[ross hamilton hill]

Wagner was the first to realize a melody could extend over time beyond the confines of one song, this translated via Eliot into the long poem that had a melodic theme that was not immediately apparant, this is for me the real attraction of free verse, very few poets have managed it, to my mind one is 'From Gloucester Out' by Edward Dorn, and to a lesser extent Whitman. I think Eliot succeeded in Prufrock but failed in Wasteland, Wastelend is too influenced by Pound. Van Morrison also initiated it in song with Astral Weeks, (written by a poet, not Van). Most use free verse because it frees the subconcious but in doing so many forget both music and coherence and such poems have no appeal beyond their intellectual content. This has dogged poetry in both the US and UK, and elsewhere.
This is not off topic I think formalists should understand and read free verse, so much of it is wonderful. It's everywhere now and has been for a hundred years.