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

[Wiploc]

People are asking about meter, and, while looking for something else, I ran across this.

I got permission from the Smudged Ink people to post here at FRDB (Freethough and Religion Discussion Board), which I still think of as the Internet Infidels Discussion Board, but which calls itself Talk Freethought these days. And I got permission from the locals to post their stuff at Smudged Ink. So this was a discussion held at two different web sites. (Well, one of them was a listserve.)

Anyway, there's discussion of meter which some of you may find interesting or helpful.

And if any of you want to do the assignments in this post, well, my understanding is that the chair of this thread is perfectly tolerant of digression.

==

On Poetry
Lecture #1: Meter
by Charlie Clack [AKA wiploc]

No decent poetry class can start without a discussion of this very basic question: What is a poem? I wish I had an answer for you.

One of my teachers ordered, “Cure yourselves of the idea that poems rhyme!” Another one said, “It’s possible to write poems with meter, but it’s so very dangerous!” I see no justification for either position. If we love metrical rhyming poems, if we want to make more poems of that type, we are perfectly free to do so. I expect to extend these lessons beyond the subjects of meter and rhyme, but meter and rhyme is where we start.

Because I used to couldn’t do it, that’s why. I tried to write a mere limerick, and discovered that I didn’t have the least Idea. I could recite limericks, but I didn’t know what they were. I had to read a book and ask for help … to write a limerick.

The Fifteen Hundreds
by Charlie Clack

King Henry divorces the Bishop of Rome.
Montezuma could wish that Cortez had stayed home.
The armada, she sinks,
Tobacco weed stinks.
And the fountain of youth still evades De Leon
​

I learned surprising things about rhyme too. Surprising because we are fluent in language without understanding it. So, often, rather than teaching you things you don’t know, I’ll be teaching you that you already know things you didn’t know you knew.

One day, having decided that “The Gettysburg Address” was a poem, I was trying to figure out whether this was also:

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night, and all the nights to come.

--George R R Martin
​

I mentioned to a literature professor that I was trying to figure out what poems were, and she said, “If you figure it out, let the rest of us know.”

So I was kidding, above, when I said that no decent poetry course can start without discussing what poems are. I don’t know what a poem is, and … I’m in excellent company.

But I do know something about meter, so we’re going to discuss that. Here’s a limerick, no title or author:

'Tis a favorite project of mine,
A new value of pi to assign.
I would fix it at 3,
For it's simpler, you see,
Than 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.
​

Here it is again with the stressed syllables underlined:

'tis a favorite project of mine,
a new value of pi to assign.
i would fix it at 3,
for it's simpler, you see,
than 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.
​

We’ll call the first, second, and fifth lines anapestic trimeter, meaning they go

de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM.

Lines three and four are anapestic dimeter:

de de DUM de de DUM.

Okay, line five is slightly irregular: it starts with an iamb:

de DUM

instead of an anapest. With limericks, that’s okay; pretty much anything you get away with is okay.

Assignment One: Scansion

Okay, here’s your first assignment: Scan my “Fifteen Hundreds” limerick the way I just scanned the pi limerick. You already know it’s a limerick, so that gives you a head start. You scan by finding the repeating patterns of stresses. You can underline the stressed syllables, highlight them, color them, or whatever you want. Print it out if that helps.

Don’t worry if it doesn’t seem to work out; there’s a lot about scansion that you don’t know yet. Just move to a different line and start again.

Don’t clutter up Smudged Ink by turning in this scansion assignment separately from your regular assignment. If you want to turn it in at all, do so in the same post as assignment two. And don’t turn either one in for at least four days. People need the chance to do this for themselves before they see your answer.

Assignment Two: Iambic Pentameter

Write five lines of iambic pentameter.

de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM
de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM
de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM
de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM
de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM
​

That’s all there is to it. Okay, first kill your internal critic. You’re learning a new skill, here, so the last thing you need is to think that your product should be great art. Decide in advance that it’s going to be stupid.

You don’t want it to rhyme. You don’t want it to be a poem (whatever that is) you just want fifty syllables with alternating stresses, starting with unstressed.

If you want to strive for something, strive to make it sound natural. Don’t say, “ere,” meaning “before.” Don’t “puff,” by putting in things that look like they’re just there to make the meter work out. In, “And a one and a two,” the second and fifth syllables are obvious puffery.

Or do puff if you want. And use strange contractions to make things work out. If this is your first attempt to write meter, you really can’t hold yourself to a high standard. Determine that you’re going to write something really bad, and then jump in.

And, if you get confused, remember that it’s okay: You don’t know much about meter yet.

I’m going to do these assignments with you, and I’m starting mine now:

Do I abate my quest for evermore?
Or must I, once astride this steed,
Continue spurring…
​

Whoa, where did that come from? I wonder what it’s going to be about. It won’t be about anything, really---because I’m going to quit after twenty-five more syllables---and I’ll never look back. This is just a practice exercise, nothing more.

Of course, some of you may surprise yourselves and produce great art running hundreds of lines. That’s okay too. You never know what’s going to come out of the end of your pen.

Extra Credit

Practice scansion. What’s your favorite metered poem? Print out a copy and underline the stressed syllables. Here, I'll do some myself:

From Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
​

How about that: iambic pentameter. Frost makes it look natural.

Notice that his first line starts with a trochee (DUM de). It’s alright to start an iambic line with a trochee. Because it works; that’s the whole reason. And you see that it does work. It works so well, and happens so often, that we still call it iambic. We might not call it “strictly iambic,” but we wouldn’t bother to hedge by calling it “loosely iambic” either. It’s iambic.

Tips

Enjambment: You don’t have to end a sentence where you end a line.

From “Gentle Alice Brown,” by W.S. Gilbert

There was a robber’s daughter,
and her name was Alice Brown.
Her father was the terror
of a small Italian town.
​

Note that lines three and four are a single sentence. If Gilbert put a comma after, “terror,” it was because it was conventional to end lines of poetry that way, not because he wanted a pause there. (Of course there are people who will tell you to pause at the end of every line. Maybe they like children’s poetry, which is supposed to be sing-songy. Or maybe they are great artists with far more authority than me. What’s clear is that they ain’t me. And there are doubtless great and authoritative artists on my side of this issue too.) Anyway, feel free to enjamb: you don’t have to end sentences, phrases, or clauses at the end of lines.

Half syllables: Say what? Yes, you use them all the time, even if you’re not conscious of it. How many syllables in, say, “fiery”? It depends on where you use it. You’ll pronounce it with two syllables or three, depending on what makes the meter work. Read this line aloud:

Now watch the fiery dragon flee

You said it with two syllables. Even if you weren’t aware of the meter, you conformed to it. Now read this one aloud:

Fiery death pursues, you see.

Three syllables this time, right? And it sounded good both times. Pretty cool, huh? So don’t let dictionary pronunciations push you around too much when you’re writing poetry. You’re after five lines of iambic pentameter---any way you can get ‘em.

Deadlines

Those of you who need deadlines: Post your five lines of iambic pentameter within seven days. But don’t post your scansion in the first four days, and don’t post your scansion except with your iambic pentameter. That way everybody has a chance to practice scansion before they see other people’s scansion. After seven days, or most people have posted, or I get the itch, I’ll post lesson two. If this doesn’t seem very regular, then that’s, you know, weird enough, right? Maybe we’ll have a more fixed schedule later.

Formatting Note:

I wrote this in Word. The original is pretty. I don’t know how it will look when it’s posted online.



One could certainly argue that that last line of Frost contains a spondee (DUM DUM):

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.​

I've been asked, elsewhere, how to identify the stressed syllables. I'm going to share my answer here.

---

First, just read it aloud. Listen. It may take some practice.

Second, try overstressing the syllables you think might be stressed. You can do that without sounding too bad. But if you overstress the wrong syllables, say ...

'tis A favOrite proJECT of mine,
​

... it sounds terrible bad.

Third, once you get the feel for the anapestic rhythm (a stress every third syllable) you come to expect stresses at that distance. That'll help you to anticipate them.

Here's another limerick to practice on:

There once was a man from Nantucket.
He kept all his cash in a bucket.
His daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
​

That may be the most famous limerick ever.

Note that several lines (1, 2, 3, 5) start with iambs (de DUM).

And note the "extrametrical" syllable hanging off the ends of lines 1, 2 and 5.

Oh, well, now I notice that if you wrapped the extrametrical syllables around to the beginnings of the next lines, then lines 2 and 3 would not start with iambs. Thus:

There once was a man from Nantuck-
et. He kept all his cash in a buck-
et. His daughter, named Nan,
ran away with a man
​

Interesting. If you write it that way, then the poem is perfectly anapestic except for lines 1 and 5.

But I suggest that you not think of that as the solution to a problem. There was no problem to be solved. Extrametrical syllables are common and legitimate. You don't need to start line two with an iamb to justify an extrametrical syllable on line one.

Lots of limericks start lines with iambs, and lots of them end lines with extrametrical syllables. It's probably a coincidence that the line up the way they do here.

---




One time, this guy told me that Chaucer was good!

Was funny! I'm not so gullible that I believed him,

but that he could make such a claim with a straight

face—that amazed me!



But then I went to college for, I dunno, the forth time,

and I arranged things so badly that I wound up reading

parts of The Canterbury Tales again. Stupid! Only

this time they made me translate into modern English,

line by line.



Chaucer's a hoot!



What I just finished here is not my line-by-line translation.

No, now I'm recovering the meter and rhyme-and, to

do that, I'm translating very loosely indeed.

Nonetheless, I believe this captures the spirit.


This is from the introduction to the tale of the Wife of Bath.


And I may have run a bit longer than the assigned five lines.

The Wife of Bath Describes Her Youthful Self

By Charles Clack and Geoffrey Chaucer



A reveler was husband number four.
He even kept a sweetheart on the side.
And I, this burst of lively, randy, wild
determined concupiscence, was his bride.

At first we had accord of inclination:
so much did we love wine and dance and song,
and sex of course-flirtation's consummation-
we'd drink and love and sing and love 'til dawn.

This perfect mate adored my concupiscence.
He loved to feed me wine and lay me down.
We had it good until he changed, the bastard,
He then regarded pleasure with a frown.

This book he read said women are temptation,
by Satan sent, men's sacred souls to gore.
And thus he learned disdain for lively pleasures,
and said that I should never drink wine more.

This worst of husbands cut me off from wine.
In recompense, then, I cut off his tail.
He implored that I should do my wifely duty,
but sober wives are begged without avail.

He sooner without pig would make his bacon,
Than ever without wine would make this wench.
You boys all know enough to let the wine flow,
when ere you hope your sausage to entrench.

My life, once dry of wine, was dry of pleasure.
The cost of manly virtue was too high.
And so I vowed he'd never love me sober.
He'd made my bed, so there he could not lie.
​

A student’s response to assignment two: Iambic Pentameter
Write five lines of iambic pentameter with an enjambment.

*******************
Freeze Out

© 2009 Richard Kirby

********************

The fist of autumn strikes a deadly blow
To pumpkins scattered naked under dry
And blackened tents, once factories of life
Forever closed. The pumpkins stare aghast,
Ice-crested in the mocking autumn sun.
​

I know that some of the formatting just won't show up here.
It will look better and make more sense here at FRDB.

On Poetry
Lecture #2: Feet and Meters
by Charlie Clack

You'd think it would be Feet and Yards, but no. It turns out that meters have feet too.

Thanks to everybody who participated in lesson one (and you can still submit your homework for lesson #1 if you haven't. Some people will discover this thread later than others. Feel free start whenever you're ready.)

I expected to enjoy teaching, but I hadn't anticipated that one of the joys would be just liking the students' work. Yay! for everybody who participated.

This is a workshop class: feel free to comment on each other's work. Here's an excerpt from my poetry workshop "crib sheet" (the page I carry into my slam poetry class to help jumpstart my thoughts. My secret terror is finding myself without anything to say about someone's poem. Not that that's ever happened.)

Workshop Seeds:
Appreciate, Articulate, Offer Ways to Improve.
Thoughts that may help some workshoppers get started:
Be supportive and encouraging.
Appreciate: Say what you liked, and why. "Just let me read this line aloud . I so love this aspect of it: ."
Appreciate diction, word choice, rhythm, meter, rhyme, image, tone, flavor . Were they appropriate to the subject, message, or effect wanted?
Appreciate the title. How does it work? What is its second meaning? Can it be improved?
Appreciate: "This stanza/character/move intrigued me because ..."
Articulate or translate; let the author/performer know what you think she did: "The meaning of this poem is ..." "The effect-wanted was ..." "Eve took the first bite because ..."
What could be advantageously cut or moved?
Where were you confused? Why?
What worked? Why?
What needs work? Why?
Where did your interest wane? Why?
Note clichés. (But, as a writer, don't hesitate to put clichés in a first draft. Clichés are place-holders; they tell you where to use fresh language later.)
How might the poem be adapted to better suit oral presentation?
Does the execution suit the subject or effect wanted?

And here's another excerpt, from a hypothetical handout I could distribute in a hypothetical meatworld poetry class:

Workshop Tools and Protocols
The primary goal of workshop is to let the author know what we think she has written. Hearing her poem restated, paraphrased, explained, is of immense value. This is where she learns what she has and has not communicated.

The hard part: For that to work, the author has to remain silent. We can't workshop a text that the author has explained. Even tiny author comments like, "That was his real name," or, "No, I don't have children," will change our perception of the poem, will cause us to workshop something other than what was presented.

Author comments: The author should be given opportunity, at the end of the session, to make comments or ask questions. If asked a non-rhetorical question before that, she should deflect it by saying, "I don't get to answer that yet."
-- above three paragraphs by Susan Rogers, reproduced by permission

Terminate debate: If someone else offers a wrong opinion contradicting your previously-offered gloriously correct opinion, that's a good thing: the performer has gotten to hear both sides. There is no call to restate your opinion. We are not here to debate or persuade; we are here to offer a selection of insights for the author to choose from. It may not be possible to catch yourself before you offer glorious truth a second time. But, if you say it a third time, know that you are in the wrong.

And one more:

The Writer's Role in Workshop:

Listen but don't obey. Don't try to follow all the advice. You aren't being force fed; rather, the reactions you hear in workshop are a smorgasbord, from which you may select morsels that appeal. "As a writer, your job is to listen for the rare voice that is helpful to you."

Feet and Meters:

Yes, we're back to that. The foot is the unit of meter, the thing that gets repeated. In iambic pentameter, the foot is the iamb, and it gets repeated five times per line.

When we're doing scansion, we should mark the feet, not just the stressed syllables as we have been doing. Let's try it. Richard Kirby submitted this in response to Lesson one, at Smudged Ink, where I am also teaching this course.

[Autumn]
Richard Kirby

The fist of autumn strikes a deadly blow
To pumpkins scattered naked under dry
And blackened tents, once factories of life
Forever closed. The pumpkins stare aghast,
Ice-crested in the mocking autumn sun.

--reproduced by permission
​

Notice first how natural it sounds. I need a counter-example. Here's from Lord Byron's, "The Destruction of Sennacherib:

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
​

"morrow," "hath," and, "blue wave rolls nightly" are obvious artifacts of cramming the words into meter. Byron's poem is greatness, so it's saying something when I point out that at least the first half of Kirby's poem sounds more natural than Byron's.

Kirby's poem is also delightfully densely figurative, which I'd love to go on about, but I'm going to talk about meter. We separate the feet with vertical lines, thusly:

The fist | of aut|umn strikes | a dead|ly blow
To pump|kins scatt|ered nak|ed und|er dry
And black|ened tents, | once fact|ories | of life
Forev|er closed. | The pump|kins stare | aghast,
Ice-crest|ed in | the mock|ing au|tumn sun.
​

Note that the last line begins with a spondee (DUM DUM). And further note that Kirby got away with it. (You didn't think, "Wait, something's wrong here," when you got to the last line, did you?)

Vocabulary:

Iamb: de DUM
Trochee (pronouced tro-key): DUM de
Spondee: DUM DUM
Pyrrhic: de de
Anapest: de de DUM (limerick meter)

There are other kinds of feet, but that'll get you by.

Now it's time to note that the de and the DUM are only relative to a particular foot. (That didn't make any sense at all, did it? Don't worry, I'll keep trying.) Okay, suppose we break stresses down into four levels rather than just two (1, 2, 3, and 4, rather than just de and DUM). I read, "The fist of autumn strikes a deadly blow," as 3, 4, 2, 3, 1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 2, 4. I'll try that again combining capitalization and bolding: THE FIST | of AUT|umn STRIKES | a DEAD|ly BLOW. (Other people will have read this with different stresses. That's cool.)

Note that, in my reading, the "THE" of the first foot has as much stress as the "AUT" of the second foot. One's a "de," and the other is a "DUM," but they have the same stress. That's okay, because they aren't being compared to each other; they are only compared to the other syllables of the same foot. "THE" is a de because it has less stress than "FIST". And "AUT" is a DUM because it has more stress than "of."

Question: Which meter is used in Byron's "Sennacherib"? (To answer that, you need to know both the kind of foot used and the number of feet per line.)

Assignment: This week we're doing limericks. I'll go first:

Ulysses
By Charles Clack

There was a role model, Ulysses,
The suitors were after his misses.
He lied and he screwed;
He was violent and rude.
A morality tale is what thissis.
​

Extra Credit: Scan another poem. Mark the feet, and the most heavily metered syllable in each foot. Make sure it's metered this time (a lot of poems don't have meter). By way of example, here's an unmetered poem of mine:

Feline Geometry (An odd thought that wanted to be recorded before I slept)

-

Cats curled, nestled like apostrophes.
A yin-yang of contentment in the winter sun.
​

-

You wouldn't learn anything by trying to scan that.

You're practicing scansion for your own benefit, so don't bother to post the results unless you run into problems and want to consult.

Scansion Tips:

a.. First, find a regular line, one that has the same kind of feet all the way thru. (You wouldn't want to start on the last line when scanning Kirby's poem.) Often, this will mean that you are not starting on line one.
b.. Don't be a slave to the meter. Notice when the poet (as Kirby does in the first foot of the last line) deviates.
c.. Remember that you're ignorant. I can't teach you everything first, so it's okay to be confused. This is to say that there are poems that won't yield to the tools I've given you so far.

Oh, and here's my homework for Lesson #1. I ran more than five lines:

The Wife of Bath Describes Her Youthful Self
By Charles Clack

A reveler was husband number four.
He even kept a sweetheart on the side.
And I, this burst of eager, randy, wild
determined concupiscence, was his bride.

At first we had accord of inclination:
So much did we love wine and dance and song,
and sex of course-flirtation's consummation-
we'd drink and love and sing and love 'til dawn.

This best of husbands cherished concupiscence:
He loved to feed me wine and lay me down.
We had it good until he changed, the bastard,
He then regarded pleasure with a frown.

This book he read said women are temptation,
by Satan sent, men's sacred souls to gore.
So then he learned disdain for lively pleasures,
and said that I should never taste wine more.

This worst of husbands cut me off from wine.
In recompense, then, I cut off his tail.
He implored that I should do my wifely duty,
but sober wives are begged without avail.

He sooner without pig would make his bacon,
Than ever without wine would make this wench.
You boys all know enough to let wine flow,
when ere you hope your sausage to entrench.

My life, once dry of wine, was dry of pleasure.
The cost of manly virtue was too high.
And so I vowed he'd never love me sober.
He'd made my bed, so there he could not lie.
​

If you scan this one, and point out deviations, that will help me improve it.

I already know that, "He implored that I should do my wifely duty," starts with an anapest. I just don't know what to do about it. When I say it aloud, it sounds like, "He'mplored that I should do my wifely duty."



A student submission from Ern Wiley:

Charlie --
Hope there's no meter maid around,
I'd surely get a ticket for this hound
​

---------.

"The Weight Watcher"

Ah, YES, I am REA-dy and QUITE resigned
To EX-ercise BOLD-LY and NOT be kind
To FORE-arms and THIGHS;
Re-MEM-b'ring the PRIZE:
A WAIST is a TERR-rible THING to mind.
​

A student submission from Jennifer Dumford:

i USED to HATE iAMbic POeTRY;
the MEter NEVer MADE a BIT of SENSE
and THEN charLIE exPLAIN'D it ALL clearLY
but I still SAY i THINK it IS a PLOT
aGAINST me TRYing HARD to DO me IN

so i ONCE tried to WRITE me a LIMerick
and i THOUGHT there could NOT be a TRICK to it
exCEPT i was WRONG
and it TOOK me so LONG
that i MISSED the due DATE that we HAD for it
​

bleh. i suck at poetry and i don't even know if i got the limerick meter
right. hmph. perhaps i ought to stick to short stories and novel plots...

jenn (and the i-am-no-poet-and-yes-i-do-know-it SV)




More from Jenn:

i am so dense about poetry. i think i understand iambic pentameter (de DUM
de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM, rinse and repeat). I can't seem to read it
rhythmically (thus my deep dislike for reading Shakespeare) but I at least
understand the pattern.
apparently, though. i don't get limericks. do all limericks go like this?

de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM
de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM
de de DUM de de DUM
de de DUM de de DUM
de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM
​

jenn (and the why-can't-i-get-the-hang-of-this-meter-stuff SV)




More from Ern:

A CHAR-ming young LA-dy, Dum-FORD,
She TRIED for a LIM'rick and SCORED!
It DOES MAKE me WON-wonder
As I PEN a BLUN-der
If JENN has an-OTHER one STORED.
​

Delightful, Ern. Many limericks start lines with iambs,
so you're cool there.

Your scansion has the LY in BOLDLY stressed, but
that seems to me incorrect. The foot is "ly and not."
If you read the line naturally, I think you'll find that the
"NOT" is stressed significantly more than the "ly."
That is to say, you have a de de DUM.

You have two extrametrical syllables at the end of lines
one, two, and five, and that's just crackerjack. Not
embarrassing, but rather praiseworthy.

The meter maid has nothing on you!

crc

From: Ern Wiley
Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 10:54 AM
To: Smudged Ink
Subject: [SmudgedInk] Limerick near miss?

Charlie --
Hope there's no meter maid around,
I'd surely get a ticket for this hound
​

> From: Jenn Dumford

> i USED to HATE iAMbic POeTRY;
> the MEter NEVer MADE a BIT of SENSE
> and THEN charLIE exPLAIN'D it ALL clearLY
> but I still SAY i THINK it IS a PLOT
> aGAINST me TRYing HARD to DO me IN
​

Flattery will get you anywhere.

But we can polish this a bit. The first two lines are
perfect, but, in the third line, my name takes stress
on the first syllable. And so does "clearly."

So we can start by adding a syllable after "Then, or
by takeing one out in front of it. Something like,

but THEN this CHARlie MADE it CHRYstal CLEAR

or

Then CHARlie HE did MAKE it CLEAR to ME

I don't happen to like either of those---even if I overlook the
self-adulation---
but they're examples of how we can toy with word order to conform to
meter.

In line four, I recommend reversing the second and third words:

but I still SAY i THINK it IS a PLOT

becomes

But STILL i SAY i THINK it IS a PLOT

So we're closing in on it here:

I used to hate iambic poetry;
the meter never made a bit of sense.
Then explanation made it crystal clear---
but still I say I think there is a plot
against me trying hard to do me in.
​

I didn't mean to write myself out of the
third line, but nothing I tried with my name in it
worked metrically.

Oops, let me tweak line four:

I used to hate iambic poetry;
the meter never made a bit of sense.
Then explanation made it crystal clear---
but still I say I think that there's a plot
against me trying hard to do me in.
​

Sorry, once I get started playing this game,
it's hard to stop. The meter's right now, but,
"I say I think" is puffing, using extra syllables
to fill up an unused foot. So, how about:

I used to hate iambic poetry;
the meter never made a bit of sense.
Then explanation made it crystal clear.
But also clear is this: the iambs plot
against me, trying hard to do me in.
​

I like it!

> so i ONCE tried to WRITE me a LIMerick
> and i THOUGHT there could NOT be a TRICK to it
> exCEPT i was WRONG
> and it TOOK me so LONG
> that i MISSED the due DATE that we HAD for it
​

Delightful! And you did get the meter right.

> bleh. i suck at poetry and i don't even know if i got the limerick meter
> right. hmph. perhaps i ought to stick to short stories and novel plots...

You nailed the meter. You're doing fine. Perfect form while
being witty, all while learning a new art form---what more could
you ask for?

crc



> From: Jenn Dumford
>
> i am so dense about poetry. i think i understand iambic pentameter (de DUM
> de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM, rinse and repeat).

Bingo.

> I can't seem to read it
> rhythmically (thus my deep dislike for reading Shakespeare) but I at least
> understand the pattern.

It's not your job to read it rhythmically. Meter is something the poem
does to you, not something you do to it. I've never tried to scan
Shakespeare, but sometimes I think it is poetry and sometimes prose.

But let's posit, just for fun, that his work is all in pentameter. And let us
further acknowledge that Shakespeare is an astonishing genius. What
follows from that? What follows is not that we're too dumb to notice
the pentameter, nor that he was too dumb to make the pentameter obvious.
What follows is that he controls when we feel the meter and when we don't.
If he writes in meter without us knowing it, then he's doing it on purpose.

> apparently, though. i don't get limericks. do all limericks go like this?

> de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM
> de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM
> de de DUM de de DUM
> de de DUM de de DUM
> de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM
​

None of them do, actually. The long lines are just three anapests long:
de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM.

But you're in good company. Remember
my 1500s "limerick"?

King Henry divorces the Bishop of Rome.
Montezuma could wish that Cortez had stayed home
tobacco weed stinks,
The armada she sinks,
and the fountain of youth still evades de Leon.
​

I thought that was a limerick until it was pointed out here or at
FRDB that lines 1, 2, and 5 are four anapests long, like you
wrote above.

de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM

So I made the same mistake you did.

Also, there is considerable variation in the limerick form.

A lot of lines start with iambs instead of anapests

de DUM de de DUM de de DUM

and a lot of lines have extrametrical syllables

de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de

or

de de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de de

Look at what's probably the most famous limerick line in the world:

"There once was a man from Nantucket"

It goes like this:

de DUM de de DUM de de DUM de

Starts with an iamb, and ends with an extrametrical syllable.

But neither of those is a problem. The limerick form allows
those variations.

Don't be discouraged. Remember that I had to read a whole book
and ask for help in order to write my first limerick---which now turns
out not to have been a limerick after all.



> Originally Posted by spikepipsqueak View Post
> > Originally Posted by wiploc View Post
> > Question: Which meter is used in Byron's "Sennacherib"?
> Those are anapests, yes? and four of them, but I don't know what you would
> call the combination.

Anapestic tetrameter. I've read that it, I dunno, shows the rhythm of the
galloping horses or something.

> > Assignment: This week we're doing limericks.

> wiploc, is it cheating to use something you wrote before?
> I am all limericked out, ATM, but I posted this a while back
> in another forum's "Make limericks of poems" thread. How
> slimy is it to recycle? Should we be producing new work
> for "class"?

I certainly recycled mine. Though I intend to do a new one also. All
participation is welcome.

> Societies oft crush their best
> When conformity's put to the test.
> Socrates' lost,
> Galileo, storm toss'd
> And much of one gender suppressed.
​

Nice.

And it's perfect example for this point about scansion:

Since we know from the rest of the poem that these are anapests, how would
we scan this line:

Socrates' lost,

And the answer is? It's two anapests, (de de DUM de de DUM) with the first
two de des suppressed. They are silent, like the "k" in "English Knight,"
like the "e" in "pole," like the subject in the sentence, "Git!"

On the one hand, you don't hardly need to know this. On the other hand, I'm
recommending scanning a lot of poetry if you want to get good at poetry, so
you need to know what kind of tricks people use to handle difficult poems.

Take this line:

DUM de DUM de DUM
​

If every line in a poem went like that, what would you call it? Answer: Some
people would call it iambic (with a truncated iamb at the start of each
line), some would call it trochaic (with a truncated trochee at the end of
each line) and some would look up or make up some more obscure kind of foot.

Upshot: Scanning poems is good, but we don't have to feel like we're the
ones at fault if a poem doesn't cooperate with our attempts at scansion.

Factoid: I read somewhere that Shakespeare and those guys didn't even have
meters and feet. No iambs. No iambic pentameter. Those are modern notions.
We use these new terms so that we can discuss what Shakespeare did,
but---while he clearly knew what he was doing---he did it without these
modern concepts. I have trouble with that, but I did read it somewhere.

Notes
-- spikepipsqueak's work reproduced by permission.



Submission from Richard Kirby:

Assignment #2 – Write a Limerick

Anapestic meter: de-de-DUM

Lines 1,2 and 5 – nine syllables

Lines 3 and 4 – five syllables

“Beefcake Follies”

A governor named Schwarzenegger,

An actor turned fiscal bootlegger,

He first flexed an arm

Then mortgaged the farm

And ended his term a poor begger.
​

Scansion:

a GOV-er-nor NAMED schwarz-en EG-ger,

an ACT-or turned FIS-cal boot-LEG-ger.

he FIRST flexed an ARM

then MORT-gaged the FARM

and END-ed his TERM a poor BEG-ger.
​

(Note deliberately truncated anapests in lines 3 and 4.)

Richard Kirby

P.S. - My apologies to our beloved governator and all his devoted admirers here in Cal-EE-for-NEE-a. Arnold, we love you!)



Submission by Ern Wiley:

Good work, Richard!

I don't pretend to know
How anapestic meter should go
But this I will say
In an anapest way
Your poem is most apropos.
​

Ern

The Next DeMille
By Charlie Clack

The new casting director, he broods.
He expected unveiled pulchritudes.
But he jumped from enthused
to just so disabused,
when he found there’d be no ingénudes.
​

From Richard Kirby:

Charlies,

Your Limerick is wonderful. "Ingénudes", indeed! I guess in the world of Limerickalia, anything goes, inter alia .

If I were asked to crit your Limerick -- (and I wasn't) -- I'd point out just one thing: the "so" in line 4 seems out of place. It tends to grab emphasis. I would suggest, "To merely disabused". -or-- "To just disabused" (better rhythm).

Just my opinion, use or lose.

But over all, the Limerick is clever and funny, and lines 1,2, and 5 are all 9 syllables long, while lines 3 and 4 are five or six syllable, as the "rules" of the form call for.

Altogether, delightful.
Richard

The new casting director, he broods.
He expected unveiled pulchritudes.
But he jumped from enthused
to just so disabused,
when he found there'd be no ingénudes.
​

Thanks for making me laugh, Ern.

I embedded a link to FRDB, of course, and Smudged
Ink stripped it out, also of course. Here's the url:

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=276341

From: Ern Wiley
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 9:48 AM
To: Smudged Ink
Subject: [SmudgedInk] For Charlie -- An Ode to Mighty FRDB

Your coded message read, "Lecture three is easier to read here at
FRDB." It sounds like a marvelous solution to everything, Charlie.
Being as to how it's a discussion forum for atheist / freethought /
secular / metaphysical naturalism, (per Google), *FRDB* (Fame Remote
Database) probably wouldn't let us nudists in, though. What fun is that?

Oh, where do I find a Frdb?
And what do I do with it then?
I think I'm in need of a Frdb
'Cause my muse's actin' up ag'in.
​

I've searched in my sock drawer robustly
And found only mis-mated pairs;
There should be a his and a her-db
A shocking bad state of affairs.

If only I had commutation,
Of this sentence to look for the thing,
There must be a Frdb here somewhere
It has such a heavenly ring.
​

From the Flagrant Vagrant:

> Charlie ...
>
> I think one of my feet stepped in xaxa with this.
> Is there an exterminator firm for anapests?

That's twice in one night you've made me laugh out loud;

> Such is the quest of the balladeer,
> In his hope for fame and glory --
> To pen a poem meaningful,
> And not like cacciatore.
​

> DUM de de DUM de de DUM DUM

Balladeer is DUM de DUM, not DUM DUM, so you're good there.
And if you pluralize "balladeer," you won't need the article:

of balladeers is de DUM de DUM. So now we only need the anti-anapest man
for the initial DUM de de DUM---but no, that's already kosher. You get to
start iambic lines with trochees.
DUM de de DUM de DUM de DUM.
Such is the quest of balladeers.
That's perfect.

Then all we need to do is strike the word, "his," in the second line, and
the whole thing is flawless, _and_ funny.

Okay, I'm changing "for" to "of" for some reason I can't articulate, but
even if you don't do that, you're golden:

Such is the quest of balladeers,
In hope of fame and glory --
To pen a poem meaningful,
And not like cacciatore.
​

From Richard Kirby:

Okay, Charles, here's my de-DUM in ballad meter. It is not Sir Patrick Spence:

The king sits in Dunfermline town

Drinking the blood red wine,

"Oh where will I get a bonny crew

To sail this ship of mine?"
​

No, I'm farther back in history than that. Much farther. In fact, I'm pre-historic. (My nephews have suspected this for years!)

I opted for rhyming lines 2 and 4, rather than the more demanding 1 and 3 AND 2 and 4.

de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM
de DUM de DUM de Story
de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM
de DUM de Pergatory
​

I'll just say this about ballad meter: I don't think I'll willingly write another one. Limericks, lovingly. Haikus, happily. Double-dactyls, doubtlessly. Sonnets, certainly. But ballads, well, there's something I don't like about the sing-song cadence. Anyway, here's my effort.

*********************​

"Spirit Fire"

© 2009 - Richard Kirby

*********************

When proto-man looked at the sky

And pondered, what is God,

Did he abide upon the trees

An ape-like anthropod?

Or hid in swamps, or free upon

The wide savannah’s stance,

Spear in hand, did he discern

A lucky circumstance?

The hunters, did they silent creep

In fearful chill to cower

Still-breathless at the snorting sight

Of aurochs’ horrid power?

How could a man, so weak, so slow,

Ensnare the beast and own

His noble soul and bring him low

For meat and hide and bone?

A simple prayer, “Come torch the earth,

(The flame you'll hardly miss.)

Send fire to drive the panicked prey

Beyond the precipice."

But swift the hunter heard a voice

Like thunder to his band:

“Go capture fire and make it yours;

So live and rule the land.”
​

From Ern Wiley:

Wow, Richard!

Once you get going, you're like that Energizer^® Bunny! "Spirit Fire"
reads as smooth as mead, a work that required an awesome amount of time
and energy.

The image you conveyed of stone-agers driving the fierce oxen ("ox"
derives from "aurOCHs" my sources tell me) over a cliff, is skillfully
done, given the restraints of the medium, and I'm sure that, right now,
there is a musician lurking in Gollywood, composing a melody for making
this ballad singable.

I'm pleased that Charlie proposes short-line ballads (i.e. Celine Dion)
rather than hair-raisers such as Rudyard Kipling. But, come to think of
it, I reckon Gilbert & Sullivan would have gloried in line extenders for
Spirit Fire.

Oh, lordy, I hope I don't get bitten with the ballad bug today; it's
Thursday and I'm supposed to rearrange the canned goods in the pantry.

Good work, Richard. This is a classic.

Ern

---

"Foot"-note:
bal·lad (noun)
1. a romantic or sentimental song with the same melody for each
stanza (Yup)
2. a song or poem that tells a story in short stanzas and simple
words, with repetition, refrain, etc.: (Yeah)
3. a slow, sentimental popular song, esp. a love song (Well, maybe
if the Neaders were hungry enuff)
(Etymology: ME balad < OFr ballade, dancing song < OProv ballada, (poem
for a) dance < balar, to dance < LL ballare)

(Can we look forward to R. Kirby doing a dance now?)

(Nah. Oh, where is Sinatra when we need him?)




From Ern Wiley:

Okay, you got my juices stirred
With all this ballad stuff;
Now I can't think of nothin' else;
I just can't get enough.
​

And, in regard to Richard Kirby's excellent multi-quatrains,
these words seem to fit the "Mary had a little lamb" style:
_

RICH_ard _WRITES_ his _BAL_lads _WELL_
dots _T's_ and _CROS_ses _i's_
And _THIS_ you_'_ll like a_BOUT_ his work:
they _END_ with a sur_PRISE
​

_Which leads to a musical scansion:

_ab / ab / aba
ba / ba / bb
babb / babb
ba / bb / ba!
​

_(Aren't scansions those tiny fishes that swarm onshore in August?)
(Escaping poem writers, obviously)




From Richard Kirby:

Ernesto,

Crossed i's and dotted t's, indeed!
You'd be the first to know;
Just stay the course, that's all I plead
And rhyme your lines just so.

And thank you for your glowing praise--
You turn a feller's head;
I think you've mastered ballad ways
From A to trailing Zed.
​

-- Author unknown

I thought them August fish was grunions
Amassed upon the beach,
A cure for yaws and gout and bunions :
Oh, hell, it's outa reach!
​

Balladier to Co-Pilot
Over and Out




From Richard Kirby, but including a poem by Ern Wiley:

Ern,

Poor Marie, victim of fate,
She loved la belle vie,
She fled Versailles but went quite gray
Jailed in the Conciergerie.

As Madame Lafarge knitted away
Head after head fell free;
What is the use of being queen
Without one's liberty?
​

If that doesn't admit me to the House of Doggerel, nothing will.

Truth is, I like your ballad better. Except that I think the Tuileries was a palace -- at least until the royal family was imprisoned there. In that sense it was a prison. Your footnotes are an interesting addition to the poem. Nicely done.

-- Richard

Subject: [SmudgedInk] 11/6 Prompt: MARIE ANTOINETTE

Prompt for 11/6/2009:*(alms for the poor) *
----------------------------------

000 Words
© MMIX by Ern Wiley
----------------------------------

They filled the streets, protesters did,
And fanned a revolution.
But more, their unforgiving shouts
Brought on an execution.

With brandished fists and hot demands
They cried for bread, not cake;
They stormed Tuileries prison then
With everything at stake.

France now records the infamy,
So dire the Guillotine,
But she was proud right to the end:
"I'm sorry," said the queen.
​

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

Note:
I intended to post this on October 16th but there
was no appropriate prompt at that time..

It's said that the words of the queen which infuriated
the peasants, who were starving because they had no
bread, were, "Let them eat cake."

Marie Antoinette was beheaded on 16 October 1793.
According to legend, her last words were an apology
to the executioner after accidentally stepping on his foot.



From Richard Kirby, but including a poem by Ern Wiley:

Ern,

Better later than never. I just found this wonderful Limerick of yours hiding behind a overfed spondee in my laborythine inbox. Sorry I didn't come upon it when it was young and fresh. It's a hoot. Love it. AND ... most importantly ... the meter is PERFECTO! -- not to mention it's witty and elegant. A poet you are. I take back all the dark thoughts I've harbored about forced rhymes and contorted rhythm. You're a jewel. A diamond, sometimes in the rough, but bright and shining beyond all imangining.

If I were a poet, full of rhymes
I'd scan my meters many times;
I'd polish each anapest
And fake out all the rest
Even if my meter leads a bit to the realm of unspeakable crimes.
​

R.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ern Wiley" <ernwiley@verizon.net>
To: "Smudged Ink" <SmudgedInk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 8:58:10 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [SmudgedInk] 'Appy 'Alloween.

Richard explained how a limerick works in his
seminal critique, "Syllableology." Nine Sibyls on
lines 1, 2 and 5 ... and five Sibbles on lines 3 and 4.
So easy a caveman can do it.

A poet I am, so I thought
I'm trying to do what I'm taught
On Halloween night
My rhymes are a fright;
I'm keeping my plot lines like, taut.
​

On Poetry
Lecture #3
Native English Meter

Class Sections:
There are two sections of this class. One is here at FRDB
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?p=6180065#post6180065. (Don’t follow that link from FRDB, it will just bring you back to this very post.) And one is at Smudged Ink http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SmudgedInk/summary. FRDB allows formatting, so lectures are much easier to read and understand. There’s more participation at Smudged Ink. Take your pick, or go both ways. (If you post in both places, you be making a larger writers’ community, and I won’t have to ask permission to reproduce the posts that I comment on.)

My Homework From Last Time:

The assignment, at least two stanzas ballad meter:
Here’s grass too tall to see across,
but brown in August heat.
On Mars are rivers dry as these—
yet Kansas grows the wheat.

Vacationers on Trail Ridge Road
in air as thin as shadow.
There’s wind and snow and beauty here,
the peaks of Colorado
​

(If we did that forty-eight more times, we’d have a children’s book. We could start a separate thread for it. Anybody want to illustrate? We could publish free online, to help kids learn the states. If we did a hardcopy version, we could donate the profits to an educational charity.)


Retraction: 100,000 lines is crazy talk.

I’ve long wanted to try writing some native English meter. This week I realized that if I make you guys do it, I’ll have to do it too! Yay! Which, of course, raises this question: What is native English meter? It’s what Beowulf is written in, and it has something about caesuras, right? I hadda look it up.

Which, for me, meant finding a copy of Judson Jerome’s Poet’s Handbook. In which, I note that Jerome has scanned “several thousand” lines of poetry, not the previously-stated 100,000 lines.

More on native English meter below. Because, you know, you’re going to write some.


Why Scansion:

We’ve had a question on why we study scansion. I tried to answer that myself, but it turns out Jerome has an answer too:

Only I’m having trouble finding it, and I have low blood sugar at the moment, so I can’t do an organized search, and I keep running across things I want to report anyway, so we’ll come back to Jerome’s answer to that question if we do.

Meanwhile, he reports four variations account for 90% of the variations you’ll encounter in iambic poetry. Here they are:

1. Dum de de DUM de DUM
2. de de DUM DUM de DUM
3. de DUM de de DUM de DUM
4. de DUM de DUM de DUM de


The first one starts the line with a trochee rather than an iamb. All good. And in fact you can do that after a caesura, a pause, like this …
de DUM, DUM de de DUM
That comma makes it okay to follow with a trochee (DUM de). A period would work too. And since we’re going to talk native English meter later, allow me mention that my tin ear can’t even hear a lot of caesuras. If they don’t have some punctuation mark that indicates the pause, there can still be a pause, even if I don’t know it’s there, that allows the trochee (DUM de). (And, of course, there’s the possibility that some people get away with trochees that neither begin a line or follow a caesura. You can get away with whatever you can get away with.)

Where were we? Oh, yes:
2. de de DUM DUM de DUM
3. de DUM de de DUM de DUM
4. de DUM de DUM de DUM de


Line two starts with a Pyrrhic (de de) followed by a Spondee (DUM DUM). To my surprise, Jerome acts like those aren’t separate variations, but come as a set. The stress (DUM) from the first foot changes places with the slack (de) from the second foot.

Line three substitutes an anapest (de de DUM) for the middle iamb (de DUM).

Line four adds a hypermetrical slack (de) to the end of the line.

Do they all work? Does this still sound like poetry? Here are the four lines again, plus Jerome’s haunting example of a poem using just this pattern:
1. Dum de de DUM de DUM
2. de de DUM DUM de DUM
3. de DUM de de DUM de DUM
4. de DUM de DUM de DUM de

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

I am moved.


Pope’s Essay on Criticism:

Okay, here’s Pope on meter. This is “excerpted his “Essay on Criticism.” It’s also in Jerome’s book.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance.
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an Echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when the Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shoar,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar:
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow.
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main
​

Astonishing. He slows lines down by increasing the number of stresses. He speeds lines up with anapests (de de DUM). It seems that he can violate whatever rule he wants, and it only makes things better.

Does this mean that the rules don’t count for anything? Jerome offers this from an attempt at a limerick:

There once was a stupendous poet
Who was good but did not know it.
​

That’s messed up. But how could we fix it without knowing scansion?

That’s why we study scansion: Some people have enough native talent to shoot wamp rats without training, but a little time spent studying under Yoda on Dagobah can allow you write reliably good poetry on purpose, rather than relying on your wild talents and happy accidents. (I can’t find Judson Jerome’s justification for studying scansion, so this is my really really really grossly inaccurate paraphrase. Best I can do at the moment. Sorry, Jerome.)

So, you might choose to scan the excerpt from Pope. Dwell on it, if you choose. Also, Poe said that nothing remotely similar to “The Raven” had ever been attempted in the history of the world. We should scan that to see what he was talking about.

Sonnet and Limerick:

Sonnet and Limerick
The sonnet with her Mona Lisa smile
broods on the world with otherworldly stare.
Priestess of melancholy, darkly fair,
Serene above our fury, guilt, and guile,
She in her deeps, has learned to reconcile
Life's contradictions. Really, I declare,
I'd gladly trust a sonnet anywhere,
That pure seraphic sedentary. While

The limerick's furtive and mean;
You must keep her in close quarantine,
Or she sneaks to the slums
and promptly becomes
Disorderly, drunk, and obscene.

--Morris Bishop
​

You didn’t just notice the change in meter; it slammed you upside the head. Obviously, then, different meters have different effects; so meter is important.

Joseph Malof’s A Manual of English Meters addresses the why-study-scansion question too. Meter is part of what’s going on in the poem. It contributes to the effect. We consider the meter for the same reason we consider the diction, the ideas, the symbols, the metaphors, and the other parts of a poem. Rhythm matters in poetry for the same reason it matters in music.


Your Homework Assignment: Write a poem in native English meter.

Which is what, you ask? I’m not sure, but I’ll try to give us enough information that we can fake it. Which means that the real assignment is to write a poem in something approximating native English meter.

There are syllable-counting meters, like haiku. A haiku has five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third (and final) line. That’s the whole thing, as far as meter is concerned.

Then there are stress-counting meters. Native English meter is one of these. You get four stresses in each line, and pretty much however many slacks you want wherever you want them. Weird.

Up to this point, we’ve been studying the compromise meters that combine stress counting with syllable counting. But now we move to something completely different.

So,

• four stresses per line
• Alliteration: The first three stresses start with the same sound
  • All vowels count as one sound
• Not more than three slacks in a row
• Vary the placement of slacks so you don’t accidentally produce feet. One line that could be, say, iambic tetrameter, is fine, but the next line should be different.
• Put a caesura between the second and third stresses.
• Work a kenning in there somewhere.
• While you are only required to alliterate the three stressed syllables, it’s cool to echo lots of other sounds within a line.

Here’s an example, a stanza from Jerome’s poem about Beowulf:

Older than English: how evil emerges
on a moor in the moonlight, emotionless, faceless,
stiff-kneed, arms rigid, and stalks through the fog field
until finally its fist falls, forcing the oaken door
of whatever Heorot harbors the gentlefolk.
​

Makes my hair stand up.

“Heorot” has two syllables. It was a huge fine home, like Monticello.

The last line doesn’t have a visible caesura, nor one that I can find in any other way. So, myself, I’m liable to ignore the caesura requirement.

And the third line has more than four stresses, right? I can’t see how to make that conform to the meter. But presumably four of them are strongest, at least if you read it that way. (So, you can see, you get to give yourself some play in this respect.) I don’t see the three alliterated stresses in this line either. I don’t know what to say about that. Maybe two (“stiff” and “stalks”) is good enough sometimes.

I have to work to read the last line with the strong stresses on the H sounds. But I can do it; it works. Note that “whatever” does start with an H sound. The word is pronounced hwatever. In English, I believe, all leading wh’s are pronounced backwards.

“Older than English,” alliterates (we’d normally call this “assonance” rather than “alliteration,” since it involves vowels rather than consonants, but we don’t bother to make this distinction when dealing with native English meter) because---in native English meter---all vowels are counted as the same sound.

“Emotionless” starts with an E rather than an M, but we’re only worried about the stressed syllable, “mo,” which does start with an M.

Now, as to the requirement that the first three stresses alliterate. I love this, from Malof’s book. (He doesn’t credit this, so maybe it’s his. It feels modern, unlike his other examples. So, for copyright reasons, I’ll reproduce only three lines:

An axe angles from my neighbor’s ashcan;
It is hell’s handiwork, the wood not hickory,
The flow of the grain not faithfully followed.
​

(I added a comma, since I couldn't reproduce Malof's spacing.)

He seems to alliterate whichever three stresses he finds handy, and I still love the result. So, feel free.

The kenning, now. How to explain that? We start with a famous example: The sea is called “the whale road.” Set up an equivalence in your mind, something like:
The sea is to whales as a road is to overland travelers.


Which we’ll represent this way:

A is to B as X is to Y.

So, we call A the BX (leaving Y implied).

So, can I use that formula to make more kennings? Let’s try.
Eggs are to breakfast as tacos are to dinner.

Thus, an egg becomes a “breakfast taco.”

There you go! You’re all ready to write your first poem in native English meter. Enjoy. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you submit—as well as seeing what I come up with myself.




From Richard Kirby:

Here’s my attempt at mock heroic replete with alliteration, caesurae (!), and a half-fast attempt at kennings, some shamefull, none cunning. All this in the high tradition of “Beowulf” – or maybe the Big-Bad Wolf. Ahem!

***********************

The Hare and the Tortoise

(A Mock-Turtle Epic)

© 2009 by Richard Kirby

***********************

Behold the Bard, verse-voiced born

And Meter-Maidens, tapping time,

They tell the tale of Hare and Tortoise,

How they strove, field-fellows both,

To take the trophy, first to finish,

Of all God’s creatures, laureate-gold.

“O run for the gold, you hapless Hare,

You dare to dither, yon or hither,

Then see who wields the winner-wave!”

“It’s just absurd, so crouched a creeper,

Yon tardy tortoise, doff my dust --

I’ll beat you there before you budge!”

The leaper-launcher starts them off:

Furlong fast the Hare has hopped

Wind-rushing rodent, far ahead:

Path-pounder rabbit is half-way there!

But tortoise tip toes, shy in his shell,

Taking his time foot by inch.

“What a farce!” hoots hopalong fuzz-tail,

“Not a contest! Not a chance! No way

At all can Tortoise win! Oh, yawn, I’m

Bushed. I need a nap, just five or so,

Waken and then, bullet-beast, easy win.”

And so he dozed and Tortoise toiled.

Ballad-Bards and Meter-Maidens

Tell the tale of shut-eyed Hareling,

Snoring like a shoe-in winner,

A Hero-Hare who dreamt of laurels ….

But past him, alas! Tortoise clambered.

(I’m sure you readers will divine the rest.)

Richard
​

 

[WAB]

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

MODERATOR: I failed to give attribution to Ezra Pound in post number #79. Is it possible that someone can edit that post and put an attribution at the bottom, after the snippet from La Portrait D'un Femme?

Like this:

- Ezra Pound

Thanks in advance!

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

 

[Wiploc]

800s:
Algebra: brought to you by the letter X.

Beowulf again? This time in writing.

Al-Khwarizmi invents the algebra.
And, uh … and there was much rejoicing. Yaaay.

The Pope slips up behind King Charlemagne
and crowns him emperor. A trickster Pope!

The Carolingian empire’s at its peak,
and in that empire there’s a renaissance.
But Vikings conquer much of England, Scotland too,
encouraging the Pictish Kingdoms’ end.



​

​

Note:
In the second draft, when I’m trying to turn this stuff into poetry of different forms,
the French lack of primogenitor may lend itself to a sestina.

Note:
Where did all the armies come from?
“Second sons and men of desperate fortune”
This quote from wherever won’t need much spiffing to make it iambic:

 

[Wiploc]

900s:
“the nadir of the human intellect.”[1]

The dim nine hundreds, darkest of ages dark.^[2]

Charles the Simple yields to Rolf the Ganger,
but Rolf declines to kiss the foot of Charles.
These Norsemen’s land is known as Normandy;
and soon these Norse will have the name of Normans.

The Carolingian dynasty is ended;
the elected king of France is Hugh Capet.

The Byzantines are at their empire’s peak.
Eric the Red is colonizing Greenland.
In Medieval Warmth, it’s really green.

In nine twenty-seven, England’s a unified state.
​

---

[1] Helen Waddel (Wikipedia: tenth century) is quoted saying this century was “the nadir of the human intellect.”


[2] Altered for meter. Lynn White (Wikipedia: tenth century) is quoted thus: “it is very nearly the darkest of the Dark Ages"

 

[Wiploc]

1000s:
“A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou”

The western priests go bearded like barbarians,
and eastern priests go beardless like castrati,
so each offends the other’s sense of rightness.
They split, the east becoming Orthodox, and
the west becoming Roman Catholic.
No doubt there are some other reasons too.

The Normans dominate so much of Europe,
and William conquers England (1066).
The Domesday Book comes out to mixed reviews.

Leif Ericson’s in Vinland for a while.

Macbeth stands watching Birnam Wood’s approach.

The North Sea Empire, forged by Canute
the Great, compasses England, Denmark, Norway.
But even Canute shan’t stem history’s tide;
upon his death the countries break apart.

Al-Hakim disappears; the Shia wait.

The moving finger writes, but when it's gone,
Omar Khayyam’s great Rubaiyat remains.

Pope Urban II proclaims the first Crusade.

El Cid the hero warrior takes Valencia.

If Ethelred’s unready, still he’s king.

The Song of Roland tells of Roncevaux.
​

 

[Wiploc]

Updating the 1100s:

1100s:
Planta Genêt; Angevins

The white ship sinks, and anarchy ensues.

Abelard and Heloise are lovers.

I know naught of the Concordat of Worms,
and yet I never will forget the name.

The first magnetic compass points to north.
Furnaces blast, so iron can be cast.
The very air makes mill wheels go around.
In architecture, buttresses take flight.
New universities now foster knowledge.

This century is blessed with two crusades.
Happy young knights in their Saladin days.

A German empire captures Italy,
so Barbarossa beards a Pope in den,
and wins thereby title Holy Roman.

Eleanor’s fond of courtly love, and so
she marries twice. Her dowry’s Aquitaine.

Even in death, Becket discomfits his king.
The king grows old, then comes The Lion in Winter.

When Richard Lionheart goes on Crusade,
the merry men of Sherwood rule the forest.
The Templar knights protect the passing pilgrims.

Temüjin has to wear an ugly collar.
​

 

[Wiploc]

King Edward’s army wanders France exhausted,
starving, sick, and lacking victories.
They try to reach Calais. The French won’t fight,
so Edward’s only hope is to escape.

The French are out! At Crécy, they will fight.
It stung their pride to hide behind stone walls.
What is the price of pride? A generation
of nobles lying cold in bloody mud.

For British yeoman’s bows wreak deadly harvest.
These British bows are good, but such a price.
They cost the Brits a hundred years of war.

 

[WAB]

Thanatopsis


To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice—
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

- William Cullen Bryant

 

[WAB]

The Great Lover

I have been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; -- we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: -- and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: -- we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .
These I have loved: White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such --
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; --
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
---- Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies. Nothing remains.

O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."

- Rupert Brooke

 

[WAB]

From Essay on Man

Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit.—In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

- A!exander Pope

 

[WAB]

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors".

- Robert Frost

 

[WAB]

Strange Meeting

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .

- Wilfred Owen

 

[Wiploc]

Iambic pentameter? I only suspect this is iambic pentameter; I haven't really scanned it yet.

But I love the playful rhymes, the tune, and the feeling that if I just understood the words then they would mean something.

Here's a link to the song on youtube: The River Where She Sleeps.

I'll come back and try to figure out where the line breaks go, and who Alan Watts was, and so on.

All I really know is that it delights me.


The River Where She Sleeps
By Dave Carter

She's a walkin' talkin' breathin' New Age wonder, old time heathens
Don't know what to make of Mary Jane
'Cause she ain't tryin to be no swami, she ain't mad at dad and mommy
She don't curse the storm clouds when it rains
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she make everything look fine
She got moon in her eyes, crescent windows on the skies
And the rain comes down in sheets on the people in the streets
And it carries all the secrets that they keep to the river where she sleeps

She comes to me when I'm dejected, leaves her soul out unprotected
Tells me that the truth can make me free
And she don't need what she ain't got, she reads me books by Alan Watts
Speakin' words o' wisdom: let it be
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she take thunder for a sign
She got stars in her head, supernovas in her bed
And it rains most every day, but I like it fine that way
'Cause the waters run so marvelous and deep in the river where she sleeps

Now Mary ain't inclined to drinkin', still she stumbles without thinkin'
Anywhere she gets the urge to stray
And everybody knows about her, they don't want to change or doubt her
They just grin when she comes out to play
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she be movin' down the line
She got bells on her toes, generations in her clothes
And she sings without a sound as the evenin' rolls around
And she dances as the twilight shadows creep down the river where she sleeps

Professor come to burst my bubble, says that girl is bound for trouble
Serves me solace in a paper cup
But it looks a bit like agent orange and when he leaves he slams the door and
Just about that time she phones me up
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she just ain't the worryin' kind
She got dogs, she got cats, she keeps rabbits in her hats
And the people that she sees, they're all Buddha's or police
And the banks rise high and perilous and steep by the river where she sleeps

Now one dismayed December dawn I wake to find my Mary's gone
And no one knows when she'll come back again
And all the silent temple bells from Styx to Glenn to Hazel Dell
Are mournin' all the nights that might have been
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she just leave this world behind
She got wheels in her smile, she can coast along for miles
Me I'm walkin' all alone, feelin' soulful to the bone
Till I stop and I hang my head and weep by the river where she sleeps

 

[Swammerdami]

Poetry varies stongly by language.

Do poetic forms vary greatly by language? If this is an interesting topic to discuss, it should have its own thread. But I lack BOTH the knowledge of linguistics AND the knowledge of poetry to post more than a few remarks. (We'll split off to a new thread if there's interest.)

I think English has a a distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables much more emphatic than some other languages. French seems almost monotone by comparison. Thai, instead of a stressed/unstressed distinction, distinguishes five tones, and also has a short/long distinction. Despite the tones I think Asian tonal languages sound more like French monotone than English which abounds with natural iambs, trochees and anapests.

I first became aware of this issue reading Poe. Latin poetry apparently abounds with spondees and caesuras.

But the Greek and Latin metres abound in the spondee and pyrrhic — the former consisting of two long syllables; the latter of two short; and there are innumerable instances of the immediate succession of many spondees and many pyrrhics.

Here is a passage from Silius Italicus:

Fallit te mensas inter quod credis inermem
Tot bellis quæsita viro, tot cædibus armat
Majestas æterna ducem: si admoveris ora,
Cannas et Trebium ante oculos Trasymenaque busta,
Et Pauli stare ingentem miraberis umbram.​

Making the elisions demanded by the classic Prosodies, we should scan these Hexameters thus:

Fāllīs | tē mēn | sās īn | tēr qūod | crēdĭs ĭn | ērmēm |
Tōt bēl | līs qūæ | sītă vĭ | rō tōt | cædĭbŭs | ārmāt |
Mājēs | tās ē | tērnă dŭ | cēm s’ād | mōvĕrĭs | ōrā |
Cānnās | ēt Trĕbī | ānt’ ŏcŭ | lōs Trăsў | mēnăquĕ | būstā [[|]]
ēt Pāu | lī stā | r’īngēn | tēm mī | rābĕrĭs | ūmbrām |​

It will be seen that, in the first and last of these lines, we have only two short syllables in thirteen, with an uninterrupted succession of no less than nine long syllables....

In my library I have two essays on Thai poetry. They're too complicated to summarize, but I'll mention a few points:

• There are several "traditional templates for Thai poetry", for example
  . . . x x x x¹ A² / x x¹ x x A² / x x x x¹ B² / x x¹ x x B² / x¹ x ² x x (x x)
  Here 'AA', 'BB' are rhymes, and the '1' and '2' refer to specific tones. (Thai tones are complicated: they've evolved since these templates were created, and vary among dialects today.)
• Many Thai phrases or compound words already rhyme or alliterate. (Compare with English words like hurdy-gurdy.)
• "The metrical foot is right-headed and is built as a leftword-spreading unbounded foot."

This third point mystifies me! I think "right-headed" is the "head-initial" described at  Head-directionality parameter. "English [like Thai] is considered to be strongly head-initial, while Japanese is an example of a language that is consistently head-final." I'll guess this has a huge effect on poem construction.

I'll close this post by asking how to scan the first few lines of a famous French poem:

A la fin tu es las de ce monde ancien

Bergère ô tour Eiffel le troupeau des ponts bêle ce matin

Tu en as assez de vivre dans l'antiquité grecque et romaine

Ici même les automobiles ont l'air d'être anciennes
La religion seule est restée toute neuve la religion
Est restée simple comme les hangars de Port-Aviation​

I ask because the poem, like much French, seems almost monotone to me ... with the exception of the very first line which is four very clear-cut anapests. Apollinaire crafted a special first line.

Brief rant against Google:

Show

I have much of this poem memorized but still wanted to copy/paste from the 'Net rather than rendering accent marks. So I Googled "Zone by Apollinaire."

Essentially all the hits were to English translations! At first this was amusing; I figured after 4 or 5 tries I'd get the actual poem. No! I clicked on Google's "original text" suggestion. Google STILL showed me only translations! I tried google.fr instead of google.com. Outwitted! — Google knows I'm an English speaker.

Finally I did what I should have done all along: I typed in the poem's first line. Only then would Google show me the actual poem, whose copyright expired almost a century ago.

Straw that broke the camel's back: I'm switching Search engines!

 

[Wiploc]

Churchill couldn't learn Latin at all.
He was so hopeless that they just kept him in English classes.
He took years of English while his friends were learning Latin and Greek.
His friends tried to tell him what he was missing. "In Latin, I can write the most beautiful poetry."

But, Churchill concluded, I can write English.

This story is probably from Young Churchill, A.K.A. My Early Life.

My understanding (assuming I do understand) of why it's easier to rhyme in Latin has to do with the many forms of words.

[h=1]

Alumna, alumnae, alumni, alumnus

[/h]A word's ending tells you its job in the sentence, so you can put the words in any order; order doesn't determine meaning.
So it's easy to rhyme partly because you can reshuffle order to get the rhyming word at the end.

And partly because the word forms (cases?) have similar endings for similar jobs. Maybe all adjectives rhyme, for instance.

I've told more than I know.

 

[WAB]

Iambic pentameter? I only suspect this is iambic pentameter; I haven't really scanned it yet.

But I love the playful rhymes, the tune, and the feeling that if I just understood the words then they would mean something.

Here's a link to the song on youtube: The River Where She Sleeps.

I'll come back and try to figure out where the line breaks go, and who Alan Watts was, and so on.

All I really know is that it delights me.


The River Where She Sleeps
By Dave Carter

She's a walkin' talkin' breathin' New Age wonder, old time heathens
Don't know what to make of Mary Jane** - headless
'Cause she ain't tryin to be no swami, she ain't mad at dad and mommy
She don't curse the storm clouds when it rains** - headless (or not...could be scanned differently)
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she make everything look fine
She got moon in her eyes, crescent windows on the skies
And the rain comes down in sheets on the people in the streets
And it carries all the secrets that they keep to the river where she sleeps

She comes to me when I'm dejected, leaves her soul out unprotected
Tells me that the truth can make me free** - headless
And she don't need what she ain't got, she reads me books by Alan Watts
Speakin' words o' wisdom: let it be** - headless
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she take thunder for a sign
She got stars in her head, supernovas in her bed
And it rains most every day, but I like it fine that way
'Cause the waters run so marvelous and deep in the river where she sleeps

Now Mary ain't inclined to drinkin', still she stumbles without thinkin'
Anywhere she gets the urge to stray** - headless
And everybody knows about her, they don't want to change or doubt her
They just grin when she comes out to play** - headless (or not, could be scanned differently)
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she be movin' down the line
She got bells on her toes, generations in her clothes
And she sings without a sound as the evenin' rolls around
And she dances as the twilight shadows creep down the river where she sleeps

Professor come to burst my bubble, says that girl is bound for trouble
Serves me solace in a paper cup** - headless
But it looks a bit like agent orange and when he leaves he slams the door and
Just about that time she phones me up** - headless (or not, could be scanned differently)
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she just ain't the worryin' kind
She got dogs, she got cats, she keeps rabbits in her hats
And the people that she sees, they're all Buddha's or police
And the banks rise high and perilous and steep by the river where she sleeps

Now one dismayed December dawn I wake to find my Mary's gone
And no one knows when she'll come back again - regular IP
And all the silent temple bells from Styx to Glenn to Hazel Dell
Are mournin' all the nights that might have been - regular IP
When the sun refuse to shine she don't mind, she just leave this world behind
She got wheels in her smile, she can coast along for miles
Me I'm walkin' all alone, feelin' soulful to the bone
Till I stop and I hang my head and weep by the river where she sleeps

Wippy, I can't tell if you are in earnest or are perhaps being tricksy?

Sure, there are lines which could pass for iambic pentameter. I have bolded those lines. Some begin with a headless iamb (omitting the unstressed syllable in the initial foot), a few could be scanned different ways, and there seem to be two regular IP lines.

And yeah, a lot of the other lines are iambic in parts, or altogether, but those lines are not iambic pentameter - since they have more than five feet.

Right?

 

[Wiploc]

Wippy, I can't tell if you are in earnest or are perhaps being tricksy?

I looked at three lines -- I don't remember which -- and they looked iambic pentameter to me.

As for the ones that don't have five feet, I thought I'd grabbed this from a web page that had messed up the line breaks.

I see now that many, perhaps most of the lines four feet (or eight feet, depending where you put the line breaks.

And, while there are a number of lines that can pass for iambic (de DUM) ...

She comes to me when I'm dejected, leaves her soul out unprotected

... those aren't in the majority.

Many lines are trochaic. And many are irregular. Or they have patterns that I haven't nailed down yet.

But iambic pentameter? No, I no longer think there is any of that.