Blank Verse Poems
By Owen Goddu
What is Blank Verse Poetry?
Blank verse is unrhyming iambic pentameter. Blank verse poems have no fixed number of lines, but lines have 10 syllables (an iamb has 2 syllables and pentameter means there are 5 iambs per line.) Blank verse, or heroic verse is chosen because of its rhythm and its similarity to English speech patterns.
"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost
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;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
This is only a small portion of Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" because this poem is long!
There are 10 syllables in blank verse poems (line 1.)
The lines are unrhyming (lines 3 and 4.)