meter. Free verse is almost the same as descriptive writing, except that the poets can choose where to put line breaks. If this is done in an artful, insightful manner, then free verse poetry can create an atmosphere that mere prose can never hope to achieve.

Violet

Tiny violet

all clad in itself

an infinitesimal speck

raw, naked beauty

in a parched field

in a parched land

in a parched world

WE

the conceited architects

of our own destruction

in the acquirement of our dreams

we have lost our realities

in all of our brilliance

our limitless understanding

we have not achieved

will never achieve

that which the young violet

knows not it possesses

for only in the understanding

that we see nothing

that we know nothing

that we are nothing

will we truly gain

that which we believe

we already have

This is one of the most common styles of poetry today, though it only began to be recognized as poetry within the past 100 or so years. Free verse is probably my favorite type of poetry, for there are no limits to how and what we are allowed to express. I have been writing free verse for awhile now, and will continue to write it, hopefully for a long time yet.

~ Adam B.