Free Verse is an irregular form of poetry in which the content free of traditional rules of versification, (freedom from fixed meter or rhyme).

In moving from line to line, the poet's main consideration is where to insert line breaks. Some ways of doing this include breaking the line where there is a natural pause or at a point of suspense for the reader.

Following the direction of Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot, many modern day poets use this particular form of expression.

Example #1:

Ode to Job

Job came down
in a
woosh, outstretched
and gliding into the horizon.
Blue shadowed
flight
arrested by
the beckoning marsh.
His greatness bears
much
yet not
the anguish of ancient
prophecy.
Situated grievances weigh
feathery
on this long,
strong back.  Unconscious
emotion
numbs while
time drifts out
another
sun salted
day. 

Copyright © 2001 Lachlan Ivy

Example #2:

Footfall

this house,
its bones creak
like mine
with each step,
from here
to there,
and back
again.
no matter
the hour,
it, me,
our bones
become one
with life,
as we both
age
the same.


Copyright © 2006 Marie Summers

Example #3:

Moon Shadows

It wasn't the flickering
of candlelight 
that seduced me
into the silence
of night
where darkness
existed only
where the moon shadows 
dared to settle.
It was the fluttering
of wetness, 
a butterfly's wing
upon my tongue
that made my body
ache and chill
at the very same 
instant,
awakening the need,
my need,
for more.

Copyright © 2005 Marie Summers

Example #4:

Bitter

The light in your eyes
has grown dim
with the autumn sun,
and your touch
has become dry
like that of a fallen
October leaf.
 
The light dies earlier
with each passing day,
and our conversations
also drift silently away
into the twilight
with only regret
clinging to our lips.
 
It comes to question
with the weeks that pass
whether the season
will grow ever colder
with the falling of snow,
or if the flakes will cleanse
the bitterness in our souls.

Copyright © 2006 Marie Summers

Example #5:

Midnight Kiss
 
New Year's Eve
and my unwritten poems 
are tucked tightly 
under their covers, 
asleep in my head.
I tried waking one
with a midnight kiss,
and it sleepily revealed
several lines to me
with a deep yawn.
 
Come morning,
I went to pen down
the words awakened
in the fashion of a fairytale,
a masterpiece waiting
to be polished but . . .
alas, they were lost,
trapped in the beginning
of a dream titled
"Last Year."
 
Copyright © 2006 Marie Summers