Charles Henderson Poet Rhyme

Free Verse

Though time and life becomes a boor
and cajoling word a waste of time,
marking day and night I while away,
counting meter and making rhyme.

Then in the end, I write free verse.
Such grace!  It seems almost a curse
to spill words forth in boundless flight. 
As an endless sonata I write, I write.
I write to the steps of poetic grace. 
In faith, I write, seeking that place.   

When I arrive I know I am there,
un-tethered, liberated, floating free.
As Pegasus, ranging the universe,
proud once again that I am me.

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Debbie Guzzi March 25, 2013 at 6:31 PM Rather than writing of the content here [free verse versus rhyme] I will say for me it is unsettling to see rhyme switch pattern, you have here [abcb/ ddeeff/ ghih] and 4 lines grouped then 6 lines grouped perhaps it wanted to be a modern sonnet BUT I think this use of end rhyme is totally FREE without the normal constraint of rhyme, quatrain verse 1 couplets verse 2 & quatrain verse 3? as to the comments below, I feel Suzanne is simply musing? Cyndi Macmillan March 28, 2013 at 6:52 AM Debbie/Charles, what works here is the paradox. It is a structured freedom, creating its own rules as it goes. Tight but loose, formed but free. I like it. Charles, you meant to shake things up a bit, right? Hey, can you check out my blog, either/both of you? Whatcha think? hugs Dee Charles Henderson March 25, 2013 at 7:52 PM Deb, is free verse with end rhyme. It is only free verse because of the center stanza and because of the switching of the rhyme pattern. Because of that it fits no standard form. I guess it could be called "Rhyme" because of the end rhyme, but the content is also of a free verse style. The whole thing is very subjective.

Suzanne Delaney March 25, 2013 at 5:47 PM Robert Hass in comparing metered poems with Free Verse states: ‘……the metrical poem begins with an assumption of human life which takes place in a pattern of orderly recurrence with which the poet must come to terms- Meter organizes accents into an overall pattern and more or less evenly times the lines bringing an organizing influence that allows the story to unfold. The Free verse poem…begins with an assumption of openness or chaos in which an order must be discovered. Cyndi Macmillan March 28, 2013 at 6:53 AM I get this. I SOOOOOOOO get this. Especially the chaotic order. I write this way! Suzanne Delaney March 25, 2013 at 5:47 PM The basic fact of free verse: each poem is shaped from within. You’ll often hear a poet say they didn’t know where the poem would end when they began writing it but that it comes to them as a natural act of writing.

Suzanne Delaney March 25, 2013 at 5:45 PM Very interesting that you write about FreeVerse using a rhyme. I have a neat quote by Robert Hass comparing metered poems with Free Verse but it is too long to put here. Have a great day, SuZ