Free Verse

Free Verse, rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without attention to rules of metre. Free verse was first written and labelled vers libre (French, “free verse”) by a group of French poets of the late 19th century, including Gustave Kahn and other Symbolists. Their purpose was to deliver French poetry from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to re-create instead the free rhythms of natural speech. Pointing to the American poet Walt Whitman as their precursor, they wrote lines of varying length and cadence, usually not rhymed. The emotional content or meaning of the work was expressed through its rhythm. Free verse has been characteristic of the work of many modern poets, including D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, and Carl Sandburg.