Iambic pentameter thread (it's rooted in the Shakespeare thread, he said)

[WAB]

If verse that's blank be something thou enjoy'st,
Thus wrote Poul Anderson a novel fine...

https://www.amazon.com/Midsummer-Te...words=midsummer+tempest&qid=1607069958&sr=8-2

Thanks.

I love blank verse when used by the right hand. I suspect that about 97% of all the blank verse in English ever written is tedious and boring. And a very great deal of it is horrible and ugly and nasty. And I mean the formally published stuff. Never mind the endless piles of amateur gibberish.

I love blank verse by Milton, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Frost, Stevens, Wilbur, Hecht, Auden, Pound, etc.

But the blank verse of Shakespeare is ten times greater than all of them combined, times a hundred.

 

[Wiploc]

I'm working on the 1400s. I'll probably need to make rhymes later, but right now I'm just trying to remember how to write meter.

Comments, corrections, and suggestions are all welcome. But I want to publish a little book on using poetry to help yourself remember history.

So, if you contribute, how will I know what is mine and what is yours? I won't know.

So I propose to assume that -- unless somebody specifically says different -- I am free to adopt any suggestions as my own.

I hope that's okay.


The 1400s.


Constantinople falls before the Turks.
New Rome soon bears the name of Istanbul.
{Now that I'm posting it, the first line doesn't work for me.}

At Orleans the dark horse Joan upsets
the arc of war. Since Agincourt won’t come
again, the Brits cry, “Hold, enough!” {last line only four feet}


At Castillon the cannon makes all castles
obsolete -- their resale value shot.
{No clue what’s wrong with the second line, but it sure doesn’t seem right.}

The navigator Henry steers his pilots far away.
De Gama even manages to sail to far Cathay.
{7 feet per line} {repeated word “far”}


Herr Gutenberg is pressing his new type.
{Not strictly iambic. But it is one of Jerome’s allowable exceptions. (#3, below) Allowable or not, I don’t like it in this case.

Judson Jerome in The Poet’s Handbook:

[These four exceptions] account for 90 [sic. 90 percent?] of those you find in metrical verse in English.

…
​

1. DUM da da DUM da DUM {trochee}​
2. da da DUM DUM da DUM {pyrric, spondee}​
3. da DUM da da DUM da DUM {anapest}​
4. da DUM da DUM da DUM da {extrametrical syllable}​

…

Let me now fill in words to correspond to the syllables in my da DUM lines. …
​

1. Whispering branches scrape
2. on the cold panes of thought.
3. I dream of escape, but I
4. am caught by inner whispers.

Elsewhere in The Poet's Handbook, Jerome says that exception number 1, starting a line with DUM da da DUM, or, indeed, using that in the middle of a line if it comes after a pause, is so normal that you wouldn't even call that "loosely iambic." It counts as iambic because it works so naturally in iambic poems.
}

 

[jab]

There's only one excreting cat allowed
In my apartment's litter box: it's Scruf.

 

[Wiploc]

There's only one excreting cat allowed
In my apartment's litter box: it's Scruf.

If only he'd let litter stay in box,

instead he kicks and spreads around the stuff.

 

[WAB]

There's only one excreting cat allowed
In my apartment's litter box: it's Scruf.

If only he'd let litter stay in box,

instead he kicks and spreads around the stuff.

It sounds contrived when you eschew a 'the'.


Since cats are dumber than most kinds of rockses
They cannot keep the litter in the boxes.

-------------------------------

It's good, condensing history in verse.
Remembering's easy when the data's terse.

 

[Wiploc]

There's only one excreting cat allowed
In my apartment's litter box: it's Scruf.

If only he'd let litter stay in box,

instead he kicks and spreads around the stuff.

It sounds contrived if you eschew the 'the'.

Yes. "Spreads around the stuff," (as opposed to, "spreads the stuff around") is also contrived.

 

[Wiploc]

10 to 15 Thousand Years Ago

Milankovitch is turning up the heat;
The Holocene begins as ice recedes.
Now Yupik wander south, their land bridge sunk.

 

[Swammerdami]

Against humongous odds in Georgia land
Two heroes rise to save us from the Mitch.
Will these United States uphold their vows?
Or will our Congress only serve the rich?

Warnóck does lead Ms. Loeffler by an inch.
Perdue trails Ossoff by a breadth of hair.
Let's pray to God if such a thing there is
Or is that God just sobbing in despair?

Our once great land is now a laughing-stock.
But Georgia has a chance to save the day.
Give Kamala and Joe a helpful start:
Turn out and vote, turn out and vote I say!

 

[Wiploc]

2000 to 3000 BCE
Stonehenge and Troy and Pyramids are built.
The Semi-legend Gilgamesh is king.
Camels become domestic, horses too.
Sand melts to glass, and thru we darkly see.
Is Noah boarding tsetse flies, but not the
unicorns? Whatever floats his boat.

10 to 15 Thousand Years Ago (8000 to 1300 BCE)
Milankovitch is turning up the heat;
The Holocene begins as ice recedes.
Their land bridge sunk, the Yupic wander south.

 

[Wiploc]

2000 to 1000 BCE:
Walk Like an Egyptian

Bhagavad Gita ponders evils of war.
Levant is now within the age of iron.
In Labyrinth, Theseus slays the minotaur.
Now Hammurabi, king of Babylon,
rewrites the law so we see eye to eye.
Young Tutankhamun sits on Egypt’s throne.
On Wrangle, woolly mammoths finally die.
If Moses was, this may be when he wandered
and lost to Philistines the Ark of God.
Odysseus offers Troy a fabled horse.

 

[Wiploc]

I switched to anapestic for this period,
because I wanted to use the opening line from
Byron's "Destruction of Shennacherib.

1000 to 500 BCE:

The Assyrian comes down like a wolf on the fold.
The Olympics are started in 766.
The Israeli kings David and Solomon rule.
A wonder in Babylon: gardens that hang.
And the Iron Age spreads across Europe.
Jeremiads are sorrowful. Chinese make prints.
Zoroaster the prophet is playing with fire.
​

These two lines don't want to be thrown away,
but neither are they willing to turn anapestic.
Maybe they'll be more cooperative in the second draft.

A rosy-fingered poet sings of wine dark seas. [6 feet, iambic]
Upanishads, a sacred text of Hindus. [5 feet, iambic]
​

 

[WAB]

Just wanted to mention, Wiploc, that I think you have a good idea going, and I like your samples.

 

[Wiploc]

Thanks

 

[Wiploc]

200s BCE:

The power of Carthage rules the western sea.
So upstart Rome constructs a mighty fleet.
In Punic wars, then, Carthage battles Rome.
Hannibal’s elephants dislike the Alps.


300s BCE:
Athens sins against philosophy

A clever pest, Socrates drinks his last,
but argues on in Plato’s dialogues.
The restless legged Aristotle wanders
the Parapet, then tutors Alexander.
Alexander conquers Greece and Persia.
On Alexander’s death the empire splits.


400s BCE:
300

Thermopylae and Salamis and Xerxes,
philosophy, playwrights, Parthenon.
At Marathon the battle’s won, now run.
“The sea!” cry Greeks on walking tour of Persia.

 

[Wiploc]

100s BCE:
Carthage must be destroyed

Rosetta’s Stone. Halley’s comet. Will cheap
Chinese paper destroy the velum market?
If Carthage falls, who’ll stand against the Romans?
Mediterranean’s now a Roman lake.

-

I'm wondering if that last line wouldn't be better in the zero hundreds BCE.

 

[Wiploc]

000s BCE:
Gesundheit

“I came, I saw, I conquered,” Caesar bragged.
The die is cast; the Rubicon is crossed.
Caesar’s not king; he’s dictator perpetuo
Yes, Cleopatra blossomed from a carpet,
but later on she’s searching for her asp.
King Herod the puppet rules Israel for Rome.
The ides May trigger allergies: “e’tu!”

 

[WAB]

And now...

Just one of my fave bits from Shakespeare:

***

from The Life of Henry the Fift.

O For a Muse of Fire, that would ascend
The brightest Heauen of Inuention:
A Kingdome for a Stage, Princes to Act,
And Monarchs to behold the swelling Scene.
Then should the Warlike Harry, like himselfe,
Assume the Port of Mars, and at his heeles
( Leasht in, like Hounds) should Famine, Sword, and Fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, Gentles all:
The flat vnraysed Spirits, that hath dar'd,
On this vnworthy Scaffold, to bring forth
So great an Obiect. Can this Cock-Pit hold
The vastie fields of France? Or may we cramme
Within this Woodden O. the very Caskes
That did affright the Ayre at Agincourt?
O pardon: since a crooked Figure may
Attest in little place a Million,
And let vs, Cyphers to this great Accompt,
On your imaginarie Forces worke.
Suppose within the Girdle of these Walls
Are now confin'd two mightie Monarchies,
Whose high, vp-reared, and abutting Fronts,
The perillous narrow Ocean parts asunder.
Peece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
Into a thousand parts diuide one Man,
And make imaginarie Puissance.
Thinke when we talke of Horses, that you see them
Printing their prowd Hoofes i'th' receiuing Earth:
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our Kings,
Carry them here and there: Iumping o're Times;
Turning th'accomplishment of many yeeres
Into an Howre-glasse: for the which supplie,
Admit me Chorus to this Historie;
Who Prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to heare, kindly to iudge our Play.

 

[Wiploc]

400s:
The first Pope

Weakening Rome withdraws it’s troops from Britain.
Angles and Saxons land and fill the void.

The Visigoths and Vandals capture Rome.
When Odoacer boots the final emperor,
the Western Empire then is heard no more.

Egypt is weak and New Rome Orthodox;
The western church finds Leo taking charge.
Attila scourges Italy, but Leo
turns him back. Thereafter it’s accepted:
the Roman Bishop heads the Catholic Church

For Saint Augustine, chastity does chafe.
Clovis unites the Franks, turns Catholic.
Thereafter, Arian hopes look ever blacker.

A language old is new: Old English, new.


300s:


Great Constantine co-opts the Christian church,
or maybe it’s the other way around.
He builds New Rome, Constantinopolis.
The Huns chase Visigoths across the Danube.
With iron stirrups, Gothic cavalry
has Roman foot troops feeling obsolete.

Ufilas preaches Arian gospel to Goths,
but trinitarian doctrine holds in Rome.
Two hundred years of blood result from this.
Nicaean councils back the trinity.


200s:
“How some have been deposed; some slain in war
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d”

In Rome, the military monarchy
begets a military anarchy.
By splitting East from West, Diocletian
stabilizes Rome – and none too soon –
for Persia’s growing strength now rivals Rome’s.


100s:
Rome at it’s peak

Ptolemy’s earth is stopped, nested in spheres.
Rome, under Trajan, reaches its largest size.
Then Hadrian and Antonine build walls.


000s:
"Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!"

Three legions lost at Teutoberger Wald.
Augustus dies; Tiberius takes the reign.
Londinium is founded: a Roman army camp.
Josephus writes about a Jewish spinoff.


000s BCE:
Gesundheit

“I came, I saw, I conquered,” Caesar bragged.
The die is cast; the Rubicon is crossed.
Caesar’s not king, but dictator perpetuo.
Yes, Cleopatra blossomed from a carpet,
but later on she’s searching for her asp.
King Herod, puppet, rules Israel for Rome.
The ides may trigger allergies: “e’tu!”
Surprise defeat: Vesuvius beats Pompeii.

 

[WAB]

400s:
The first Pope

Weakening Rome withdraws it’s troops from Britain.
Angles and Saxons land and fill the void.

The Visigoths and Vandals capture Rome.
When Odoacer boots the final emperor,
the Western Empire then is heard no more.

Egypt is weak and New Rome Orthodox;
The western church finds Leo taking charge.
Attila scourges Italy, but Leo
turns him back. Thereafter it’s accepted:
the Roman Bishop heads the Catholic Church

For Saint Augustine, chastity does chafe.
Clovis unites the Franks, turns Catholic.
Thereafter, Arian hopes look ever blacker.

A language old is new: Old English, new.


300s:


Great Constantine co-opts the Christian church,
or maybe it’s the other way around.
He builds New Rome, Constantinopolis.
The Huns chase Visigoths across the Danube.
With iron stirrups, Gothic cavalry
has Roman foot troops feeling obsolete.

Ufilas preaches Arian gospel to Goths,
but trinitarian doctrine holds in Rome.
Two hundred years of blood result from this.
Nicaean councils back the trinity.


200s:
“How some have been deposed; some slain in war
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d”

In Rome, the military monarchy
begets a military anarchy.
By splitting East from West, Diocletian
stabilizes Rome – and none too soon –
for Persia’s growing strength now rivals Rome’s.


100s:
Rome at it’s peak

Ptolemy’s earth is stopped, nested in spheres.
Rome, under Trajan, reaches its largest size.
Then Hadrian and Antonine build walls.


000s:
"Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!"

Three legions lost at Teutoberger Wald.
Augustus dies; Tiberius takes the reign.
Londinium is founded: a Roman army camp.
Josephus writes about a Jewish spinoff.


000s BCE:
Gesundheit

“I came, I saw, I conquered,” Caesar bragged.
The die is cast; the Rubicon is crossed.
Caesar’s not king, but dictator perpetuo.
Yes, Cleopatra blossomed from a carpet,
but later on she’s searching for her asp.
King Herod, puppet, rules Israel for Rome.
The ides may trigger allergies: “e’tu!”
Surprise defeat: Vesuvius beats Pompeii.

"nested in spheres." Bravo! That's the stuff !

I really enjoyed these, Wiploc.

 

[WAB]

The following should be in the prose thread, but since it refers to iambic pentameter (and there's a cat!) :

"One day, one of Radnóti's friends saw him on the streets of Budapest, and the poet was mumbling something like, 'Du-duh-du-duh-du-duh,' and his friend said, 'Don't you understand?! Hitler is invading Poland!' And Radnóti supposedly answered, 'Yes, but this is the only thing I have to fight with.' As his poetry makes clear, Radnóti believed that Fascism was the destruction of order. It both destroyed and vulgarized civil society. It was as if you wanted to create an ideal cat, so you took your cat, killed it, removed its flesh, put it into some kind of mold, and then pressed it into the shape of a cat. That's what Fascism does, and that's what Communism does. They both destroy an intricate social order to set up a criminally simple-minded order."[32] -

Frederick Turner, on translating the poet Miklos Radnoti [emphasis mine]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Turner_(poet)#Literary_translation


***Now scroll back up and read Wiploc's posts. Wonderful metrical variations and substitutions, caesuras aptly placed, effective enjambment*, AAAAaaaaaaaAND - you get to learn some history.



*Attila scourges Italy, but Leo
turns him back.

Shakespeare is smiling.