Free+Verse+Introduction

As a class, we made breaks in the following poems to look at rhythm and how our choices make a poem sound different.

Mr. Gammons mows the big field with his tractor, then rakes and bundles hay for the barn. George and I grab our bats, gloves, and balls and race across the field like major leaguers in spring training. We hit long flies to each other all afternoon, never lose a ball in the stubble, and don’t stop until Mother calls us for supper. --Donald Graves

=Letter to a Friend= Come soon. Everything is lusting for light, thrusting up up splitting the earth, opening flaring fading, seed into shoot bud into flower nothing beyond its hour. Come soon. The apple bloom has melted like spring snow. The lilac changed the air, surprising every breath. Low in the field wild strawberries fatten. Come soon. It’s a matter of life. And death. --Lilian Moore

Here is how the poems looked as they were published:

Mr. Gammons mows the big field with his tractor, then rakes and bundles hay for the barn.

George and I grab our bats, gloves, and balls and race across the field like major leaguers in spring training.

We hit long flies to each other all afternoon, never lose a ball in the stubble, and don’t stop until Mother calls us for supper.

--Donald Graves =Letter to a Friend= Come soon.

Everything is lusting for light, thrusting up up splitting the earth, opening flaring fading, seed into shoot bud into flower nothing beyond its hour.

Come soon.

The apple bloom has melted like spring snow.

The lilac changed the air, surprising every breath.

Low in the field wild strawberries fatten.

Come soon.

It’s a matter of life.

And death.