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From the Poetry Newsletter "Poetry Newsletter (August 1, 2007)" 
In her book A Poetry Handbook, Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver states:
You would learn very little in this world if you were not allowed to imitate. And to repeat your imitations until some solid grounding in the skill was achieved and the slight but wonderful difference—that made you you and no one else—could assert itself. Every child is encouraged to imitate. But in the world of writing it is originality that is sought out, and praised, while imitation is the sin of sins.
Too bad. I think if imitation were encouraged much would be learned well that is now learned partially and haphazardly. Before we can be poets, we must practice; imitation is a very good way of investigating the real thing.
~~Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook (1994: Harcourt Brace and Company)
With this in mind, Mary Oliver encourages her poetry students to read as much poetry as possible, both from the past and present. By reading the styles of other poets and with ‘much practice,’ a poet slowly develops his/her personal style.
In the past, poets made use of meter and rhyming, but much of today’s poetry is what has been labeled free verse. Free verse has no distinct form, but in free verse, each poet has a different style. Mary Oliver states:
Imitating such poems is an excellent way to realize that they are not very similar after all, but contain differences that are constant, subtle, intense, and radiantly interesting.
The student of poetry does well to read the poems of other poets. Even the reading of poems by our peers at Writing.com will help us improve our poetry.
This much is certainly true: the free-verse poem, when finished, must “feel” like a poem—it must be an intended and an effective presentation… It need not rhyme in a definite pattern, but it may rhyme a little, if the poet decides to rhyme a little. It need not follow particular stanza formations, though of course it 'may' have stanzas. It need not follow any of the old rules, "necessarily." Neither does it have to avoid all of them, "necessarily."
~~Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
By reading the free verse poems of other poets, we will notice these variations and it will aid us as we ‘imitate,’ adapting these variations into our personal styles. Personally, I like a ‘free verse’ poem that contains a slight seasoning of rhyme and alliteration, but there are many poets who prefer to stay away from rhyming. It is enough to be aware that rhyming is not ‘taboo’ in free verse poetry.
Think of free verse as "open form" and traditional verse as "closed form." When you use a closed form-- like the sonnet or haiku or villanelle-- you are following rules that others have invented. When you write in open form (free verse), you must create a new form.
Read the last sentence again, and you will see that free verse has rules! That's right, you create a form and then consistently follow the form that you created. In other words, you are following rules that you have invented for the poem. Without such unique form, there is no difference between prose and poetry.
Eliot   "Myths of Poetry" – (Writing.com poet and poetry teacher)
Free verse, despite the apparent lack of restrictions, should be as carefully constructed as any formal poem. In many ways, it is more difficult to write a good free verse poem than one in a traditional form, because you must not only invent your own rules but fulfill them as well.
http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/schimel5.shtml
Read the following poem by William Carlos Williams, paying attention to how easily the poem reads. In free verse, this is often referred to as the flow of the poem. Notice that the poem has the ‘feel’ of a poem, with “an intended and an effective presentation…”
THE WIDOW'S LAMENT IN SPRINGTIME
by: William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirty five years
I lived with my husband.
The plum tree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turned away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.
http://www.poetry-archive.com/w/the_widows_lament_in_springtime.html
Writing free verse properly requires much practice and we gain instruction by reading and imitating other poets.
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