Scansion workshop thread

[AlwaysHungry]

In case there are any interested parties, here is my basic recipe for writing metered poetry. I would start with the most universal meter, iambic pentameter. That's the meter that supposedly sounds most like natural speech. All of Shakespeare's and Schiller's plays are written in iambic pentameter, as well as basically all classical sonnets.


We're talking five servings per line of [unstressed stressed], like:

Today today today today today

In English, iambic pentameter comes in either the 10 syllable variety as above, or the 11 syllable variety with an extra unstressed syllable at the end, as in

Today today today today tomorrow

But what if your word has only one syllable, or more than two? Tzara also introduced me to the spondee:

Spondees are when two syllables have roughly equal stress and that stress is relatively strong. "Not now!" for example. The end line in Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Pied Beauty" is a spondee. As is the last line is R.S. Gwynn's parody of the poem, "Fried Beauty."

So, here is how I suggest sitting down to write in iambic pentameter. You want to count the number of syllables in your line to make sure it's either 10 0r 11. Then you want to identify, in all words of 2 syllables or more, where the primary accent is. You can do that by looking in a dictionary if it isn't immediately obvious. With one-syllable words, you may assume that articles like "the" or "a" are always unstressed. You may also assume that monosyllabic nouns or verbs that are of significant meaning will be stressed. There are other words which will be "wild cards" and could be either stressed or unstressed, depending on context.

So you want to identify the definitely stressed and the definitely unstressed syllables, and organize and re-organize your word order so that you don't have two stressed or two unstressed in a row -- they need to alternate. Then you can stick the "wild cards" in where you need them.

I'll shut up now and see what others (if any) may have to say.

 

[legerdemer]

Aaackkkk!!!!! Arrrggghhhh!! Oh, all right.... grumbles away.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Just think of it as light bondage.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

syllable counter

 

[Sinseria]

syllable counter

owwwwww UYS you is a goddess you know that right!!! love that it shows words that rhyme with what ever word ...and it doesn't take of the "ed" or "ing" type portion of the word to give true correct syllable count

 

[Sinseria]

In case there are any interested parties, here is my basic recipe for writing metered poetry. I would start with the most universal meter, iambic pentameter. That's the meter that supposedly sounds most like natural speech. All of Shakespeare's and Schiller's plays are written in iambic pentameter, as well as basically all classical sonnets.


We're talking five servings per line of [unstressed stressed], like:

Today today today today today

In English, iambic pentameter comes in either the 10 syllable variety as above, or the 11 syllable variety with an extra unstressed syllable at the end, as in

Today today today today tomorrow

But what if your word has only one syllable, or more than two? Tzara also introduced me to the spondee:



So, here is how I suggest sitting down to write in iambic pentameter. You want to count the number of syllables in your line to make sure it's either 10 0r 11. Then you want to identify, in all words of 2 syllables or more, where the primary accent is. You can do that by looking in a dictionary if it isn't immediately obvious. With one-syllable words, you may assume that articles like "the" or "a" are always unstressed. You may also assume that monosyllabic nouns or verbs that are of significant meaning will be stressed. There are other words which will be "wild cards" and could be either stressed or unstressed, depending on context.

So you want to identify the definitely stressed and the definitely unstressed syllables, and organize and re-organize your word order so that you don't have two stressed or two unstressed in a row -- they need to alternate. Then you can stick the "wild cards" in where you need them.

I'll shut up now and see what others (if any) may have to say.

writing in iambic is scary for me I Will have to try this ! Thank you for the info on it! good stuff here!

 

[AlwaysHungry]

writing in iambic is scary for me

I'm thinking that anyone who has ever learned to play a musical instrument should have no problem with this, after putting that first toe into the water.

 

[Sinseria]

I'm thinking that anyone who has ever learned to play a musical instrument should have no problem with this, after putting that first toe into the water.

Musical instrument me??? Heh nah not me

 

[Sinseria]

We're talking five servings per line of [unstressed stressed], like:

Today today today today today


I'll shut up now and see what others (if any) may have to say.

heh ya know what really sucks about iambic ...is some words are SO easy to tell what is stressed ...and there are those that well just crap ...


I.E.

here I is not stressed

Lo, thus I triumph like a king,Content with that my mind doth bring. (Edward Dyer, "My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is")


and here I is stressed

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)


here and is stressed in the first line and not in the second line ...

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. (Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky")



this is where I get lost

 

[AlwaysHungry]

That's what I mean by a wild card. Start by identifying the words where you know for sure where the accent lies. For example, "envy" will have an accent on the first beat no matter what the context. Single syllable words are more likely to change with context.

 

[Tzara]

heh ya know what really sucks about iambic ...is some words are SO easy to tell what is stressed ...and there are those that well just crap ...


I.E.

here I is not stressed

Lo, thus I triumph like a king,Content with that my mind doth bring. (Edward Dyer, "My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is")


and here I is stressed

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)


here and is stressed in the first line and not in the second line ...

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. (Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky")



this is where I get lost

That's a really interesting example, Sin. I did not previously know that poem, but it seems to me that "I" is unstressed in the entire stanza you reference:

Content I live, this is my stay;
....I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
....Look, what I lack my mind supplies.
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.​

Stress in English language poetry is kind of a complex thing. Words sometimes seem to be stressed that shouldn't be; words that seem like they should be stressed aren't.

I think part of what is going on is that we, as English speakers, want to mentally or vocally continue a pattern that has been established. Consider these lines, by Robert Frost:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;​

In the second line, "in" is stressed, at least relatively, even though it's kind of a throwaway word.

This is because, I think, the pattern (in this poem, iambic tetrameter, or four iambic feet per line) has been strongly established. Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," is, to my ear, perfectly iambic. That is, there are no variations to the iambic structure. (Why I cite it when I'm trying to explain iambic meter.) I once had a poetry teacher tell me that starting a poem with a line in a definite meter, when the poem itself was free verse, was a mistake because it set up an expectation in the reader that the meter would continue.

I'm not sure any of that really speaks to your question.

Edited to add: Based on your examples, you are hearing the meter, even if you find how it works confusing. That's the big hurdle. Most people have trouble hearing the stresses, which is a major problem. If you can't hear it, you can't write it, at least consistently.

You appear to hear it. So you're well on your way.

 

[Sinseria]

thank you both ever so much for your time and explanations heh helps a lot! ...though don't think I will get this down for the challenge ...I shall learn it anyway though! lol

I can hear the stresses in most of it ...and I do understand what you are saying Tzara about some words being stressed when they shouldn't be ...some words to me don't resonate with a stress in my mind ...heh probably has something to do with my awkward phrasing I am going to have to brood over it a bit!

heh will pester with more questions as they arise

and thank you both again!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

owwwwww UYS you is a goddess you know that right!!! love that it shows words that rhyme with what ever word ...and it doesn't take of the "ed" or "ing" type portion of the word to give true correct syllable count

Lol thank you, I can't count syllables for the life of me ! Tzara has given these 'lectures' before may times and I'm nowhere nearer being able to understand, as I told him then I go by what I hear in my head. If it's not right I then go by the Angeline Rule, which means they are there to be broken

 

[Angeline]

Lol thank you, I can't count syllables for the life of me ! Tzara has given these 'lectures' before may times and I'm nowhere nearer being able to understand, as I told him then I go by what I hear in my head. If it's not right I then go by the Angeline Rule, which means they are there to be broken

Lol. My rule is not to break rules for the sake of breaking them, but that the poem is more important than the rules. If I'm going to attempt a form poem in the first place I am going to try hard to follow the rules. Otoh if in writing said poem I come up with something that doesn't fit the rules but I feel improves the poem, improving the poem will win out. After all these forms, over time, have proven to be quite flexible. Many writers since the time of Petrarch and then Shakespeare have written poems they call sonnets that don't follow the rules. And imho many of these are great poems. I'm not going to argue with what the poet decided to call them.

And AH that is said with no disrespect meant to your opinions about the sonnet or what you are doing in this thread, which is yeoman's work and clearly helpful. We have done this before but there are new people here now.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

And AH that is said with no disrespect meant to your opinions about the sonnet or what you are doing in this thread, which is yeoman's work and clearly helpful. We have done this before but there are new people here now.

My attitudes about this all come from working as a professional musician. I've been writing poetry for less than a year, although I have been translating poetry for about 30 years. I have worked extensively with Schiller and Heine, some of the best, and I got into their heads a little as poets. They wrote metered poems, for the most part, and I had to learn meter to make translations that had the right musicality.

Playing jazz and blues, I have learned something which seems counterintuitive. Much of the appeal is that musicians get to let the feelings out, be spontaneous, be "in the moment, " be yourself. But what I learned over time is that the more you discipline yourself, play scale exercises, transcribe and learn solos by famous players, study different genres -- all of which you might feel would intrude on your individuality, cramp your spontaneity -- the more free you feel when it comes time to improvise. I am operating on the assumption that it works that way for poetry, too. I'm guessing that having the facility to write structured verse will at the very least not harm your writing of free verse, and it may very well help.

It is also true, as I discussed with Harry in another thread, that the great masters all violated the rules on a regular basis. But their knowledge and mastery of formal technique gives that rule-breaking a certain significance that it would not otherwise have.

 

[champagne1982]

writing in iambic is scary for me I Will have to try this ! Thank you for the info on it! good stuff here!

"WRI/ting/ I/am/BIC/ is/ SCA/ry/ I/ see. I'LL/ give/ IT/ a/ TRY. THANK/ you/ FOR/ the/ IN/fo/ ON/ it,/ THIS/ is/ PRET/ty/ WON/der/FUL/ STUFF." <<< with liberties.

Just start beating a drum and you will find iambic meter is around all the time. Just making it pentameter is where the counting comes in.

 

[Angeline]

I hope we are hearing each other on this AH. I do respect your experience and determination. I don't disagree with what you're saying (and hey, lots of us here have credentials and years of experience working with language, even if we aren't musicians). If you knew me better or longer, you'd know that I'm someone who believes it's important to know how rhythm and meter affect sound in poetry. That is elementary. I get it. I also agree that one needs to have an understanding of basics before one can branch out.

I'm just not interested in spending my daily poetry time writing with rules to construct forms that, in their original iterations, I consider archaic and Eurocentric. I don't mean those terms as negatives, only that they don't interest me to the exclusion of other important elements of poetry. One can write a line that scans perfectly in the meter one chooses and yet have no poetry in it. Poetry needs to do so much more than adhere to metrics.

What does interest me is understanding how rhythm can underscore pace and tone when writing free verse in modern poetry. I've read a lot about rhythm in modern poetry. I struggle with it when I write. But, for me, the answer is not loads of practice in iambic pentameter, etc. There are a few poets here who I think use the science of sound successfully in free verse poems. Maybe that can be discussed in a different thread. I really don't want to sidetrack this one. Really.

Oh and I think the recent emphasis on recording poems here to be listened to (in Trix's and Tzara's threads) is helping with all this, too. Maybe I just need lots of options for learning to put it all together!

 

[Sinseria]

Well I don't know about everyone else here or how everyone chooses to write or debate as I think I am still the newest member on the totem pole ...I don't write structure personally ...I write free style as well and what ever emotion is rampant in my mind ...no matter how dark it is ...and have no idea how good and or bad it is heh one day I'll know but I think I am learning ...and with the new line of challenges like the Valentine one I am branching out into structures which are archaic seeming to me ...as learning iambic has always been a crux for me ...always ...however I am most happy to talk and debate these types of topic and definitely would love a chat for flow and science of free style as that's my happy place in writing heheh

As for breaking the rules ...heh that comes most natural for me

Anyway I have to get back to work

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Meter, or lack thereof, is just one element in the poet's arsenal of techniques. You can use meter to underscore certain images, or you can also underscore them by deviating from the meter. I started this thread because a number of people have said that they have trouble discerning the meter in a poem. Once you "get" it, it stays with you.

In poetry recitation, we want to stay away from the dreaded "sing-song" effect. When doing scansion, it's the opposite: embrace the sing-song.

I would not like them here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

That's an excellent example of iambic tetrameter, four beats per line.

When writing, you want to have that annoying rhythm running through your mind like a bad pop song. My approach is to simply avoid a strongly accented syllable that falls on an odd-numbered spot in your 10- or 11-syllable line.

As was noted by Tzara above, words like "I" that seem important may nonetheless serve as unstressed syllables. They swing both ways. Think of normal speech -- "I think, therefore I am", three iambs, is natural. But suppose someone asks, "Excuse me, but who did you say is thinking?" Your retort: "I think, therefore I am." That only goes for one-syllable words, though. Polysyllabic words have established strong and weak accents.

So once you get that maddening "Green eggs and ham" rhythm going in your mind, your first task is to place your polysyllabic words in such a way that the strong accents don't fall into the odd numbered slots in your line.

 

[legerdemer]

Meter, or lack thereof, is just one element in the poet's arsenal of techniques. You can use meter to underscore certain images, or you can also underscore them by deviating from the meter. I started this thread because a number of people have said that they have trouble discerning the meter in a poem. Once you "get" it, it stays with you.

In poetry recitation, we want to stay away from the dreaded "sing-song" effect. When doing scansion, it's the opposite: embrace the sing-song.

I would not like them here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

That's an excellent example of iambic tetrameter, four beats per line.

When writing, you want to have that annoying rhythm running through your mind like a bad pop song. My approach is to simply avoid a strongly accented syllable that falls on an odd-numbered spot in your 10- or 11-syllable line.

As was noted by Tzara above, words like "I" that seem important may nonetheless serve as unstressed syllables. They swing both ways. Think of normal speech -- "I think, therefore I am", three iambs, is natural. But suppose someone asks, "Excuse me, but who did you say is thinking?" Your retort: "I think, therefore I am." That only goes for one-syllable words, though. Polysyllabic words have established strong and weak accents.

So once you get that maddening "Green eggs and ham" rhythm going in your mind, your first task is to place your polysyllabic words in such a way that the strong accents don't fall into the odd numbered slots in your line.

I will sound recalcitrant or obnoxious, but it can't be helped (I am recalcitrant and often obnoxious, so what can you do?). But in this case, my points are for added discussion.

1) Regarding the Green Eggs and Ham example, it is a great example for the exercise, and it works for certain poems, but at least in my case, once I get that rhythm in my head, it won't leave - like a tune that gets lodged and won't fuckin' shut up. Which means, for me, that what I write starts sounding the same. (Not that I've done this enough to be a huge problem, mind you; I'm pretty new at this as well.)

2) The "I think therefore I am" quote is an interesting example of individual pronunciations and hearing of emphases. I don't know how others would pronounce it - I encourage others to think about it - but I would do it entirely differently from the way AH did - in my speech pattern, and interpretation of the quote, which also has a large role here, I would emphasize as follows:

I think, therefore I am.

This rhythm of course is no longer iambic. In fact, I haven't heard him, but I doubt even AH pronounces this one the way he wrote it out above. I'll make him do it for the entertainment of my curiosity. If he does, I would argue to him that his accenting actually obscures the meaning of the quote. (sorry, a bit of obnoxious just leaked out)

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Well, here's the trick to writing in meter: the stresses don't have to obviously fall the way they would in natural speech. They simply must not obviously contradict what would happen in natural speech. Upon reflection, Mer is right about "therefore" -- the accent falls on the first syllable, so therefore "therefore" cannot be an iamb, and I chose a lousy example. What I said about "I", however, is still correct. It's a wild card.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I once had a poetry teacher tell me that starting a poem with a line in a definite meter, when the poem itself was free verse, was a mistake because it set up an expectation in the reader that the meter would continue.

The same applies to "breaking the rules" within an otherwise metered poem. You must assume that the reader will be at least subliminally aware of it, and you must anticipate what sort of response it will elicit. Maybe it's something that you want.

 

[butters]

we never really learned directly about meter or form in school; what we did do was perform autopsies on scenes from shakespeare, poetry by the romantics, the canterbury tales - autopsies that concentrated on metaphor and imagery, the whys and wherefores of word-choices.

i'm often noticed i've written in iambs, especially longer pieces, as some sort of fall-back, when i've been writing focused on picture and underlying meanings, the play-off between the sounds in one word and another. sometimes it works better than others

and you and you and you is largely iambic tetrameter, but not entirely - line lengths varying for purpose.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Is there an intrepid, thick-skinned person who wrote a poem for Piscator's challenge in a form that normally requires regular meter, and who is not 100% certain that the meter in the poem is regular? It would be a useful exercise to discuss the poem, analyze its meter line by line, and propose ways to tweak it so that the metric pattern conforms to what the form demands.

 

[Sinseria]

Is there an intrepid, thick-skinned person who wrote a poem for Piscator's challenge in a form that normally requires regular meter, and who is not 100% certain that the meter in the poem is regular? It would be a useful exercise to discuss the poem, analyze its meter line by line, and propose ways to tweak it so that the metric pattern conforms to what the form demands.

We want to do that now or after the challenge is over? I'd gladly take the input