Writing Tip: Free Verse Poetry

"Free Verse" poetry is a type of poetry that doesn't rhyme or use a certain meter (rhythm), but you can tell it is poetry. Usually, it has lines like a poem, each line starting with a capital letter. When you read it, it "feels" like a poem, even without the rhyming and meter, because the words and idea flow more like a poem than a story. Rosemary O'Hagan wrote a beautiful free verse poem for the animals issue. The first few lines of the poem are:

A summer night's wind blows against
A forest of Aspen trees. Each of their leaves
Flip and flutter making them seem as a
Glittering blur. Under the greenery of the
Trees a mother bear lies with her new bear
Cubs.

Read the whole poem and think about what makes a poem a poem:

Animals Issue

Writing Tip: Repetition

And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

Those are the closing lines of a famous poem called "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" by American poet Robert Frost. He uses repetition to create a mood and change the pace of the poem. It also makes you think about the last line. Repetition in poetry is often a great way to get readers to pay attention to what you are writing. But be careful when you use it, "repetitious" means repeating something in a way that gets boring or tiresome because your reader has already heard it. It is challenging to be an author who uses repetition without being repetitious.

Katie Yoder, age 11, makes a great use of repetition in her poem "Loons in Maine," in the oceans issue.

Hundreds on the ocean waves
Black, floating loons
Spotted, dotted, red-eyed loons
Black floating loons.

Read the poem and see the beautiful illustration here:
Oceans Issue