Here’s an amusing post on internet poetry workshops and a very cool poem in blank verse. Both at the same BV-Wizard site. (Hat tip: Barbara).
(I love the poem, but notice that the last iamb in L7 is”off of.” Beginner’s query: Doesn’t that get you in trouble in IP class?)
“Doesn’t that get you in trouble in IP class?”
Not in BV. In a rhyming poem, yes – ending on a trochee like that would often kill the effect of the rhyme. But in BV it’s not a problem in itself.
You could argue that “off of” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but the poem doesn’t exactly demand smoothness at that point.
Gotcha. Many thanks!
Yeah, it’d be a killer trying to rhyme it, but in that poem it works very well, despite the “of” being a pretty unnecessary word.