Free your mind with some verse

Brothers,

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)--romantic, humanist, and transcendentalist--is professed to be the greatest American Poet and, if not that, then the "father of free verse": a type of poetry without strict meter (beat) or rhyme.

That's not to say, however, that Whitman's poetry was not rhytmic. It certainly had its "flow" as we might say.

You ask, but what is "poetry" in the first place? Well, that's not easy to answer. Poetry, origining from the Greek, poiesis--"making" or "creating"--is an art formed in speech and word.

It is a type of language, really. It is a way of expressing thought and emotion through images, through symbols, through description and metaphor (drawing on comparisons between objects and people, for instance).

That said, consider what we've done in class: taking an image, an emotion, or a theme; transforming it through the imagination; and expressing it through poetry.

Pick from the following list of abstractions (or make up your own) and expound on one "idea" with some lines of free verse. Try to stay away from rhyme, but keep in mind the importance of rhythm even though there is no professed "meter" (or syllabic beat) involved:

faith, soul, body, mind, spirit, eterninty, the forest, fire, water, the universe, the cosmos, the common man, music, buildings, home, hatred, love, the ocean, the mountain, the coast, prayer, family life, friendship, school, sports, clothing, heroes, enterntainment, villains, God, Buddha, the Over-Soul, religion, conformity, nonconformity, isolation, loneliness, solitude, joy, despair, hope, grief, baptism, funeral, the sacraments, war, peace, burning churches, fish, sea-faring adventures, animals and the list could go on..........

BRob