Structure
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Structure What separates poetry from other kinds of writing? There are many answers to that question. One answer might be that poetry organizes ideas and images in a way that gives more information, tells us something about the way the poet is thinking, helps us to focus on particular words and phrases to give us a new and different perspective on the world.
The poet's choice of how long to make each line and where to break thoughts from one line to the next creates a poem's structure. In open form poetry (also called free verse), the poet is free to write poetry with lines of varying length, choosing the best way to convey a particular message. While at first glance, it might seem that the lines are randomly arranged, the best free verse is carefully crafted to isolate ideas and images to make them stand out individually, at the same time they are taken together to express a complete story or perspective.
Line breaks and stanza breaks are very important; you want the reader left with a strong impression as they go from one line to the next. It is best to never end a line on a preposition or word that is not strong. You want your last word to be something that will hit hard and carry throughout the poem. In free-verse lines can be of any length, but it's often best to keep them short, and stanzas are best made in groups of two, three, four, or six lines, and are often little paragraphs or phrases.
Make sure your line break leads to the reader wanting to go to the next line to see what happens.
Note that the poem below uses some enjambment: which is when a line leads to the next without punctuation at the end of each, or without a complete thought within each.
Example of free-verse:
I dream of suitors; faceless entities
who try to win me over.
each kiss is a cold tongue
wet and unctuous; uninviting.
why should I dream of such things?
what does it mean - these frigid mouths -
that they illicit such unease.
am I the one who's cold?
having frozen them with my touch
no warmth I hold inside
that can reach any man; unable,
even in my reverie to betray my heart
With traditional forms, most require a strict syllable count per line. Usually 8 or 10, 11, or 12 syllables per line, as evidenced in the example of syllabic, metered verse below.
Example of syllabic-verse:
On the Sonnet by John Keats
If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain’d
By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.
Free verse is an open form of poetry. It does not use consistent meter, syllable count, patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech. A rule of thumb is that any given line should not go over 20 syllables long as not to be considered prose poetry.
Syllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed or constrained number of syllables per line, while stress, quantity, or tone play a distinctly secondary role — or no role at all — in the verse structure.
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For help with syllable-counts, go here; Knowing Your Syllables:
http://www.howmanysyllables.com/
http://www.wikihow.com/Divide-Words-Into-Syllableshttp://www.syllablecount.com/syllables/crime
Here's a syllable-counter dictionary, but once in a while they are wrong.
http://www.howmanysyllables.com/
A standard dictionary is helpful also; http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/syllable?s=t
(It gives the syllable break down beneath the word, with the pronunciation of it.)
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