Blank Verse Sonnet

The Blank Verse Sonnet is simply a sonnet written in Blank Verse. It has all of the features of the sonnet without rhyme. Although Blank Verse is often used in narratives, it can also adapt to the lyrical sonnet. Blank verse is a strophic sonnet in iambic pentameter. Sonnets without rhyme can be traced back to Edmund Spenser.

The defining features of the Blank Verse Sonnet are:

• metric, written iambic pentameter. In English most sonnets are written in iambic pentameter but there are some that occasionally stray from the norm. To metrically stray is not an option with the Blank Verse Sonnet.
• unrhymed.
• a quatorzain with no stanza breaks.
• composed with a pivot or turn which logically arrives in the 2nd half of the sonnet.

Example:

Tell Me of Your Anger in Whispers ( Blank Verse Sonnet )

Should you be moved to speak in anger, love,

I ask that first you test your words alone.

You'll want to be assured your meaning's clear.

If meaning's very clear, then is it fair?

Is it essential now that blame be found?

Perhaps, the words should simply disappear

for now, until your anger can abate.

If blunders I have made have caused upset

I'll be contrite and wanting to amend.

Let's lie together in our bed tonight

and you in dulcet tones will make me know

whatever actions I should contemplate.

I'll listen, think, and I will understand.

Speak whispers to me love, I'll make it right.