spoems: I can hear you, loud and clear!

spoems: Haha, well . . . that album is on hold for the time being, pending some legal proceedings. But yes, I'm excited to help out with Project Educate, and to be able to contribute to the discussion of free/open verse poetry.

spoems: The American Heritage Illustrated Encyclopaedic Dictionary (1987) defines “free verse” or Vers Libre as

The term “open verse” does not generally appear in most dictionary references, and usually seems to be considered synonymous with free verse. Sometimes, open verse is really meant as “open form” poetry, or poetic forms that do not have strict metrical, syllabic or rhyming rules.  If we term it as “open form”, then there are some that maintain it does have a different meaning than free verse; that open form poetry is simply a poem that utilizes something other than rhyme or meter to create a poetic form.  The poetic device in “open form” might be a heightened importance put on the imagery, diction and meaning instead of relying on structure.  This is not a universal definition by any stretch.

spoems: I think they use the same money launderers. Like I said, there is some some slight difference in speaking about “open form” versus “open verse”; the latter being much more general in most contexts.

spoems: Yes, most art historians maintain that the birth of free verse poetry occurred in 19th America with Walt Whitman. He eschewed the principles of heavily metered structure for more of an uneven, sprawling kind of verse, as is evidenced in his famous poems “Leaves of Grass” and “Song of Myself.”  

spoems: In parallel, there was apparently a French movement during the same period where poets were moving away from even metered poetry.  Authur Rimbaud is generally credited with writing one of the first works of free verse with his poem “Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell)”. But I more closely associate Whitman with the beginnings of free verse.

spoems: Haha, old man Whitman used to park his river boat in front of your house?  I see the attraction to Whitman, and I can’t deny his influence,  but he’s not one of my favorites any more.  

spoems: Quite a large number of examples of free verse exist on dA, some of which are amazing and inspiring, some thought-provoking and experimental, and some which resemble a learning experience.  At first, I thought of my own lack of adherence to metered, rhyming verse as “lazy”, but then I realized that it has more to do with what poetry I like reading.  I always feel somewhat annoyed when the seams of a poem show, like when the poetic structure becomes a cumbersome machine, one which you begin to anticipate.  On the other hand, the best formulamatic poems are ones that sound like music.  In those cases, the structure enhances the musicality.  Conversely, musicality can sometimes be a difficult to achieve with free verse because it can become conversational or prose-like without a discernible form.  I think this is the intriguing challenge of writing free verse, and it’s one that I enjoy.

spoems: I think that many poets on dA, especially new ones, embrace free verse for a couple of reasons.  First, free verse is most closely associated with the idea of modern poetry. The other reason is that writing metered, structured poetry is not particularly easy (as you implied, earlier.)  And so, most new poets on dA tend to gravitate towards free verse because they assume that freedom from poetic rules affords them the best possibility for success.  
Some of my dA favorites;
Dear Readeron the roof
simpering with
the pigeons
i throw
sheen after sheen
from buckets of paint;
you do all
the work
getting
in the
way.
awnings
spattered
like lips
with the color
of kisses
shiver
and move.
and listen
to this:
the birds
open their mouths
in the rain
spread one wing
then another
and lean out
and over--
the river
opens
onto salt
as the moon
blooms
like a coin
in a fist;
lovers
part lips
while
friends
part ways.
the bartender
peels a lime;
the doorman
pulls at the door
while the waitress
clears the table.
i open
a window,
you open
your eyes:
work
is making space.
here and
i have
made
room
for you. watch a monkey build a watchfor the better
of worse
I was made this way
dropped different & drifting
some distance from divine
a tool gifted with the
breath to blame
its maker
what nature has nurtured
these cells
will divide
I can't figure out
the life of me for
the life of me
omnipotence
or at least no
impotence
fostered conception
(with no conception)
of immaculate design
of the miraculous
as mine
the impetus of this
existence
often impetuously
inclined
despite whomever's
taking measure
the
descent
is
never kind
forgotten's
all I'm getting
we're all given
up
by time Anagrams in the airThieved
by mouth-envelope;
my phonics
caged
in alphabet-zoos,
my heart-hospital
swirling with apiaries,
as I wait outside
a name.
If I could
eventually
say anything at all,
I’d tell you
how you loom
secret heuristics
inside those delta-pyramids
that snack on your pupils.
I’d tell you
I’d bleed out
the world’s cathedrals
in weight,
to say anything
that sparked a star
in the quiet knock
of your night.
I’d scratch
the larks
from their wallpapers,
until my nails, none,
lift their wings
and give them flight.
This thirsting
pulse
knows you
inside the highest
of blooms
and
we can never be
ungone.

spoems: e.e. cummings had an interesting style.  He seemed to write a in a more traditional lyrical meter, but then he added strange syntax and typographical flourishes.  His experimental formatting makes him the most iconic of flag bearers for the popular notion of pure poetic freedom.  But I feel this is a bit erroneous, because he was actually quite poetically disciplined.  What I always noticed about cummings what that he was a romantic of the highest order, and his poems sometimes seemed almost like giddy nursery rhymes. But on closer inspection, you realize that many of them were metaphysical in nature; evidence of influence by the transcendentalists of his time, perhaps.  His major influence on my poetry would be the lack of capitalization, specifically of the first person “i” pronoun, which is a prevalent style on dA, as well as in modern poetry in general.

spoems: The idea that free verse is easier to write is somewhat flawed logic.  It may be easier to write verse that has no predefined form, but I think it is difficult to write good free verse poetry for this reason:  There is a common misconception that free verse means there is no form at all, (i.e. that it is free from form) when in fact, what it really means is that the form (which poetry must have) has no name because it’s created on the spot; a new set of rules for every poem!  This is where imagination, extended metaphor, and the delicate confluence of spoken language and exotic diction mingle together on the page.  And this is where understanding meter and assonance and natural pauses are helpful because you can apply fixed form concepts to the free form verse.  In other words, it helps to be a master of form before you go off and create your own.

spoems: I write exclusively in free verse, but not intentionally.  In other words, I'm not out to write in any particular style, except for the style of the moment.  If a fixed stanza-like structure comes from the poem of the moment, then maybe it's really a fixed form.  But I had no prior intention of writing it that way, so to me, it's still just poetry.  Other form-like classifications, such as concrete, are really free form poems that have a thematic form.  Again, free form (to me) does not mean "free from all form".

spoems: Oh lord, we're going there?  Haha, OK!  How about this one?
the shut-in
where are these keyholes to the Equinox? the stars huddle
like alien nettle,
a gray chime of wrens scaling tree limbs and middays,   
  jittery
fruit;
Darwin has no lines for me
to speak
of.
i've sheetrocked the blistering ivies and blossoms.
i've glassed out daubers and frightening mollusks
pillowing through mud honey and minute old ruins.
intimate with my quiet desk, my paper hoard
i'm still a coward; the envelopes, Obama glass, the dozen unused spiral
diaries are menacing concoctions, minotaurs of lost dimensions.
i used to sleep in creek-beds.
Or, back to my point about concrete being more of a subset of free verse than of a fixed form, when I was writing my poem Comforter, the idea to make a concrete image out of some of the text was an organic, stream of consciousness decision - it was a form created on the spur of the moment during the writing process.  The upper portion that appears to have a shape is contrasted against its antithesis - the bottom strophe - which has no form at all.  Some people even commented that they considered that part prose.  The point is, my only intention was to write a poem, and only after the fact were definitions and classifications of said form (or lack, thereof) applicable.  So, perhaps another definition of free verse might simply be the writing of a poem free from the intention of conforming to a predefined form.  All apologies to anyone that accidentally writes a sonnet.  

spoems: Yes!  It's precisely that: an invitation to move into an open space and make a new definition for poetry.

spoems: I hate to try and sum up poetry.  I would say it is finding some inner context of experience and then initializing a special pallet of words in order to paint an abstract/metaphoric portrait of this experience, and to do so in some song-like fashion.  

spoems: The future of poetry and its definition are in the hands of modern poets, and no one else; not publishers, not English professors, just poets.  

spoems: