Joann Andersen, age 15, of Middletown, Ohio, for her question:

WHEN WAS FREE VERSE FIRST USED?

Free verse is either rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without attention to rules of meter. Free verse was first written and labeled "vers libre" by a group of French poets of the late 19th Century, including Gustave Kahn.

The main purpose of the founding group was to deliver French poetry from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to re create instead the free rhythms of natural speech. Pointing to the American poet Walt Whitman as their precursor, they wrote lines of varying length and cadence, usually not rhymed.

The emotional content or meaning of the work of free verse is expressed through its rhythm. Also important is the message that is delivered in the verse.

Free verse has been characteristic of the work of many modern American poets, including Carl Sandburg, Amy Lowell and Ezra Pound.