Quincy, thanks for this:
"By working in blank verse, he became acutely aware of the real tension between the line as a unit and the cadences across lines, without the clang of the rhyme to justify ending a line at a given point. The line's integrity actually becomes more obviously important when there isn't a rhyme. It needs a bit more organic justification, even when you're enjambing the hell out of the piece as a whole."
This really clarified blank verse for me, which I'd always struggled with. I find it daunting, and too near the blurry line between prose and poetry, but what seems to delineate in the end is meter. Frost's tennis court net.
As an aside, I've been reading Anthony Hecht lately, in particular, Check out "The Short End" or "Venetian Vespers" as other impressive examples of extended blank verse narrative poems.
One thing that strikes me as the MO of blank verse goes back to poetry's earliest origins as an oral tradition, a codified and rhythmic method to convey long narrative.
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