The answer is actually pretty simple. The term "formal" when applied to poetry is a term of art that simply means metrical (often but not always in rhyme, and often but not always following a traditional form). It is not the opposite of "casual"; to say that free verse or conceptual verse is not "formal" verse is not to say that it is loose, poorly thought out, unanchored, amorphous, casual, or unserious. It is just to say that it is not metrical.
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Hybrid Mode
