50 of the Best Free Verse Poems from Contemporary Poets
Check out these 50 exceptional free verse poetry, from famous contemporary poets to the up-and-coming and everything in between.
Free verse, according to Robert Frost, is “playing with the net down.” “No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job,” wrote T.S. Eliot. Nonetheless, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, and a plethora of contemporary poets have created beautiful works in free verse. But what exactly are free verse poems, and why are they so controversial?
What are Free Verse Poems?
A poem with no set meter or verse that mimics natural speech patterns is defined as free verse. Free verse poems can be short or long, contain sporadic rhymes or none at all, and be delivered orally or in writing.
Because a famous free verse poem isn’t bound by any particular form, poets have more freedom to experiment with structure than they would in other styles.
Some critics argue that free verse poems are simply glorified prose because they lack regular rhyme and meter.
Those who write or appreciate free verse, on the other hand, believe that it has its own tools beyond meter or rhyme, such as punctuation, line breaks, and vocabulary, which make it just as legitimate a poetic form as other styles.
The Best Free Verse Poems
Still unsure about what free verse poetry entails and in need of some examples? Check out these 50 outstanding free verse poems, ranging from the famous to the unknown and everything in between.
1. “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman
2. “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes
3. “From Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee
4. “The Poo” by H.D.
5. “I Carry Your Heart with Me (I Carry it in My Heart)” by E.E. Cummings
6. “Risk” by Anais Nin
7. “Sloe Gin” by Seamus Heaney
8. “Accent” by Rupi Kaur
9. “Anne Hathway” by Carol Ann Duffy
10. “The Crickets Have Arthritis” by Shane Koyczan
11. “The Good Life” by Tracy K. Smith
12. “Praise the Rain” by Joy Harjo
13. “Typewriter Series #1950” by Tyler Knott Gregson
14. “In the Metro Station” by Ezra Pound
15. “Siren Song” by Margaret Atwood
16. “Real Silence” by Atticus
17. “You Took the Last Bus Home” by Brian Bilston
18. “Vacation” by Rita Dove
19. “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden
20. “Fog” by Carl Sandburg
21. “Persephone to Hades” by Nikita Gill
22. “Tulips” by Sylvia Plath
23. “In the Hospital” by Chen Chen
24. “The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens
25. “Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich
26. “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
27. “Autumn” by T.E. Hulme
28. “Theory of Motion (6), Nocturne” by Cam Awkward-Rich
29. “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry
30. “To the Desert” by Benjamin Alire Saenz
31. “Overhead on the Titanic” by Austin Kleon
32. “Hurry” by Marie Howe
33. “How to Triumph Like a Girl” by Ada Limon
34. “OCD” by Neil Hilborn
35. “Kissing in Vietnamese” by Ocean Vuong
36. “Quilts” by Nikki Giovanni
37. “Untitled” by Pavana38
38. “The First Person Who Will Live to be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born” by Nicole Sealey
39. “Hudson’s Geese” by Leslie Norris
40. “A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg
41. “The Promise” by Jane Hirschfield
42. “Church” by Jacqueline Woodson
43. “Shake the Dust” by Anis Mojgani
44. ”Angels” by Mary Oliver
45. ”Sad and Alone” by Maurice Manning
46. “Among the Stars” by Lang Leav
48. “Thank You” by Ross Gay
49. “Theories of Time and Space” by Natasha Trethewey
50. “When Love Arrives” by Sarah Kay & Phil Kaye
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