IS FREE VERSE TRUE VERSE FOR BEING FREE? CASE IN POINT

A snippet from William Carlos Williams'  "It Is a Small Plant"

It is a small plant
delicately branched and
tapering conically
to a point, each branch
and the peak a wire for
green pods, blind lanterns
starting upward from
the stalk each way to
a pair of prickly edged blue
flowerets: it is her regard,
a little plant without leaves,
a finished thing guarding
its secret.

My question, raised before, why is this a poem and not simply a well done paragraph, broken up so as to fly the flag of verse?

Here is the same "sentence" but laid out without line breaks. What is lost and what is gained by breaking up the sentence into arbitrary (?) bits, as Williams did?

It is a small plant delicately branched and tapering conically to a point, each branch and the peak a wire for green pods, blind lanterns starting upward from the stalk each way to a pair of prickly edged blue flowerets: it is her regard, a little plant without leaves, a finished thing guarding its secret.


Source & Background:


Poets.org - Happy Birthday June 10, 2012

On the "Imagist Movement" you can visit:

Poets.org A Brief Guide to Imagism

JUNE 5 - POEMS HAVE BEEN RECOVERED, HIS BODY? NO . . .

JUNE 5 - Birthday of Federico Garcia Lorca (1898), poet, dramatist and artist, who was murdered on Aug 19, 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. His works were banned in Franco's Spain. G L's body has never been recovered. His poetry and plays have been. Here's a cutting from the poem, with my translation following:

Arbolé, arbolé,
seco y verdí.

La niña del bello rostro
está cogiendo aceituna.
el viento, galán de torres,
la prende por la cintura.
Pasaron cuatro jinetes
sobre jacas andaluzas,
con trajes de azul y verde,
con largas capas oscuras.
'Vente a Córdoba, muchacha.'
La niña no los escucha.
[. . .]

Stemma O Stemma
both dry and green

A lovely girl
out picking olives.
The wind, rigid lover,
grabs at her waist.
As four riders passed
on Andalusian ponies,
wearing outfits of blue and green
and long dark capes,
they said 'Come to Cordoba, little lady.'
She paid no attention to them.
[. . .]







(Translation by RBC)