Poetry: On Melopoeia
Musicality in Free Verse: September Poetry Prompt
In the world of contemporary poetry, free verse has dominated for many decades as a popular form. Superseding the nineteenth century convention of rhymed poetry and rigid metres, it found its footing in the modernist era through poets like Ranier Marie Rilke, e.e. cummings and Ezra Pound.
F is for Free Verse, Freedom and Flexibility
As modernism gave way to the complexity of the post-war and postmodern literary landscape, poetry needed new forms for a shattered world re-building itself; for emerging voices, ideologies and sensibilities. Free verse not only survived — but thrived.
The generosity of the free verse form, and its almost endless flexibility with line length, stanza shapes, and rhythm has given contemporary poets immense creative freedom — to deconstruct and reconstruct form and meaning in a multiplicity of ways.
Isn’t that why we love it so much?
Bringing Fresh Beats to our Free Verse
However, “f” also stands for another too-common feature of free verse poetry — flatness. I sometimes despair of the tendency in some contemporary poetry to lack any awareness of rhythm and melody. A bunch of words on an idea…
