....could you please enroll myself in your workshop on meter?
Thank-you,
docmaverick.

I read the syllabus and I find it interesting. this could be right down my alley.
thanks,
Eddie

i'm here

will be back tomorrow
when i will have time
to comment

So I read about iambic pentameter on Wikipedia, and I did this. It was a while back. Will probably need some work:

Become, become;
Thus roars the torrent wild,
In haste before,
The arms of Man and Child
That bear, an arm,
In triumph of the three
That dwell in one,
In man and trinity.

What do you think?

I'm here, anxious to see how this goes... in a good way. Read a bit about meter, mostly about iambic, obviously.
It will be interesting!

cheers

definately here!
Boni

and ready

But this upset me:

"Meter, like rhyme, is a hangover from traditional poetry, it's been done. It has no further use. Worse, it politically reflects a conservative mentality. Free verse is the only way to write truly originally and without being a cowering, conservative fascist dog"

because, I feel every type of poetry has its beauty and place.

always, Cat

p.s.

how do I book mark this page?

I'm here but not heretical:
A poem must be symmetrical
For rhythm is so fundamental
that losing it is just ridiculous and temperamental

Ian

I am also here.

I think it's a silly statement. Length of use in terms of language is in no way indicative of obsolescense.
Further, the implicit characterization of those who use rhyme and meter in their poetry as "facists" and "conservatives" is, imo, repulsive, and I think it says volumes about the limitations and the bias of its author.
My two cents.

I am here, as far as where here can be so many miles away.
lets break from domistication, I am in!
FREE VERSE YEAH!!
Eddie

Hey Mark long time no see.

con mi guitarra. !ay ay ay!
sorry. feeling silly.

And I'd like to quote something:

"First you need to understand and be able to use iambic pentameter (meter) before you decide not to use it" - Random Shakespearian actress in, Looking For Richard.

a two verse attempt to capture the ten syllables needed. Please tell me if this is correct.

To whom does it matter what has been said
Writing is a skill learned but not obtained
The challenge is in the mind not the heart
The blank page is but an empty canvas

The brush are thoughts traveling on a pulse
A painter paints a bird in natural flight
Poets give it the wind to take the sky
It is not the eyes which soar but the mind

Eddie

Usually my natural urge to rebel would stop me joining this work shop, because as soon I hear rules.connected to poetry I want to stick my finger up and walk the other way.

But I thought to myself I came here to improve my poetry, and one of the ways do that is to gain a foundation so that you have somewhere to develop from. Also it doesn't hurt to discipline and challenge yourself, now and again.

So I'm here

Lou

I see no reason at all that both cannot be used in writing It should be up to the author which they select. I write strictly free verse ,BUT I am willing to learn about meter etc. It is good to know all forms . The question is not that one is out dated or one isright or wrong , the end all so to speak. But How can we use both and learn from both
Chrys

Personally I don't like using references to music when discussing poetry. However, since I studied voice for some ten years in my youth and now poorly play at four instruments I find the connotations coming back to haunt me always.
And so...
The study of meter is the study of music in speech. Written and oral. The idea that "free verse" should be written without organized structure is like handing a flute to a man who has never touched one and demanding he produce music elegant and lovely to the ear.
Meter is not a set of rules by which poets must write, it is a manner in which they may describe what they have written.
Before a speaker or poet (or a writer of prose for that matter) may produce something delicate or forceful in its construction, the individual must understand what sounds delicate or forceful or be forever lost in an endless reconstruction of what they make attempting to discover these things.
A politician studies meter. So did Michener.

If I thought the initial statement was how you really felt I'd be gone.In my opinion any poetry without some type meter is prose.Now I expect most of you are aware that I'm pretty unschooled in both meter and free verse forms although I try to use both. It has become my firm belief that Any poet can improve by occasional forays into different forms, I know that trying free verse helps this old rhymer and expect that writing in meter (rhyming or not) would improve any die hard free verse writer. If one takes the time to really study most of the free verse poems that you really like you will find some type underlying structure and at least occasional meter. Now for question near and dear to me : Is it always wrong to vary meter within a poem ?.................stan

I tend to think that even if you are writing free verse , if you don't apply some form of metre, it can end up being sloppy, and without poetic qualities, or it moves over into prose.. This is easily done.

Lou

I mostly like to not think (about technicalities) when an idea sparks and those first lines are scribbled.
The 'feel' of the words, the rhythm, tends to create itself from that initial phase, whether it's structured or 'free'.
Although changes in rhythm/meter aren't illegal, I am often trapped by counting syllables:P (eg, 7, 9, 7, 9, 5, 6, 5) but it can also be a good challenge, which is why I'm here;
I want to be challenged and I don't often put my self on the spot, so here I am!

i have no idea what any of it is!
i just let it out and sometimes think about mechanics later, like "what the heck is that?"

Can reading out the poem in a sing-song manner help identify meter and feet? I'v got reason to believe it does, but there may be something I'm missing.

but don't see how to use bold type. Is there something here I'm not seeing or is the only way to use bold type is to write in my word format and paste? That would be a pain if I want to comment on a number of poems one after another. wesley

the best of luck

I googled a bit:) Found this rather interesting page on meter. It's a bit highly strung with technicality, but half way through I'm enjoying the read. Might be of use...http://instructional1.calstatela.edu/tsteele/TSpage5/meter.html

sorry for initial bad linking. It seems to be working now. cherio

this sounds like a realy interesting workshop

Would I be right in suggesting that a poem might be regarded as a beautiful piece of sculpture, the art being the pleasure to the eye of the various shapes and planes and the science being the unseen skeleton of the meter holding it all together?

Ian

I came upon a house today
though most of it had gone away........Iambic?........stan

A close friend of mine when I was young helped us to obtain a recurve bow and its arrows. I determined to find a teacher, he felt that was foolish and that he would teach himself. Of course, anyone can teach themselves anything by trial and error. He succeeded, but I did so in a fifth of the time with even less effort.

To understand meter is to understand WHY some poems sound better than others.

The largest amount of my writing time is spent working on the ridiculous epic I desire to produce. However, I always make the time to construct smaller poems and do so using classical forms in an attempt to teach my mind how to think. The end result of this practice is that often I am able to sit with my nib pen and bottle and produce poetry that comes from my "spirit" (whatever that may be) without overt concern with the form of the poetry. The poetry is increasingly able to "take care of itself".

When I began this experiment in writing (all writing of mine), I could not rhyme with anything less than a herculean effort. After 20,000 lines of rhyming couplets I now have a difficult time NOT thinking in rhyme. Half of any art form is training.

This is not to say all poets should write in a uniform meter. Instead, I believe it worthwhile to study the meter and thereby improve the work a spontaneous poet may produce.

My apologies if this is over long, but If you have read my work, you know that "brevity" is not in my vocabulary.

wesley

what would some examples of Anapestic, Trochaic, and Dactylic? i can't get it in my head any other way.

if you read and write English the syllables are the same regardless of any accent. I am the worst speller, but spell check always works. It also gives you the word in its syllable pronunciation.
So I feel that we can help ourselves in this workshop.
Eddie

I disagree that syllable count is always the same for every body. Here are some words and variations on how I've heard them pronounced:
forest......forst.....FORest
Orange........ornj......ORanj
Memory......memry.....MEM ory.....memORy................and these are just 3 off the top of my head.........stan

nobody listens to me.

The way a word is written or spoken in a poem is based exclusively on the character of the voice.
Every poem has a "character" reading the poem. It is speaking English, so we understand it. How it speaks the English is based on the "character" that is reading the poem.

Now, I know I'm getting too big for my britches, but...
Respectfully,
wesley

you read it and you say the words in your head, right? unless you're speed reading, which is not really appropriate for this situation, but that's a whole other point -- the thing is, the way you would say it out loud is how it sounds in your head unless you can imagine someone else saying it.

Did Ginsberg "hear" "Howl" by someone??
I dont hear anyone
Im not at La Cloche mountians at the lake
anyway I have a nice voice!

Writing comes first and then the formulation
for voice follows
that was it for me
How many can say they were told their writing
was shits They were stupid to be poets
I raise my hand?? message me if you were one
of those who were shoved down and never "given"
a voice..Thing about talent is it just grows
It rises like a wave until it is a voice
Until people love it so much they begin talking
aloud the words they love to read and it becomes
a large voice

I imagine all those who told Ghandi he was crazy
that no one would listen
not me

there are many voices here
beautiful some of them
Im not going to tell them they are not
going to be heard

not in a longshot!!!

I am not multi-lingual as some here are but I Do realize a poem written in one language might not translate well to another. In my opinion the same can often hold true about a poem written by a person with one accent or dialect and read by another with a different accent or dialect even if the language is the same. If you've read any Robert Burns poetry you can see a great example of this. He speaks English but then writes in a dialect which is almost a different language. His poems work well in the dialect but not so well when "translated" into standard English. It is this very variance in the way a word can be spoken that lends some of the beauty to poetry. How often have all here read a poem, scratched their head about it then came back later and reread it and the old light bulb goes off and you say Ah! Ha! It is the variables in pronunciation, I think, which often caused this................stan

The beautiful capital of Scotland is Edinburgh,
Pronounced by Yanks as Ed in bow row, by most Scots as Edn burr uh and by locals as En bra.
So you can have 4, 3 or 2 syllables for the same word.

Ian

but are any of these corrected when read in english I understand the nuances of speech, but as stan said, we sometimes have to scratch our head because of it. sometimes to be honest i will not return to a poem because of it. literary license is a funny thing to me, or at lease the excuse of a poet. I am a criminal of that also. I am just trying to learn it the right way for this workshop. when I write that's a whole other story.

Eddie
...

To understand how poetry is created is to put ease in the actually writing of the poem. wesley

As in building, it's much easier to creat a thing of beauty if we have a basic set of skills and a blue print to go by. I think a few rare individuals have an inate abilty to write poetry well but the rest of us have to work at it........stan

I have to say I agree, but I did come here to learn how to read the "Blue Prints: of the lanuage of poetry. so as i go my poetry evolves, and that is a good thing or maybe not. I always ask myself once i learn will my voice or thoughts change, but I have elected to accept it. It will be what it will be for better or worst.

Eddie
...
"To the many voices I hear here, somewhere in here I will find mine. and hooray to me and all who have helped. The search continues?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

you started this, so stop complaining.

Eddie

.........

I thought if I learn to parse someone elses poem and follow the four meters provided, then I can write a poem in that meter withstanding grammar. I see that very few are sticking to one meter. I am of the opinion if we master just one meter then we can move to the next. The way for me to master it is if I parse the poem I wrote and stay within one meter. I believe once I have capture all four then I can write and use all in a poem, where it can sound in correct meter. Here I have copied the meters we are suppose to be using in this workshop:

I will kill especially you Kill you,

Kill you, Kill you, Kill you, Kill you,

death by Iambic Pentameter

I will definitely kill you Kill you,

Kill you, Kill you, Kill you, Kill you,

death by Trochaic Pentameter

I will kill you right now Kill you now,

Kill you now, Kill you now, Kill you now,

death by Anapestic Tetrameter

I will definitely kill you, now

Kill you now, Kill you now, Kill you now, Kill lyou now,

death by Dactylic Tetrameter

I truly don't know if this help, but it is helping me get an understanding

Eddie

I love them, the most free thinking people in the whole world, I think that the first arguements started with two poets, talk about having opinions. I LOVE IT!!

Eddie

... in the general population some 7% are manic depressive. Among poets it jumps to 47%. Watch your back! wesley

Now that you have said it , I can go do it.
"And apart from doing workshops how do you learn meter? You read it. Find poets who use certain meters and read them aloud till you know what it sounds like."
Wish I could have participated. I have too much going on thats stressing me to my knees to concentrate on such a challenging workshop.

What's too much for one is exactly what another needs.