Give a free verse poem to a swing still moving with nobody on it.Break to try: alternate a long line and a short one, forward and back.
Write a free verse poem about a goodbye in which one line ends on the word "left."Break to try: "left" reads as gone until the next line makes it a direction.
Build a free verse poem around a porch light left on in daylight.Break to try: put "left on" at one line's end, so for a moment it reads as abandoned.
End a line on "I can see" in a free verse poem about a window.Break to try: the next line decides between seeing the yard and seeing the point.
End a line on "I was running" in a free verse poem about a race.Break to try: next line, "out of time." Or: "late." Or: "the whole show."
End a line on "the ice broke" in a free verse poem about a spring thaw.Break to try: next line, "its promise." Or: "under no one." Each makes a different poem.
End a line on "you were right" in a free verse poem about an argument.Break to try: next line, "there beside me." Agreement turns into a place.
End a line on the word "light" in a free verse poem about a seesaw.Break to try: "light" as in not heavy, then a next line that turns it into daylight.
In free verse, describe a kitchen at night, and end a line on "still."Break to try: "still" as in quiet, until the next line makes it "still" as in not yet done.
In free verse, describe a lighthouse, ending a line on "the light turns."Break to try: next line, "away." Or: "the fog to gold."
In free verse, describe a piano lesson, with one line that ends on "I can't stand."Break to try: the next line begins "the scales." Or it begins "up straight enough."
In free verse, tell about fishing with a relative, and end a line on "nothing was biting."Break to try: add "but the wind" on the next line, and the fish drop out of the sentence.
In free verse, write about bedtime, with a line that ends on "I am not afraid."Break to try: next line, "to say I am."
Write a free verse poem about a bird at a feeder, ending a line on "it will not last."Break to try: next line, "the seed." Or: "the winter." One is small and one is not.
Write a free verse poem about a gale at night with a line that ends on "the branch held."Break to try: next line, "a nest." Held firm becomes held something.
Write a free verse poem about a goodbye in which one line ends on the word "left."Break to try: "left" reads as gone until the next line makes it a direction.
Write a free verse poem about moving to a new town, with a line ending on "I miss."Break to try: next line, "the bus." The reader hears homesick first, and then just late.
Write a free verse poem about the final bell of the school year with a line that ends on "we are free."Break to try: begin the next line with "until," or with "of each other."
A list 15
Empty a junk drawer into a free verse poem, one thing at a time.Break to try: break after each adjective, so every noun arrives a line late.
Empty your pockets from the end of last summer into a free verse poem.Break to try: indent each item a little farther than the one before, like a spill.
List in free verse everything a dog notices on one block.Break to try: no periods at all. Let the breaks do the stopping, and the sniffing.
List in free verse everything on a bedroom floor.Break to try: one object to a line, then two on one line. See which pair starts talking.
List in free verse some small repairs: tape, glue, a knot, a patch.Break to try: break a line in a rough place, and mend it on the next.
List in free verse the jobs your shoes have done.Break to try: short lines for walking, one long line for the day you ran.
List in free verse the sounds of a house falling asleep.Break to try: leave a blank line before the last sound.
List in free verse what one kitchen keeps in jars.Break to try: a stanza for each shelf, with the lines as wide as the shelf is full.
Make a free verse poem by listing the doors you have gone through today.Break to try: end every line on a door, then end the last line on something else.
Make a free verse poem by listing things that are blue only some of the time.Break to try: put the word "blue" alone on a line, once, near the end.
Make a free verse poem by listing things that cannot be hurried: bread, a scab, the bus.Break to try: make the reader wait, with one word to a line for the slowest thing.
Make a free verse poem by listing what a river carries past one bridge in a day.Break to try: let the lines grow longer as the water rises.
Use free verse to list the colors of a parking lot after rain.Break to try: break in the middle of a color's name and see if it survives.
Use free verse to list what can be done with a stick.Break to try: start a new line at every verb.
Use free verse to list what the wind moved on your street this morning.Break to try: push one line far to the right, as if it had been blown there.
A single image 15
Build a free verse poem around a bicycle chained to a tree that has grown around its frame.Break to try: split "has grown" from "around," with the trunk's slow years in the gap.
Build a free verse poem around a porch light left on in daylight.Break to try: put "left on" at one line's end, so for a moment it reads as abandoned.
Build a free verse poem around a puddle holding one streetlight.Break to try: end a line on "holding." A puddle with hands, for half a second.
Build a free verse poem around a white plate with a peach pit on it.Break to try: say the plate in line one, the pit in line two, and nothing about the peach.
Give a free verse poem to a crow on the crossbar of a goalpost.Break to try: put the crow alone on a short line above a long line for the bar.
Give a free verse poem to a paper boat caught on a twig in a running gutter.Break to try: end a line on "caught," and make the reader stop there too.
Give a free verse poem to a swing still moving with nobody on it.Break to try: alternate a long line and a short one, forward and back.
Hold a jar of buttons up to a window in a free verse poem.Break to try: one color to a line, and a break wherever the light gets through.
Look, in free verse, at a small handprint in a cement sidewalk.Break to try: break between "small" and "handprint," and the child shrinks.
Look, in free verse, at a yellow raincoat over a chair back, still dripping.Break to try: give "still dripping" a line to itself, and the drip lasts longer.
Look, in free verse, at laundry on a line in the first snow.Break to try: hang each garment on its own line of the poem.
Look, in free verse, at one pear going from green to yellow on a windowsill.Break to try: three lines, each a little yellower than the one above.
Write a free verse poem about a kitchen chair set out at the curb.Break to try: end a line on "waiting," before you say for what.
Write a free verse poem about a ladder left leaning on a barn wall all winter.Break to try: short lines stacked evenly, a rung apart.
Write a free verse poem about a single boot standing upright in a field.Break to try: end the first line on "upright." The reader pictures a person before the boot.
A conversation 15
Catch in free verse what a parent says while teaching a teenager to parallel park.Break to try: no stanza break until the car is finally straight.
Catch in free verse what is said in a car in the last minutes before school.Break to try: lines shorter and shorter as the building comes into view.
Catch in free verse what you say to a dog, and what the dog says by not speaking.Break to try: your lines flush left, the dog's replies as white space on the right.
Collect into a free verse poem the sentences two old friends no longer need to finish.Break to try: end each line one word early and trust the reader with the rest.
Collect the questions a small child asks on one walk into a free verse poem.Break to try: end every line on the question mark, with no answers anywhere.
Set down an order at a diner counter, and the cook's short replies, as a free verse poem.Break to try: the cook never gets more than two words to a line.
Set down in free verse a talk with a grandparent that keeps switching languages.Break to try: break at each switch, so no line holds both.
Set down in free verse the directions given by someone who has lived in one town all their life.Break to try: break at every turn in the route: left at, right past, where it used to be.
Set down one side of a phone call as a free verse poem.Break to try: a blank line wherever the speaker listens. Vary how long.
Turn a coach's halftime talk to a losing team into free verse.Break to try: break where the coach takes a breath, not where the commas are.
Turn a conversation overheard on a bus into free verse, using only what one person says.Break to try: break each time the other person must be talking.
Turn two kids negotiating a trade at lunch into a free verse poem.Break to try: offer on one line, counteroffer on the next, each indented deeper.
Turn what a barber and a customer say, when nothing needs saying, into free verse.Break to try: break after every "yep" and every "well," like scissors closing.
Write a free verse poem in which two neighbors discuss the weather over a fence and mean something else.Break to try: end lines on rain, frost, wind, and let each lean toward what is meant.
Write a free verse poem in which two people fold a sheet and talk about something else.Break to try: a new line each time the corners meet.
How it works
These writing prompts for free verse poetry pair a subject with a decision about where a line ends: a goodbye whose line stops on "left," a junk drawer broken after every adjective, a phone call with blank lines for listening.
Read the full guide
What a line break does
A line break ends one line of a poem and begins the next. The words before a break can hold a meaning of their own, which the reader meets before the next line changes it. "I can't stand" reads one way until the following line adds "up straight enough." Fifteen prompts are built on a break like that.
Run on, or stop
A sentence that carries on across a line break is enjambed, and a line that ends with punctuation is end-stopped. Enjambed lines increase the speed and pacing of a poem. The list and conversation prompts ask you to choose one or the other on purpose.
Write the poem as a paragraph first. Then break it three different ways and read each one aloud.
Try ending lines on nouns and verbs. A line that ends on the or of leans on the line below it.
Questions and answers
What is free verse poetry?
Poetry not dictated by an established form or meter, often influenced by the rhythms of speech. The name is a literal translation of the French vers libre.
Does free verse poetry rhyme?
Not by any pattern: free verse uses no prescribed or regular rhyme. Nothing on this list asks for one.
How is free verse different from prose?
Free verse is written in lines. It uses the line to set itself apart from prose, so where each line ends is a decision the poet makes.
What is a good subject for a free verse poem?
Something small and seen: a single boot upright in a field, a porch light left on in daylight. Or something heard, such as one side of a phone call.