[Richard Wakefield]

One of my rules for myself as a critic is to approach a poem for what it's trying to be rather than for what I think it ought to try to be. In practice this means that when I write about free verse I don't beat it up for not being formal, even though my own tastes run strongly in favor of formal verse. Yet in talking about free verse I am terribly limited by, I guess, my own ignorance. I'd like other 'Spherians to help me with a very basic issue: What do the line breaks mean in free verse? My question is meant to be very specifc -- why does the line break there, say, instead of here or here?
Let me give an example. I recently reviewed a very good book by Linda Bierds, good in all kinds of ways, but fairly typical, I think, in what appears to me to be utterly capricious divisions into lines. I'm going to quote part of a poem here, and I will much appreciate any explanations -- specific explanations -- for the line breaks:

"Dementia Translucida"
Philip V of Spain, 1740

My ministers slump through the moonlit halls, wishing
me dead, of at least asleep. In their hands,
wide wings of parchment cackle.

Three times I have exited madness,
as a russet stag exits a pond -- a little shaking, perhaps,
while the elements exchange their sovereignty.
And now I am dragging a tepid quill
through jaundiced patches of parchment,
affirming some birth or burning. I love the season

midnight yields, its flat, barely varying
luminescnece. Just space and a pulpy loam
defind by striations of night-blooming cereus,
as wax is defined by a royal seal --
all the single-hued peaks and valleys

some wavering hand has passed over.


Now that I look at the poem again, I would also appreciate some quidance on the double-spaces. What do they mean? Is there a level of meaning that I'm missing? Another way to ask my question is, What would be lost if this were written out as prose?
Richard

[ChrisW]

Hi Richard,
I'm not a free verse expert. I can, I think see the point of the first two line-breaks -- less sure about later ones.

Ending on 'wishing' in L. 1creates a sort of suspense where the reader may try to guess what they are wishing. And, despite the period, the line break encourages us to read the next line as 'wishing/me dead or at least asleep in their hands.'
Sometimes a line seems justified by the unity of the image -- 'dragging a tepid quill' (though it doesn't seem clear why the temperature of the quill is all that relevant at the moment) is one thing, then the jaundiced parchment is another -- the same probably goes for the break between L4 and L5.
But in most cases, I'm not sure why the line breaks there myself -- why make a unity of L.9 or L.11, for instance?
Maybe someone better versed than I in free verse can help us both.
--Chris

[Tim Murphy]

I once told Wilbur that the prose passages in my Ploughshare memoir were unlineated free verse. He responded: "Unlineated free verse? What a frightening notion!" Then paused and said "Actually it's a refreshing notion."

[Robert J. Clawson]

I'll take a brief stab at this.


"Dementia Translucida"
Philip V of Spain, 1740

My ministers slump through the moonlit halls, wishing

"Wishing" takes on a double meaning: hoping and the sound of robes (which lingers), which sets up the surprise in the opening of L2.

me dead, of at least asleep. In their hands,

Because of the surprise initiated by the change from L1 to L2, we become alert to what might follow hands...daggers, knives, something murderous...arsenic, my fate? In otherwords, suspense.

wide wings of parchment cackle.

The reward is a weird image, the sound of "parchment," followed by the "cackle," which makes an interesting combination with the potential "whishing" ending L1.

So we have three turns at the outset, each with a nice surprise, each logical after the momentary suspense.

I think that's what free verse should do: catch us in a cadence filled with nice turns and surprises, which isn't the job of prose. A prose line turns at the prescribed margin. A free verse line turns for a purpose.

See how this plays out in the rest of the poem. I haven't time to explicate it further today.

Three times I have exited madness,
as a russet stag exits a pond -- a little shaking, perhaps,
while the elements exchange their sovereignty.
And now I am dragging a tepid quill
through jaundiced patches of parchment,
affirming some birth or burning. I love the season

midnight yields, its flat, barely varying
luminescnece. Just space and a pulpy loam
defind by striations of night-blooming cereus,
as wax is defined by a royal seal --
all the single-hued peaks and valleys

some wavering hand has passed over.


Bob

[Richard Wakefield]

Bob:
I agree with your interpretation of the first couple of breaks. Of course part of "free verse" means that there can be no simple, unvarying principle for the line breaks, but that little element of surprise is surely often there, at least in the hands of a skilled writer. Presumably the double spaces would be gaps of slightly greater anticipation.
This brings up another question: Will a reader with little or no experience reading and hearing metrical verse experience free verse in all its potential richness? Will a reader whose expectations have been conditioned by the sounds of metrical verse experience that potential in free verse?
Richard

[Robert J. Clawson]

Originally posted by Richard Wakefield:
Bob:
I agree with your interpretation of the first couple of breaks. Of course part of "free verse" means that there can be no simple, unvarying principle for the line breaks, but that little element of surprise is surely often there, at least in the hands of a skilled writer. Presumably the double spaces would be gaps of slightly greater anticipation.
This brings up another question: Will a reader with little or no experience reading and hearing metrical verse experience free verse in all its potential richness? Will a reader whose expectations have been conditioned by the sounds of metrical verse experience that potential in free verse?
Richard

If by the double spaces, you mean the verse breaks, I think we should expect changes comparable to those in standard verse, ie., something different happening, not necessarily something promoting greater suspense or anticipation, but something requiring a distinct change.

I like your next questions. To the first, I say, no. Free verse should have its peculiar music, and if a reader isn't in some way conditioned to listening for it, its full potential can't be reached. Metrical verse develops the ear. It's what we first hear in nursery rimes and songs. We "take" to it. Free verse needs readers with keen ears. I think it's difficult to write well. It's definitely not prose. But, it's often not poetry.

To the next, I say, yes.

Bob

[Mlle. Marilyn]

On a somewhat related topic, I am wondering what the attitude is toward prose-poetry around here? I've often seen comments like "this strikes me as more prose than poetry..." and I often agree, but I wonder what the defining factor is. For me at least, it isn't structure (stanzas, line breaks, whatever), as prose-poetry can sometimes be far more poetic than formal. Ideas?
::Marilyn::

[Alan Sullivan]

When I see a "poem" in which someone states opinions, using flat, colorless words, no trope, and no discernable poetic form, I am likely to accuse the author of writing lineated prose.

On the other hand, when I see a short, conceptually unified, vivid, trope-rich passage of prose, I might call it a prose-poem, if I accepted the term. But I don't.

A.S.

[Ernest Slyman]

You write..."Of course part of "free verse" means that there can be no simple, unvarying principle for the line breaks, but that little element of surprise is surely often there, at least in the hands of a skilled writer."

Agree with this, though don't often hear this stated. Basics of linebreaks may indeed have to do with "breaking for sense", also in a practical way with how a poet wants a poem to enter the reader.

(The poet in control of the mechanisms that allow the poem to be born -- hopefully deep within the reader -- as surely the poem was born deep within the writer -- in that deep inner workshop of the self. One of the influences of modern poetry is to simulate consciousness or wakeful state. Multiple levels of reality experienced simultaneously. Well, maybe.)

Objectives might be (as mentioned here) for spontaneity's sake, suspense, misdirection as well.

Too often I see folks dashing off rules for linebreaks when the perceptions of linebreaks is rather subjective.

------------------

[Kate Benedict]

Richard, where, in Linda Bierds' fine poem, you see caprice I see a sure freehand. The line and stanza breaks provide what, in formal verse, is called enjambment and caesura. The enjambents give the poem a nice forward momentum and the stanza breaks provide breathing room, contemplation room.

Would the poem be "improved" if you broke any of these lines somewhere else? I don't think so. Therefore, no caprice.

Would it surprise you to know that, as a practitioner of both free and formal verse, I find free verse "harder," more demanding? When you're writing in meter, your line length is predetermined; in free verse, you've got to work out a brand new measure. Also, meter forces a poet into the necessary poetic concisions; do it right, you're tight! Free verse (in my opinion) must also be tight and do so without a pre-set formula. As a consequence, I find myself revising my free verse poems to the point of infinity, almost; it is a way of working out a free verse poem's unique formula.

(Some free-verse poets seem to me so terrified of this "flying without a net" that they come up with their own formula, which they rely on unrelentingly. Sharon Olds would be an example. Same run-on line structure, book after book after book. In a way, this type of free verse is a straitjacket, and not free at all.)