Free Verse Poetry?

Question

Do you think that free verse poetry is harder or easier to write than poetry forms with strict rules for meter and rhyme scheme?

It is a myth, by the way, that good free verse has no order to it.

As an English/Creative Writing major I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts. Does the "freedom" backfire on people and make it easier to create inferior work?

Answer 1

Interesting question.  I think free verse is harder; in amateur hands it comes off as a ranting hodgepodge.  

The more rigid structures have an "insert here" quality to them that I believe makes them easier to produce.

Good free verse poetry requires a very skillful hand.

Answer 2

This is a very broad question. I live in a prior century. For me, "Free Verse" or "Verse Libre" is not free at all. It is iambic pentameter sans rhyme.

Free Form, on the other hand, is what I call Walt Whitman, EE Cummings, Adelaide Crapsy and the rest.

There are many styles of Free Form, such as the Cinquain, with criteria set outside of rhyme and meter.

Free Form is easier to write because it is thought streams set with enjambment. Anytime you make restrictions, you complicate the process.

Journalism Merit Badge; Boy Scouts of America...

Answer 3

I love free verse.    It does make it easier to  create sucky poems, but it's also easier to create something beautiful as well.    And well made free verse is beautiful to listen to.

Answer 4

i have no qualifications, i'm a teen who writes to pass time and to get my thoughts in order, but i think it's harder to write what i consider good poetry in free verse. even if i try, i'm likely to end up falling back into rhyming iambic tetrameter anyways, usually in a kinda ballad-style.

Answer 5

I think it makes it easier but heck what do I know I am 16 for me it just seems easier because I hate rules lol ") and I like to just put my thoughts down without rhyming everything =P

rate my poem if you will thanks!

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Answer 6

Yes yes yes!

It's much harder to write free verse that impresses people than meter and rhyme

as my poetry teacher once said, rhyme and meter appeal to the lizard brain in us. See there's two parts of consciousness, he said, the conscious part that uses logic and thought and the lizard part that's sort of operating underneath that. Rhyme and meter appeal to a primal nature: it's like chanting and drums and things of that nature.

Meanwhile free-verse seems really intelligent but a lot of people fall prey to lofty language and lack of specifics or just plain bad writing. There are no tricks to cover up the fact that you are a crappy poet.

I'm not cheapening rhyming poetry by any means. It's just that a lot of people are terrible and people with no poetic compass seem to look past that if the poem rhymes.