Home › Glossary › Letter F

Free verse

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Poetry that forgoes consistent meter and end rhyme, relying instead on natural speech rhythms and typographical arrangement.

Explore this topic in depth (1)

Blank Verse — Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter: a five-beat line whose regular pulse can support speech, argument, story and reflection. Its strength lies not in sounding mechanically regular, but in the expressive tension between an underlying pattern and the changing rhythms of a voice.

Detailed Definition
Free verse is poetry that forgoes regular meter, rhyme, or fixed form, relying instead on rhythmical cadence, syntactic phrasing, and organic structure; pioneered by Whitman and refined by Eliot and Williams, it prioritizes natural speech patterns and expressive freedom over traditional prosody.
Example
Example in poetry:
Free verse: Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume,” lacking regular meter or rhyme.
Additional Notes
Free verse lacks regular meter or rhyme but uses other techniques (line breaks, imagery, rhythm) for structure; it prioritizes natural speech and organic form, pioneered by Whitman and perfected by modernists like Williams.
Also Known As
Unmetered verse Open verse Liberated verse Organic poetry free composition Irregular verse Variable meter Vers libre Open form Vers libres
Skip to main content