"I Sound My Barbaric Yawp..." In Free Verse, of Course

Folks,

This week I read a lot of Civil War poetry. As some of you might know, this is kind of my area of expertise – I’m a big fan of Whitman, Melville, Crane, and all those guys (and gals, of course; I love me some Emily). The reason I bring this up, though, is that I’ve spent most of my time studying the poetry of the latter half of the Civil War – more specifically, post-Whitman free verse; however, much of the poetry I’ve studied over the last week was the poetry from the first half of the Civil War. This was a switch for me, and the first thing I noticed was the use of form.

Poetry from the first half of the Civil War often appears to be written in what could be called “borrowed verse.” Early American poetry and the poetry leading up to 1865 was almost exclusively written in sonnet form or other forms of traditional British verse. Many of the canonized poets such as Longfellow, Bryant, and Emerson employed British verse into their poems – the subject matter of the poetry, in addition to the mirroring of the form, sort of echoes the thoughts and sentiments of the British romantics. The transcendentalists are especially guilty of this. In this regard, it appears that the American poets of the early 19^th century were finding their poetic sea legs, so to speak; the poetic tradition had not yet taken a uniquely American turn in terms of form.  

Whitman, however, changes things on many levels. Whitman may not have been the first to ever experiment with free verse, but I think it is safe to say that he is definitely the front runner, if not the forefather. Whitman’s revolution in poetic form begs the question of what exactly is the role of the form of free verse. Prior to the breakthrough in this poetic form, traditional forms were used for specific purposes: epithalamion was used for weddings; sonnets were used to express love; villanelles conjure up musical festivity, and so on. Free verse opens up a wide variety of possibilities, in that the tradition is not grounded in formal purpose, per se.

Since 1865, we have seen free verse grow into a widely popular mode, if not the mode, of American expressivism in the contemporary poetic tradition. Free verse is a playground of sorts, I suppose, in that there are no latent fetters in the form. An interesting question arises out of this freedom. What is the purpose of the form of free verse? If traditional poetic forms are dictated by occasion or thematic intent, then what are these things for free verse? Let me know your thoughts. If free verse seems appropriate for the form of your response, please use this form. If you want to leave a comment in Rhyme Royal, though, that’d be awesome.   

Until Next Time,

J