.

.

everyone should have it.
After a great deal of detailed discussion, the first exercise (see Judyanne? Me spel good) will be two verses of iambic pentameter. They need not rhyme. They need not make sense. Only the meter is important.
All will be explained before the exercise, but this gives you a head's up.

And since I have you: a "line" of poetry is a verse. "Verse" will be the term we use in this workshop, please.

The workshop begins on the third, but I will start tomorrow.
I have a few subjects to broach before we commence.
Welcome to all who dare.

Could we, as a community, inform some of our new poets and those of us having senior moments...
Where was I?
... that they need to leave a comment here to receive updates?

In the meantime I have some information to pass along that will aid us in discussing basic meter.

The first is Prosody.

Prosody (from the Greek) in linguistics is the rhythm, stress and intonation of speech.
The term is also used to describe the study of poetry and is related to the natural rhythm of prose as well, though not as commonly used in such a way).

To begin the study we must first understand “accentual-syllabic” verse which is a form of qualitative poetry. Accentual-syllabic verse describes the most common form of poetry written in English for at least a thousand years.
It places limits on both the stresses and syllables within a verse or stanza, usually requiring an even rhythm (we’ll talk about rhythm later).

Therefore we can create an unstress/stress unit (which we will call a foot), repeat it through the verse five times and we have iambic pentameter.

Accentual-syllabic verse.

We will return to this last later in more detail.
Until next time,
Rula gave us cool tips, but I’m dull, so I will give weird facts.

Fact number one: Iamb and anapest are known as rising meters as they rise from an unstressed syllable to a stressed. Dactyl and trochee are falling meters.

simply because we have more who can use them. Fewer are truly familiar with Advanced Formatting (sad that, actually). I like the slant / because I know where it is.
Is that good for everyone?

We don't begin until the third which brings me to lesson two of what we will study. Don't panic. This is just me mouthing off before we start. Alid, all your questions will be answered.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative.

It sounds worse than it is.

Quantitative is the meter of the ancient world. In this type of meter stresses are irrelevant. What varies the verse is the use of long and short vowel sounds (note I said “sounds” and not merely “vowel”. All consonants utilize a vowel sound), where a long vowel physically takes longer to say than a short vowel. “O” is a long vowel sound that is naturally stretched. “I” even with its diphthong is short. This is actually a very difficult way to write in English as it is not as “syllabic” as other of the Romance languages such as Ancient Greek or Latin. Also include in that list Italian, French and Spanish. They all use syllables in a “longer” way than English.

Qualitative is the meter of the modern era (beginning with the Renaissance) characterized by stressed syllables coming at regular intervals.

This will be the subject of Meter is your Friend Part One.

Stupid fact 2: Can you say Gilgamesh? It’s the oldest surviving poem in man’s possession.

Good commentary.
Everyone listening I hope?

What is rhythm?
Rhythm is the way sound moves against the flow of time.

Rhythm is the flow of the poem. It is how it gets from point A to point B and beyond. It is the sound of the poem. It is the music of the poem.
All writing has rhythm whether good or bad.

Rhythm is not meter.

What then is meter? Meter is a way by which we may DESCRIBE the rhythm of the poem. If we can analyze a poem’s pieces we can determine what is working and what is not and most importantly: why.

Imagine Meter as the scaffolding surrounding a poem of pure Rhythm. The Meter will not remain. It will do its job giving the rhythm recognizable order. It will aid in the beauty of the architecture. It will limit useless tangent by confining language thereby creating “brevity” (one of a poet’s best tools).

Then it will go away.

That is the meter we will talk about in this workshop.

Last stupid fact: Cento (from the Latin for “patchwork”) is any collaborative poem. A poem written by multiple authors.

We've been talking for a while. Let us turn to a single subject for a moment.
What is meter (besides being hard) to you?
Tomorrow we will begin with the single, poetic verse.

Write a verse of Iambic Pentameter and post it here. After my opening comments we will use it as our first example.

Meter is a shrew.
Since everyone is already ahead of me I might as well go on.

I want to start by guaranteeing that it is indeed your friend. It is not here to limit your writing, but rather to liberate it by allowing understanding of how a poem works- any poem, from the most complex ballade or epopee to subtle verso libre. Meter is there. It is not something we put in a poem. It is already there DESCRIBING what is happening in the poem… good or bad.

Understand meter and you understand nearly half of what poetry is about.

First assignment.
This is being given immediately not that you should start, but rather to give you something to think about as we discuss metrical form. Know that this is Part One of this workshop and in it we will discuss only iamb and anapest. Later, we will attempt to use them together as they commonly are.

Your first assignment will be to write a single verse (not line… verse) of iamb. It’s “meter” will be determined later.
Tomorrow I will discuss what that is from the beginning.

Here's my scan and listen (say it out loud) to where you have stressed it for iamb.

to MOVE / on-WARD / one MUST / em-BRACE / wis-DOM

Many of these words are not pronounced you way you require them to if you are writing in iamb.
"onward" is pronounced with the first syllable accented. Same with "wisdom".
Think (and you'll hear this a lot) da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM.
What do you think your meter is?

Actually two.
"I want the best for all the poets here."

And

"When I have fears that I may cease to be
before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
fore high piled books in charac'try
hold like rich garners the full ripened grain...

Questions?
They should be about the last verse of the Keat's piece.

One verse of iambic, the meter is the poet's choice.
Unimeter is one foot for the verse (we can do better than that).
Bimeter is two feet for the verse (still, let's go further).
Trimeter is three feet for the verse (tolerable, but let's do more).
Tetrameter is four feet for the verse (perfectly acceptable).
Pentameter is five feet for the verse (most common).
Hexameter is six feet for the verse (and as far as we will go).
Choose your meter and submit a verse for critique.

First to review.
Everyone (almost everyone) submitted two verses of poetry written in iamb. The length was up to the poet. We had everything from trimeter to heptameter (am I spelling that right?).
I believe in the end we had universal success. If there is anyone in this workshop still struggling with iamb, PM me and we will figure it out together.
I guaranteed success and I was serious.

On to Anapest (also spelled Anapaest). Anapest is from the Greek and means “struck back” or in other terms: an anti dactyl.

It is a rising foot as it comes from unstressed syllables to a stressed syllable (like iamb). An anapaestic foot is contrived of three syllables. Two unstressed followed by one stressed syllable. It also may be written in any verse length from unimeter to heptameter and beyond… if you dare.

A famous example:
“ ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

This is written in anapaestic tetrameter. I would invite anyone and everyone to scan (parse) this.
Your assignment then is obvious. Write for us all a single verse of anapaest. The length is up to the poet, but the poet must now tell us what the verse’s length is.

was a piece of cake wasn't it?

Someone parse that. It should be anapest. Does anyone disagree? One could parse it iamb, but then the middle is clumsy.
No go on trochee or dactyl.
Analyze the verse please.
And write your anapestic verses.

"a".
You needed an accent there and as you learned in your sonnet workshop articles (such as "the" or "a") cannot be accented.
The last two are iamb which is not a bad thing. Exercise three will talk about and demonstrate how these two meters complement each other.
However, as for a fully anapestic verse: not quite.

Biscuit or cake. But the meters combine successfully which is exercise three.
Not yet Ian. I'd still like to see a verse entirely anapestic. It's actually easier than you think when you get in the rhythm of saying it.

I pronounce "tired" as two syllables.
I still agree with Rula's scanning.
Make sure you're reading aloud to yourself and force the rhythm of iamb as you read. It will make some words sound strange. That's where your problems are.

is to hear from those in the workshop that haven't dropped by yet.
Next, is to see everyone's single verse of anapest. Some have posted and succeeded. I'd like to see that happen for everyone.

From the beginning one of the tenets of this workshop (we are in the Wading Pool after all... hope you all have your flotation devices on) is that all participants will work at their own pace (you've heard this before, but I wanted to repeat it). Hence we have poets who are late come and working on iamb. Some have figured out anapest and it's time for those poets to be allowed to go forward.
No one is being hurried. This workshop will be open the full thirty days and beyond.
I guaranteed success and I will deliver to those who try.

Exercise Three

Mixing meters.

Some are asking me why I chose to pair iamb with anapest.
The simple answer is they complement one another both being rising meters.
The mixing of these two meters goes back to a popularity of it in the 19th century with such poets as Swinburne.

An example of combining the two meters by Yeats.

"Fled foam underneath us and 'round us, a wandering and milky smoke
As high as the saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide
And those that fled and that followed from the foam-pale distance broke.
The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces and sighed."

Note he fairly abuses the combination, but never does he use other than those meters.
The last verse is strictly anapest, the others are not.
Trochee and dactyl complement one another in the same way, but that’s for Part Two.

Assignment: to write a single verse combining both iamb and anapest.

I'm not happy yet, so this is rough draft. I don't like the transition from anapest to iamb and I wish I could have arranged to ping pong the meters back and forth. But for what it is here is my beginning.

‘Twas the night before Christmas I think cause I was really drunk that night.
Are there lemon sharks in the wading pool. I could use one.

Alid, you rock and so do you Judyanne.
Carrie, Judyanne's instructions are correct, but don't feel hurried. Everyone is to work at their own pace. You're working only with yourself.
Even when we go to Part Two, stay on what you're working on. I need you to understand iamb and anapest first.

It gets easier as you write like that. My combination is horrible, I confess to enjoying anapest by itself though.

How many participants have had success with the iambic verses?
How many participants have had success with the anapestic verse?
You know who you are, so please tell me.
It's important in determining when we begin Part Two.

I would very much like to hear from the "absentees" (not in the workshop, just absent in this list) before I begin Part Two.
It looks to me that almost everyone mastered iamb. I want everyone. If anyone is having trouble with iamb or anapest please PM me and we will discuss it together.

See you when you get back. We will likely still be here.

We're just getting started.

Part Two

Trochee.

As always, some review is in order. If you will peruse Rula’s List above you will find what I think is a very concise review of what we tried to accomplish.

This next is important. Everyone still struggling with iamb or anapest are still in the thick of this workshop. Post your continued attempts and we will continue to aid in your understanding. I again invite anyone to PM me if you have specific questions or just want more help.

Don’t be shy. I’m the Director of the Mentor Program.
It’s what I do, it’s who I am.

For now I’m selling mechanics. It is dull, but necessary work.

Onward.
With what we learned in part one, part two should actually be easier. The hardest step to take is the first one. The idea of thinking in meter at all is alien to how we generally think.
If we can figure out da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, we can figure out every other meter no matter how complex seeming because it is all nothing more than a variation on a theme.
Add an unstressed syllable to the front of an iambic foot and suddenly you have anapest.
Take an iamb and reverse it and suddenly you have Trochee.
There are only so many ways you can evenly order words.

An example of trochaic tetrameter:
“Round about the cauldron go;
in the poisoned entrails throw.”
Shakespeare

Assignment: A single verse of trochee in at least tetrameter. Remember that iamb and anapest do not play well with trochee or dactyl. Keep them apart.

to the letter of the law if not the spirit. It is trochaic pentameter alright, but it lacks rhythm, flow, feel.
However, that's not the assignment which you passed.
So do it again this time as an Alexandrine (hexameter... six feet per verse).
Don't give up on me now, son... you're getting it figured out.

Take a break while we wait for the others then we will start dactyl.