How about some blank verse?

Hi everyone,

When was the last time you wrote a poem in blank verse? That’s unrhymed iambic pentameter (five stressed syllables per line). Shakespeare wrote miles of it in his works.

ta DA ta DA ta DA ta DA to DA

Here’s one of mine from THE PURCHASE OF SMALL SECRETS, published by Boyds Mills Press in 1998. It’s a memory-based poem about the time I went with two friends on horses to search for an old man who had disappeared from his farm. We were twelve.

Old Man McGrew
by David L. Harrison

I’ve never seen old man McGrew in person.
(People call him that behind his back.)
There’s also lots of other stuff they call him
Like bony, crooked, grizzled, stubborn, gruff . . .

And poor! They say he lives on cans of dog food!
Maybe it’s true he’s crazy. Who could tell?

Well now he’s wandered off or something’s happened
And a manhunt’s on to find old man McGrew.

Dick said, “Open some dog food, he’ll come running.”
But it won’t be funny if someone finds him dead.

P.S. We didn’t find Mr. McGrew but someone else did. He was sitting on a riverbank, fishing.