The anapest

[Tzara]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapaest
The following is from Byron's The Destruction of Sennacherib:

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

the problem I have is with wave and to a lesser extent rolls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_scansion
Just wondering what your thoughts are?

I see what you mean about the fourth line, but only if I read it by itself. When I read it in the poem (i.e., with the lines in front of it), I don't have a problem. Perhaps I've been locked into the rhythm.

 

[Tzara]

From another thread, I didn't call it an anapest, because I would have had to scan it, and frankly I can't. But an interesting experiment,


Good then you won't mind if I steal a little trick I learned from you;
Crows glide up from the earth
and speak from empty eyes.
this is pretty standard from the earth uuS, crow takes off. Highly unlikely from the would ever be stressed in even the most idiosyncratic manner.

Version A "the" removed, crow, well doesn't take off, no big deal

A. Crows glide up from earth
and speak from empty eyes.

B. Crows glide up from the earth
and speak from empty eyes.

But I distinctly heard a difference in the word "speak" between the two versions.
Does anybody else?

I don't hear any difference there, though possibly because of the pause at the end of the previous line (at least how I read it). The second line sounds straightforwardly iambic to me.

 

[Tzara]

Also a very good point.
If you where from Baltimore how many syllables would the baseball team have? Four.
Bal more
Or els

There's an interesting comment in (I think) Pinsky's book on the sound of poetry where he talks about a southern (USA) kid who asks his instructor how many syllables "fire" has. Instructor says "one." Kid says, "where I'm from, it has four."

 

[Tzara]

Excuse me for asking a stupid question here but...

...At what point does the desire for a certain form in a poem...overshadow the expression or meaning of the words?

I have heard many people try to tie rhymes to poems, and they loose what could have been a powerful line simply by having to use a lesser word because it rhymed.

Talk about tossing a softball to the "free verse is king" folks.

 

[Tzara]

Anyhoo, the reason I started this thread was because almost all attempts at form and meter poetry that I see here and elsewhere are obsessing solely with iambic meter.

I never understood why that one is the default meter foot. To me, it seems contrived from the get-go and I have the hardest time fitting what I want to say into it. A three stroke rhythm seems much more natural and easy to express oneself in.

Wanted to hear the more form-proficient poets' view on it.

Iambic pentameter is supposed to echo the characteristic rhythm of spoken English. (I think Pinsky says this, for example, but I can't find where I placed my copy of his book at the moment.) Certain forms, though, typically use non-iambic meters. The most obvious is the limerick, which is either mostly anapestic or amphibrachic, depending:

There was a young woman from Dover
Who dropped her possessions in clover.
She lost her salami
And it came upon me
To give her mine over and over.​

I think that's uniform amphibrachs. Certainly not iambs.

 

[Senna Jawa]

There's an interesting comment in (I think) Pinsky's book on the sound of poetry where he talks about a southern (USA) kid who asks his instructor how many syllables "fire" has. Instructor says "one." Kid says, "where I'm from, it has four."

Why one and not two?

 

[Senna Jawa]

continue, if you will

Thank you Liar, Tzara and ev'body for the theme and examples and so on. You're welcome to contine (or even prepend) the following two lines which I made for this exercise:

call me mellow or sick or whatever you please
leave alone stationary in residence dreams​

Enjoy,

 

[UnderYourSpell]

All things must pass, the father had said,
I've done my living but soon will be dead.
You will grown older and taller too,
follow my steps with a different view.

Horizons though distant, with infinite ease,
you'll cross very soon whenever you please,
leaving behind the lessons you learned
the merit you seek, that must be earned.

My son though you seek for the easier climb
never be tempted by slease or to crime,
you are our bounty, what's left of us still
the best way you'll find is often uphill.

 

[Tzara]

To my ear, this:

There is much I could say
About rhythm and mood
That would blow you away
(Oh, well, I think it could)

But it may not be you,
Or the way that you hear,
Nor impossibly new
To the layperson's ear--

Just a rhythm that's not
Up and down like a saw;
That's how anapests rock,
If they rock out at all.​

is in anapestic dimeter. I think. It may be podic verse--I need to check my Turco. Anyway, two (strong, or stronger) beats per line.

1201's comments about scansion apply, though. One of the problems about meter is that the poet hears what he or she is trying to write--one forces the verse into the box one is writing for.

Why, I think, poets find meter the hardest thing to hear and do well. Rhyme is easy, even half-rhyme, slant rhyme, whatever. Hearing meter is quite difficult for most of us.

One reason I think writing and reading form poetry is important--ear training. Why beginning music students at university have to take sight singing--they need to hear inside their heads what the printed notes, rhythm, etc. sound like.

Anyway. May be a bad example, which means my ear needs more training.

 

[Tzara]

Why one and not two?

I think most English language dictionaries (please note that I have not made a comprehensive survey) represent the word "fire" as being monosyllabic. I personally tend to pronounce it much closer to two syllables than one (almost, but not quite, like FIE·er). In some parts of the USA, I've heard this pronounced more like "FAHR" or something like that, which is clearly (at least to me) monosyllabic.

I think Pinsky's point, if it was Pinsky who told that story, is that pronunciation varies among speakers (and readers) of poems, and that that variation affects the reader's perception of the poem. Kind of what, I think, 1201 was trying to get at by baiting me about scansion.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

just dawned on me but it is silly o'clock in the morning here ....... an a pest .... charming

 

[Tzara]

Anyhoo, the reason I started this thread was because almost all attempts at form and meter poetry that I see here and elsewhere are obsessing solely with iambic meter.

UYS's poem Gerund Whore is an "English (or Dryden) Roundelay" quite consistently written in trochaic tetrameter.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Anyhoo, the reason I started this thread was because almost all attempts at form and meter poetry that I see here and elsewhere are obsessing solely with iambic meter.

I never understood why that one is the default meter foot. To me, it seems contrived from the get-go and I have the hardest time fitting what I want to say into it. A three stroke rhythm seems much more natural and easy to express oneself in.

Wanted to hear the more form-proficient poets' view on it.

I've agree that sometimes a 3 syllable foot seems more natural.
Dusted off my meter program and tossed a few lines from here at it -
found out it only handles 2 syllable feet.
At least one bug is obvious - may uncover others.

 

[The_Fool]

Sorry for the threadjack, but I keep reading this as Anna Pest. Not that I would think that of course...


</threadjack>

 

[Senna Jawa]

I think Pinsky's point, if it was Pinsky who told that story, is that pronunciation varies among speakers (and readers) of poems, and that that variation affects the reader's perception of the poem.

Actually, English is extra nice in this respect. A poem can imply its own pronunciation of words and phrases, and a great majority of the readers will accept it. Of course it happens all the time in the case of limericks, but also in other poems.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Sorry for the threadjack, but I keep reading this as Anna Pest. Not that I would think that of course...


</threadjack>

hah! you see it's not just me!!

 

[vrosej10]

Excuse me for asking a stupid question here but...

...At what point does the desire for a certain form in a poem...overshadow the expression or meaning of the words?

I have heard many people try to tie rhymes to poems, and they loose what could have been a powerful line simply by having to use a lesser word because it rhymed.

if you can work the poem to form, not twist it out of shape and lose the meaning, then go for it. If not break the rules. Form should fit the poem not poem the form.

By the by Tzara, that Pinksy book is good isn't it? I tripped over my copy the other day.

 

[twelveoone]

I see what you mean about the fourth line, but only if I read it by itself. When I read it in the poem (i.e., with the lines in front of it), I don't have a problem. Perhaps I've been locked into the rhythm.

"interference patterns" are set up to break the strict, I don't want to use the word "metre" , measured verse. You don't want to write in so-called strict meterical verse. I came across a name of someone who did, I forgot it, everybody else did also. Because it was boring. The whole idea behind the substitutions. And there is alot of pre-1900 poetry, that doesn't quite fit to good using the on-off method, but other things appear using a four point method,
Thank you for Pinsky, I had forgotten where I read that about fi iii er, but I be damned if I can make it four.

 

[twelveoone]

Thanks..

I guess that coming to writing as a "older" person, I have kind of have a "write it as I feel it" approach to poems as opposed to my other writing.

But now when I sit in class with 18-22 year olds during workshops and listen to them spout about the "form" of their poems, they seem to be more into finding word that fit..not words that work and express feeling and emotions. One thing is making the outlines of the poems lines itself take the shape of the topic of the poem...which leads to a one word line then 3 then 1 ect...all to make up a "mountain" because that is the theme of the piece....

The confusion in terms. Both terms are used correctly, but have more than one definition. Happens often in conversation. You job as a poet is to sort all this shit out, and make a shape poem out of it.
Workshops are fine Mike, CONSIDER WITH SKEPTICISM. What you are taught certainly isn't 100% true all the time. Everything works - to a degree.
And now you may begin to realize, that you may be talking to the most feared and hated person at lit. Because it all breaks down - at a point. And that is where I operate, in a danger zone.
Here is a clue for you all, safe poetry isn't poetry. It does have to be "roughed". Depending on the content, is how much you want to rough it.
Tzara know Lord Byron uses rhyme that in most cases would be unacceptable.
Tzara also knows, Byron, Keats, and Hunt are remembered Southey isn't. Google 'em Mike.
I point out that over 180 years have elapsed since then.

 

[twelveoone]

yes. i do.

when i read the first, the word 'speak' automatically is sounded lower than the 'and' then the line continues to drop away


in version 2, i find myself raising the musical tone of 'speak' and even 'empty' takes a higher sound than in the previous example... in fact the whole line sounds more uplifted than sombre.

Thank you, just goes to show you how good a writer Angeline is, and I shouldn't fuck around with her material.
She has an excellent ear, maybe even two, but I'm stealing that little nifty trick and using it. Thank you.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I wish somebody would tell me if I've written it right *exits stage left muttering*

 

[butters]

this is how i'm hearing your stresses, annie

All things must pass, the father had said,
I've done my living but soon will be dead.
You will grow older and taller too,
follow my steps with a different view.

Horizons though distant, with infinite ease,
you'll cross very soon whenever you please,
leaving behind the lessons you learned
the merit you seek, that must be earned.

My son though you seek for the easier climb
never be tempted by sleaze or to crime,
you are our bounty, what's left of us still
the best way you'll find is often uphill.

some places you've the two-one thing going on, someplaces it's a one-one, but i don't know if that's an acceptable variation of the anapest to be able to say if it's 'right'. it works well enough reading it aloud anyway!

 

[Liar]

Was just about to.

The way I read this....

* * All things must pass, * the father had said,
* * I've done my living but soon will be dead.
* * You will grown older and tall * -er too,
* * follow my steps with a different view.

* Horizons though distant, with infinite ease,
* you'll cross very soon * whenever you please,
* * leaving behind * the lessons you learned
* the merit you seek, * that must * be earned.

* My son though you seek for the easier climb
* * never be tempted by slease or to crime,
* you are our bounty, what's left of us still
* the best way you'll find * is often uphill.

It misses a syllable here and there where there are pauses instead (maked with *). In the beginning of lines I don't see that as a problem, but in the middle of a line, it starts feeling iambic to me unless it is filled out.

* * leaving behind * the lessons you learned

could for instance be be

* * leaving behind all the lessons you learned

or even

you'll be leaving behind all the lessons you learned

On the other hand, ity could be argued that the * is a pause in the diction, and a perfectly acceptable replacement for a syllable.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

thank you both I wrote it in 10 minutes so there's bound to be some hiccups

 

[butters]

hiccups? i gots hiccups

here's my count to three and going off in places (sometimes on purpose!) silly thing

Now i know a book and this book had a name
but this book is now lost and it's really a shame
what'd rock would be if its own name i'd recall
but till then i will pester and ask of you all

Who was its author and when was it sold?
What about typeface? latino in bold?
Was it a guy or a gal, let's suppose
a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose...

My mind is a soupy confection (it's age)
so you'll pardon my cheating a little on stage
and you'll get that i'm trying to count up to three
on my fingers while typing, a damned chimpanzee!

Now i remember the name of that book!
Thanks to a quote, because that's all it took {rollseyes}
Had to be Shakey, of course, to be clear
with his two star-crossed lovers, look! I have it here.