On Free Verse: A Minority Report

by Samuel Hux (December 2016)

I have been quarreling with colleagues for years about the existence of “free verse” (including “some of my best friends” who write it), I contending that while the “prose poem” is a contradiction in terms and an opportunity for people who cannot write poetry to “write poetry” (and not to be confused with “poetic prose,” which is what happens when natural poets, say Herman Melville, try to write prose), free verse may exist—may rarely, may occasionally, may just now and then exist—but is most often merely a miserable prose poem arranged in lines instead of paragraphs.  more>>>