On a closely related point: a student several years ago asked me if there were such a thing as tetrameter blank verse. Technically, of course, no, since BV by definition is pentameter. And it seemed to me, that point aside, that such a thing wouldn't or shouldn't work, though I'm not sure why.
Then I ran across a couple of poems by Mary Oliver which look and read very much like "tetrameter blank verse" despite some random rhyming and what seems to be a pattern of near-rhyming (along with several other musical effects): "The House" and "A Letter from Home" [from NEW AND SELECTED, 1992]. The latter reads:
She sends me news of bluejays, frost,
Of stars and now the harvest moon
That rides above the stricken hills.
Lightly, she speaks of cold, of pain,
And lists what is already lost.
Here where my life seems hard and slow,
I read of glowing melons piled
Beside the door, and baskets filled
With fennel, rosemary and dill,
While all she could not gather in
Or hide in leaves, grows black and falls.
Here where my life seems hard and strange,
I hear her wild excitement when
Stars climb, frost comes, and bluejays sing.
The broken year will make no change
Upon her wise and whirling heart;--
She knows how people always plan
To live their lives, and never do.
She will not tell me if she cries.
I touch the crosses by her name;
I fold the pages as I rise,
And tip the envelope, from which
Drift scraps of borage, woodbine, rue.
How much of the poem's effect depends on the presence of the rhyming? Would the short lines work as "blank verse" in its absence? Any thoughts on this?
Jan
[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited April 21, 2001).]
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