Blank Verse

Blank Verse is poetry which has a specific meter (rhythm) but no rhymes. Blank verse relies on more subtle things like metaphors and similes, and sound repetitions, such as consonance and assonance.

Blank verse is typically written in a meter called Iambic Pentameter, though this specific meter is not required, as long as a specific meter is chosen.

The following is an example of Blank Verse:

Lingering Eden
Amidst the steep and rocky heights there runs
A ribboned line of gray and mottled tar;
Unkept, and rough as any granite path,
A serpent winding through God's garden tract.
And all along this ragged, snakelike trail,
Neglected, cheerless, rise our mortal homes,
With warped and useless shutters hanging low,
Sporadic refuse piled on unkempt lawns,
A sagging roof and porch with peeling paint -
Like crumbling, mildewed fungus under foot.
Yet from these mushroomed heaps, such lovely views -
Bright azure lakes in stunning counterpoint
To rolling greens and blues and granite crags
That point with rocky fingers toward the skies.
Now driving this disheveled, snakelike path,
With verdant Eden's beauty ling'ring here,
I know that works of man could not compare,
Yet still, I wonder, could we not have tried?
(Copyright 2008 by Douglas Twitchell)

See Also
Iambic Pentameter
Metaphor

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