World of Poetry 3: The Free Form

 The Free Form

A Slight But Obvious Difference

This is a style of writing that falls mostly between poem and free verse. Much free form is closely related to poems, but because of their lack of adherence to the metrical patterns or to a definite rhyme scheme, the free form lacks much of the dignity of form that a poem has.

A poem’s rhythm is based on its metrical pattern, whereas a free form’s rhythm is based more on a personal interpretation of meter and comes across in the end as anisometric (in lines of unequal length). Many times, perhaps most times— as in most greeting cards—the meter is very close to being complete, or definitive. However, neither the rhyme or meter in a free form is actually definitive when you pay close attention.

However, the free form can achieve ‘poetry’ status, and because of its proximity to poetic form it can sometimes mislead the reader into calling it a poem, but cannot be considered a poem because of its apparent differences as marked by its inconsistent meter or fleeting rhyme. To better show what I mean, here is a free form written by Emily Dickinson:

The Soul Selects Her Own Society

The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the Chariot’s pausing
At her low Gate;
Unmoved, an Emperor is kneeling
Upon her Mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose One;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like Stone.

This free form is so much like a poem that at first glance it is hard to see a difference. Yet, pay close attention. Lines 1 and 3 have different numbers of feet, and lines 10 and 12 don’t have the same number of feet as 2, 4, 6, and 8. Lines 2 and 4 have an off-rhyme that determine the pattern of off-rhymes for the rest of the free form, and in fact lines 6 and 8 do not rhyme at all. Therefore, this is not a poem according to the definition, but a free form.

Another more obvious example is by T. S. Eliot: (the first three stanzas)

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.”

Now, this free form is much different than Dickinson’s. In fact, this free form is more closely related to the free verse in nature. There is a large gap between the lengths of some of the rhyming lines, and the meter is nearly absent from this piece. However, it is free form and not free verse, because almost every line rhymes with another and three of those rhyming couplets are compounded with a similar meter. So, though it may look and read much like free verse, it is in fact, free form because of its underlying structure.

World of Poetry 1: Four Elements, Three Divisions

World of Poetry 2: The Free Verse

World of Poetry 4: The Poem

World of Poetry 5: Rhyme

Other Articles by Adam Henry Sears:

The True Haiku and its Origins,

Writer’s Block 1, Writer’s Block 2,

If You’re Going to Write, Read, Read, Read,

Self-Editing Made Easy,

12 Quotes To Inspire All Writers,

Poem, Free Form, Free Verse: Recognizing the Differences,

Blogs & IMs: The Band of Good Writing Habits

A Free Verse by Adam Henry Sears

Running Through The Fog

Some Poems by Adam Henry Sears

A Tiara for Tiara

A Tribute To Arwen After The Age of Men