Poetry Primer: Blank Verse

Poetry Primer is a weekly web series hosted by yours truly, u/actualnameisLana.  

Each week I’ll be selecting a particular tool of the trade, and exploring how it’s used, what it’s used for, and how it might be applied to your own poetry.  Then, I’ll be selecting a few poems from you, yes, the OCPoetry community to demonstrate those tools in action.  So are you ready, poets?  Here we go!  

This week's installment goes over blank verse.

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#I. What is Blank Verse?

Blank Verse is a series of unrhymed lines that have ten syllables a piece.  Blank Verse is most often seen “in the wild” as a series of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter, although examples of Blank Verse in trochaic pentameter, and even spondaic or dactylic pentameter do exist.  

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#II. Examples of Blank Verse

Think of one of your favorite poets.  Odds are, he or she wrote in blank verse at least once.  It has been estimated that ¾ of all the poetry ever written has been written in Blank Verse.

Chris Marlowe wrote many poems in blank verse. Bill Shakespeare wrote most of the content of his plays in iambic pentameter, and little Johnny Milton wrote a short story called ”Paradise Lost”.  Here is Eve speaking to Adam in blank verse:

"With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glist’ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight without thee is sweet."

Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Donne, Tennyson, and many many more poets and dramatists have all written in blank verse.  You can't hardly swing a dead cat without hitting a poet who has used the format.   Here is Robert Frost using the form:

"Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;"

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#III. The Importance of Blank Verse

Blank Verse has similarities to the spoken word, so it's often used by poets and dramatists to lend weight to a scene where one character has a monologue.  There is a particular kind of grandeur and gravitas which arises from the use of this form, yet it also feels natural and unforced.  Nowadays, many authors are turning away from blank verse, preferring instead the somewhat less limiting free verse format.  But I think there are still occasions where nothing but blank verse will do.  

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#IV. Blank Verse in OCPoetry

We actually had an example of blank verse in our subreddit this week!  From author u/treeclimber3, the somewhat inaccurately named “Sonnet From The Unworthy Lover” is actually a wonderful example of modern blank verse in action.  I encourage everyone to go over and read it through.  Thank you, treeclimber3 for contributing this lovely example of homegrown blank verse this week.

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Have you noticed blank verse in an OCPoem recently? Have you written a poem in blank verse that you'd like to share here? Did I miss your favorite blank verse poem?  Send in your examples and tell us how they work, what they make you feel, and how you think they would work differently if they weren't written in blank verse!

Until next week, I'm aniLana and you're not.  Signing off for now. Happy writing!