Improving Your Free Verse Poetry

The most common mistakes new poets make

Many new poets are drawn to writing free verse poetry because they believe free verse really means free style, where you just write anything, anyway you feel that day and it works because the author believes its poetry without the rules, rhyme or any set style… yet this isn’t true, which is why so much free verse goes unread.

Readers want you to succeed, and will give you a small, brief chance to get them into your work, meaning when you write you must think about the overall first impression of your work along with the power of the first line. You want me, the reader, to waste my precious time reading your stuff? Then grab my attention and pull me in using known writing tactics that make me want to read this piece and everything else you might write.

Here are a few tips for your overall writing of free verse poetry, as well as a few tips that might help you specifically on Medium.

There is no set rule to determine line length, yet it might be one of the most important tools you can apply to improve your work. The error is that most new writes use lines that are too long and don’t breath.

Most new writers also would improve their work by reducing the unnecessary words that break the rhythm of the poem. Short, tight, concise, with every word contributing or it is gone has to be your mantra of writing.

Here is a sample of a typical stanza followed by a more nuanced line break. To understand the power of the differences, read each one loudly to yourself pausing where the normal breaks occur:

Not effective —

The wind driven, streaking water rattling my little window in my living room,
the stillness of a mucky and gray late summer June afternoon day,
the fading light stealing my day as my room grows darker.
Here I sit happily hidden away from the world outside,
rejoicing that my soul was made for rainy days just like this one.

More effective and easy to read —

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