QUALITY Free Verse

[Vic Jefferies]

What I meant was that free verse is, according to Stephen Fry, "verse that follows no conventional form, rhyming scheme or metrical pattern."
What is very often offered as free verse, is in fact, not free verse at all because it is written with some regard to one or more of these traditional methods.
Therefore in true free verse poetry anything does surely go provided it "follows no conventional form!"
Blank verse has no rhyme but has metre (usually iambic pentameter.)

[Neville Briggs]

Vic, I think poetry definitions can only be reminders of broad principles.

John Leonard, eminent Australian professor of literature, says " Free verse is free of metre " in the next paragraph he says " it may incorporate recognisable fragments of duple metre or stress metre into the weave " Wha..!! ( LEONARD J. Seven Centuries of Poetry,2012, Oxford Uni Press, p576 )

I think that reliance on definitions gets us into the trap of dreary legalism.
And further, on what authority do the definers define? A question I haven't found an answer for in the bush poetry " requirements ".

[Maureen K Clifford]

If what you read is pleasing to the ear and leaves you with a feeling of having gained something - insight, emotion, wonder ... that intangible something then to my way of thinking regardless of whether it is rhymed or not - it is poetry. My very simplistic view for what it is worth

[Neville Briggs]

that intangible something

Yes Maureen, that is it isn't it. I forget who this came from, it's a great quote " poetry tries to say what cannot be said "

[Zondrae]

but..., but...,

the lines need neatening and the rhyme...

Oh dear, the 'Libra' in me needs balance! This is beautiful writing and I get the meaning but I could not write something like this. My own few efforts at 'free' verse have longer lines and at least look like a poem (to my 'Libra' eyes).
Strange thing though I can tolerate Haiku without any 'hives'. Perhaps this is because I stumbled onto Haiku when I was about fourteen - long, long before I found Bush Poetry.

and my immediate thoughts on the sentiment of the poem: Ah if only we could take our problems, like we take shoelaces, and tie them in a neat bow and sit back and say "There, everything is in it's place.... no worries".

[Vic Jefferies]

Neville free verse is just that, free. There is no rhyme, metre or pattern that is why it is referred to as being free. It is a distinctive form just as much as an English sonnet is a distinct form of poetry.
I think it is quite legitimate to define it, just as we define the other forms of poetry.
Here is one of my attempts at writing free verse:
THE NEWS CAME DOWN FROM QUEENSLAND
The news came down from Queensland:
Sweeping through newsrooms;
Invading offices and boardrooms,
Sliding around restaurants and hotels
Bursting into Police stations and hospitals,
Schools and homes for the aged,
Before hurtling along train lines
And cluttered roads to the suburbs.
Then on to outer and remoter suburbs,
Where it languished and expired
In the gutter, beside last night’s
Empty beer cans.

Vic Jefferies 2013

[Zondrae]

G'day Vic,

What was that all about?
I prefer the one you do about The Laundry.

[Vic Jefferies]

Ah Zondrae, as I said that is my attempt at free verse.
The one I do about the laundry is not free verse and was written by Norfolk Island's Archie Bigg.
I prefer it too!

[Maureen K Clifford]

Well I actually like that Vic - the only thing would be to add as the punch line what that bit of news actually was

eg They won the State of Origin - again

[Vic Jefferies]

Maureen I think you are being provocative!