2009 Survivor Poetry Challenge: Workshop

[GuiltyPleasure]

The Man Who Wasn’t There

This wasn’t supposed to happen.
She’s married, happily
I kept telling myself, until tonight
when I held her for the first time
and I tasted her mouth.

Casually flirting, attracted
forever until
she came to me fragile and hurt.
Wanting
to ease her pain I took her
in my arms and then
to my bed.

Weeping beside me,
steeped in neglect.
Her lonely life of
disconnection, a disdainful,
workaholic husband,
she pleaded with me
to let her in.

Her delicate pubic fleece,
a soft frosting on her mons
moved me.
Her familiar legs in unfamiliar
intimacy.

The touch of her innocent hands,
delicate sea creatures deep in thought
slowly determined,
undeterred by my helpless moans
they creep onward

to the inevitable core.
No breath enters me
until her cool hand grasps
so suddenly I flinch.

The imagined meditation
of her lips on my phallus
more intense than any
fantasy. The shimmer in my belly
as she takes me
to the edge.

Is this too prosey and does the title connect?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I don't give a fuck what it is its my life story and its wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I don't give a fuck what it is its my life story and its wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much, Annie. But I do feel it's too rambling.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Thanks so much, Annie. But I do feel it's too rambling.

Well if you are going to change it I am glad I saw it before you did

 

[annaswirls]

I want my iambic pentamater to start on the stressed syllable, it feels more natural to me, and I have to fight this natural inclination al the way.

I have to go to Robert Frost "whose woods these are I think I know"
in order to make my lines feel right.

s there a name for this meter?

stress/non stress/non stress/non stress/non stress


it is how I want to write

this is hard shit, I gotta get some sleep before I make A Pushkin (sans e) roll over in his grave.

 

[annaswirls]

why yes there is, anna, it is called a TROCHEE or adjective form Trochaic.

I want my iambic pentamater to start on the stressed syllable, it feels more natural to me, and I have to fight this natural inclination al the way.

I have to go to Robert Frost "whose woods these are I think I know"
in order to make my lines feel right.

s there a name for this meter?

stress/non stress/non stress/non stress/non stress


it is how I want to write

this is hard shit, I gotta get some sleep before I make A Pushkin (sans e) roll over in his grave.

 

[annaswirls]

why yes there is, anna, it is called a TROCHEE or adjective form Trochaic.

Thanks anna, most helpful

 

[annaswirls]

work in progress

I have not played this stupid game in years

Left alone again, I invent impossible
assessments for your desires. Sitting perfectly motionless
perfectly behaved, your movements
from the next room
quicken
towards hall boards.
I send you a psychic signal
<i>come here, touch me
just touch me</i>
read my mind read
my mind just
one brush of shoulder
just one motion
but your steps pass my open door
both thumbs IPhone busy.

<i>Did you even notice two weeks ago
I stopped sucking your cock?</i>

My mother and your mother
were sitting on the fence
merry as the day is long
we still
hose spray a wet ring around the campfire
two three times around we soak it down
embers cinders spark and drown
still surely no one will sleep sound
in the undergrowth tonight.


...........

<i>Survivor Poem
Poet's Choice
Trigger #25</i>

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Talking to yourself always produces the most intelligent of answers

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

why yes there is, anna, it is called a TROCHEE or adjective form Trochaic.

I could be wrong, but I thought a trochee is masculine iambic pentameter, with the stressed syllable first. I thought anna was asking about the partial foot at the end of the line. A metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot is called a catalectic line.

 

[annaswirls]

I could be wrong, but I thought a trochee is masculine iambic pentameter, with the stressed syllable first.

nope that was what I meant-- stress non stress

I did not know it had a name until the other day.

I thought anna was asking about the partial foot at the end of the line. A metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot is called a catalectic line.

that is what I am dealing with in this next poem.

I hate having to end the line without flowing to the next one which is what seems to happen when I try to write in meter.

Thanks for the info.

Incomplete foot
catalectic

are those bad? acceptable with reason?

 

[annaswirls]

Talking to yourself always produces the most intelligent of answers

eh hem, maybe for you I just feel like a lunatic

 

[annaswirls]

Fixing the meter.
I know this might seem odd, but it has to be that way. Either I am psycho, don't know that everyone does this or very cutting edge.

sometimes the word belongs on the line above, it just does. I like this better than fudging the meter in order to make the syllable count work, etc.

Tell me if it doesn't count at Curtal. Here is the poem as submitted. http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=413867

I dont think I can get the spacing right in the submission format


Cutting Teeth
by annaswirls©

"I'll knock out four to give you two"

Mother fucker stole my blender
magic chopper, Cutco knife.
.......................................said,
"Grow some teeth and learn to chew
.....................................................your
own way through those self tied tethers,
crack away this lock jaw life."
......................................... That
mother fucker snapped my brushes
as if sirens somehow render
masterpiece to speed to life.
........................................The
mother fucker kicked my crutches.
"Take flight!"





Cutting Teeth
by annaswirls©

"I'll knock out four to give you two"

The mother fucker stole my blender
magic chopper, Cutco knife.
Said, "Grow some teeth and learn to chew
your own way through self tied tethers,
crack away this lock jaw life."

Mother fucker snapped my brushes
as if sirens could somehow render
our masterpiece to speed to life.
The mother fucker kicked my crutches.
"Take flight!"

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

nope that was what I meant-- stress non stress

I did not know it had a name until the other day.

oh, ok. From what i understand, my initial response had gender confusion. It is commonly referred to as feminine iambic meter. The lines end with unstressed (feminine) syllables. Trochee can describe anything (a word, phrase, poem, etc.) that has that accent pattern.

that is what I am dealing with in this next poem.

I hate having to end the line without flowing to the next one which is what seems to happen when I try to write in meter.

Thanks for the info.

Incomplete foot
catalectic

are those bad? acceptable with reason?

I don't think it is innately bad as long as the poem justifies its use. If it ends up being a better poem that way, I say go for it. If the poem falls flat, you don't get a gold star for the day.

 

[annaswirls]

I don't think it is innately bad as long as the poem justifies its use. If it ends up being a better poem that way, I say go for it. If the poem falls flat, you don't get a gold star for the day.

thanks! I hope mine at least gets a check. No sticker necessary.

 

[pushkine]

I could be wrong, but I thought a trochee is masculine iambic pentameter, with the stressed syllable first. I thought anna was asking about the partial foot at the end of the line. A metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot is called a catalectic line.

A trochee is a metrical foot of two syllables, with the first syllable stressed and the second unstressed--essentially the opposite of an iamb. So a line of five trochees, like

Chicken pluckers only pull out feathers.​

is in trochaic pentameter--five metrical feet (hence pentameter), each foot consisting of a trochee.

Good information about the term catalectic. I hadn't known that term, so I appreciate the information. There's a good example at Wikipedia.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

meter tool ?

How many syllables am I supposed to have then? I do have a syllable counter

Do you have anything to handle meter (at least to some extent)?
It seems like a program could take a dictionary and some lines and use the accents to mark stresses. Not sure how to handle single syllable words, though.
I guess articles would be unaccented (but I can think of contexts where that would be wrong) ...
I can count syllables easily enough, but may tend to consider the stresses as fulfilling the target meter (in some cases that won't work).

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Do you have anything to handle meter (at least to some extent)?
It seems like a program could take a dictionary and some lines and use the accents to mark stresses. Not sure how to handle single syllable words, though.
I guess articles would be unaccented (but I can think of contexts where that would be wrong) ...
I can count syllables easily enough, but may tend to consider the stresses as fulfilling the target meter (in some cases that won't work).

Such a programme would be invaluable I just can't get my head round stresses I don't 'hear' them at all

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Such a programme would be invaluable I just can't get my head round stresses I don't 'hear' them at all

Any feedback on utility from a poet's prespective?
I have written a line of code yet, just a bit of an idea.

MeterMeter - simple program to measure meter in a poem.

Prototype implementation would be as a command line program
taking as input a poem .txt file and outputting a .txt file
with stresses marked (say with a backquote "`").
A simple dictionary file would define the spelling,
syllable breakdown and stresses for each word, along with part of speech.
Like spellcheckers, the dictionary would be stupid, requiring multiple
definitions for different forms (possible simple suffixes, such as "s" for
plurals and "ing" could be supported). A small example is shown below:

cat : noun
dic tion ar y : noun, 1 3
dic tion ar ies : noun, 1 3
val e dic to ri an : noun, 1 4

For words with 2 or more syllables the program would use the dictionary
to determine stressed syllables. Single syllable words would use a rule
like examination of preceeding and following words and prioritize based upon
parts of speech, with the higher ranked words being given stresses first.
A suggested partial priority would be verb, noun, ...
Is such a rule aided by also knowing a target foot (iamb, spondee, ...)?

A 1-line example (taken from the Cinquain example for the 2009 Poetry Survivor Challenge):
Before the dawn the mounth of one
Before` the dawn` the mouth` of one`

 

[UnderYourSpell]

That's as clear as mud sorry it's not you it's me!

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Any feedback on utility from a poet's prespective?
I have written a line of code yet, just a bit of an idea.

MeterMeter - simple program to measure meter in a poem.

Prototype implementation would be as a command line program
taking as input a poem .txt file and outputting a .txt file
with stresses marked (say with a backquote "`").
A simple dictionary file would define the spelling,
syllable breakdown and stresses for each word, along with part of speech.
Like spellcheckers, the dictionary would be stupid, requiring multiple
definitions for different forms (possible simple suffixes, such as "s" for
plurals and "ing" could be supported). A small example is shown below:

cat : noun
dic tion ar y : noun, 1 3
dic tion ar ies : noun, 1 3
val e dic to ri an : noun, 1 4

For words with 2 or more syllables the program would use the dictionary
to determine stressed syllables. Single syllable words would use a rule
like examination of preceeding and following words and prioritize based upon
parts of speech, with the higher ranked words being given stresses first.
A suggested partial priority would be verb, noun, ...
Is such a rule aided by also knowing a target foot (iamb, spondee, ...)?

A 1-line example (taken from the Cinquain example for the 2009 Poetry Survivor Challenge):
Before the dawn the mounth of one
Before` the dawn` the mouth` of one`

Let me try and expand a bit.

That's as clear as mud sorry it's not you it's me!

The program would read in a line and parse it into words.
It would look for each word in the dictionary. It would then use some logic like:

 if (NumSyllables(word) > 1){
    for (i = 0; i < NumStress(word); i++)
       MarkSyllable(word, Stress(word, i));
    }
    else
    {
      if (PartOfSpeechRank(word) > PartOfSpeechRank(prev_word)
         MarkSyllable(word);
      else
        MarkSyllable(prev_word);   // logic here is incomplete - do after 1st pass thru line ?
   }

Now that's probably even more opaque. But there is a simple rule for words with more than one syllable, based upon a dictionary, and a proposed rule for single syllable words based upon their priority (using a ranking of parts of speech as an example).

Some dictionaries show accented syllables by marks, bolding and the like. Information from these would be used for the meter dictionary. The simple dictionary in the example can be
easily processed. For example, 'cat' has a single syllable and is a noun.
'dictionary' has 4 syllables, with stresses on the 1st and 3rd syllables (and happens to be a noun). At startup the program could read the dictionary and concatenate syllables for matching, thus getting 'dictionary' from 'dic tion a ry'. I prefer this approach so the dictionary can be easily updated and avoid redundant information.
The 2 key elements are the dictionary and the single syllable rules.
An existing dictionary file in a different format, if easily read and parsed would be a starting point.
The priority rules are ad hoc, and perhaps too simple minded - does anyone have better rules?

 

[annaswirls]

Sounds good to me! I would use it. Although with practice I have learned how to hear stress-unstressed syllables. I use my teeth. To click

Right for stressed, left for unstressed.

Canines.

Also, Robert Frost Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is SO so perfectly easy to hear, I often read through that in my mind to get my ear back in tune.

UYS: Really try this one. I had so much trouble but this just goes so easy. Try tapping left right (louder on the stress) with this poem.

I am thinking it will work for you because it worked for me and I think in many ways our brains work a like.

The bold syllables are the stressed ones.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I've got to do the Ottava Rima so is this right before I go any further?

She stares out on the woodland rides
her dreams of her life so long ago
says not a word just sits and bides
returns to scenes she used to know,
for in her head she still resides
within the hearts of many beaux.
The darling of her father's eye
no clouds to darken her blue sky.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Looks like a good start

I've got to do the Ottava Rima so is this right before I go any further?

She stares out on the woodland rides
her dreams of her life so long ago
says not a word just sits and bides
returns to scenes she used to know,
for in her head she still resides
within the hearts of many beaux.
The darling of her father's eye
no clouds to darken her blue sky.

Rhyme scheme looks fine.
Supposed to be iambic pentameter, most lines have 4, rather than 5 feet.
Only the 2nd line is longer, I think if you dropped 'her' you'd then have 4 feet there too,
and comes out iambic that way, to me at any rate. The others don't all come across iambs for all feet, as I see it.
I hate having somkething that works and then one has to add/replace words for the meter.

 

[pushkine]

I've got to do the Ottava Rima so is this right before I go any further?

She stares out on the woodland rides
her dreams of her life so long ago
says not a word just sits and bides
returns to scenes she used to know,
for in her head she still resides
within the hearts of many beaux.
The darling of her father's eye
no clouds to darken her blue sky.

The rhyme pattern is correct, but the lines scan as iambic tetrameter instead of iambic pentameter. I'm not sure that's that big a flaw, though, as it is a regular metrical pattern. I'm assuming you're imitating the sound of the Frost poem Anna posted as example, as that poem is in iambic tetrameter.

Take out the second "her" in line two (so the line reads "her dreams of life so long ago") to fix the only flaw I hear in the meter. Otherwise I think it scans perfectly iambic.