Annie Finch on the free verse line

From Annie Finch’s Grails and Legacies: Thoughts on the Line in Contemporary Poetry Review:”

Poets like to muse about the free verse line�how and whether a particular line has �weight,� a �justification,� an �identity,� or any one of the numerous quasi-mystical terms we use for that indescribable quality of �thisness� that a good line of free verse exudes. But the next time you hear someone in a workshop remarking on how good a particular free-verse line or passage sounds, scan it. The odds are that it will fall into a regular metrical pattern. If free-verse poets were educated about meter again (as the great free verse poets of the early twentieth century always were) and meter became a more conscious part of such discussions, the mysticism would sound less subjective and futile and the quest for the true essence of �the line� would likely become, if not more fun, at least quite a bit less stressful.

No matter what other factors go into a successful free verse line�imagery, syntax, a center of meaning or wit�rhythmic energy is the sine qua non. Most good free verse passages have a metrical (by which I mean a regularly and predictably rhythmical) subtext. The best free verse is alert and conscious of this energy, able to keep its head above the rhythmical water�a feat which takes a certain amount of ear-training in meter (not only iambic meter).

In my odyssey, such as it is, as a poet I have found what Finch says here to be true. Whether one has any intention of writing formal verse, a grounding in metrics pays off in a livelier line.

Finch also goes on to defend the visual effect of line breaks in free verse, and as always I recommend that you read all of the original. Still, for me, poetry is an aural, not (just) a visual, art.

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