Free to Verse

Oliver speaks on free verse poetry in her chapter "Verse that is Free." Here she carefully explains how free verse poems are not spontaneous or random, but are still carefully thought upon. They are simply casual poems that are meant to give the reader a sense of conversation between them and the writer. This conversation is a song with rhetoric and lesson non-the-less, only lacking in structured rhyme scheme. Oliver discusses tone and content of free verse poetry as these qualities are very import when presenting such a piece. Free verse allows for possible shifts in tone or even the lack of a distinct tone if one so wishes to write that way. It also relies heavily upon content as the conversation must latch on to the reader and keep their attention through the entire piece. The author finally analysis Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" and William Carlos' "The Red Wheelbarrow." She explains how Whitman used long lines, repetition, and adjectives to compensate for the lack of rhyme. These techniques strengthen the piece as a whole without the use of direct rhyme. She describes Carlos' piece as "true free verse" as it is only four two-line stanzas it captures the reader as it uses simple words to describe a simple scene. The careful placement and even the lack of words makes the poem very cryptic and perhaps sets it up for "scrutiny," but the essence of the heavy objects and natural setting extends beyond the tangible. They develop place for the reader's imagination to take hold as the words still flow like song without any rhyme at all.
I like free verse but struggle to keep it consistent throughout my whole piece. I like to add slant rhyme of some sort just because it makes me feel more comfortable with my work as a whole. I hope I can use some of these suggestions that Oliver shares and apply them to my own poems in order to produce stronger free verse pieces.