Scan A Poem. Get The Picture.

If you have a computer, you probably have a printer that scans photographs. Whether you took the photos or someone else did, the point of scanning is to get the picture. That’s what scansion (aka scanning a poem) does too. It shows your eye what your poetic ear can hear.

When you read a poem aloud, you can hear yourself give more emphasis to some syllables than others. Usually your voice will skip over “business words” such as prepositions (to, of, on) and articles (a, an, the), but you just naturally place more stress on the strong verbs and nouns. Those nouns provide pictures for your poems, and then the active verbs move the pictures along.

Let’s take, for example, the last half of the above sentence and use capital letters to note the accents or stressed syllables:

and ACTive VERBS MOVE the PICtures aLONG

Listening for those accents or beats is what you do when you scan. Then breaking the line into groups of two to three syllable creates the poetic meter known as feet. To define:

An iamb is two syllables with the emphasis on the second: and ACT/ tive VERBS/ aLONG/.

The opposite of an iamb is the trochee, which also has two syllables but with the emphasis on the first:

MOVE the/ PICtures/

So put it all together to scan the sentence, and you’ll see three iambs and two trochees. Since that adds up to five feet and the Latin for “five” is “penta,” the line is pentameter.

If a line of pentameter has more trochees than anything else, you’d have trochaic pentameter. In this line, however, the iambs outnumber the trochees, so presto! You have the famous iambic pentameter.

Even though that sentence was not particularly poetic, you get the picture. Scansion shows you the emphasis or beat that you hear as you read a poem aloud. So your eyes can now see what your ears hear.

What difference does that make? Maybe none! If, however, your poem loses its rhythm or seems to have no musicality as you read aloud, then scan the poem. See where it loses the beat.

For instance, you might find that you have three or more unstressed syllables together. Those feet have names, too, but the point is, they show you that you need to tighten the beat. How? Change words around, or find new words that have the emphasis where you want.


Mary Harwell Sayler, poet-writer

Interrogate Your Poems

To edit and evaluate your own poetry more objectively, interrogate your poems, not as you write, but as you revise. Ask:

• Do I have a new perspective or unusual treatment of a theme or topic?

• Did I explore something that will interest most people?

• Did I do my research and double-check all facts?

• Did I accurately present information, observations, and comparisons?

• Does the poem say what it wants to say in words, images, symbols, or ideas that most readers can relate to and envision?

• Is the poem honest?

• Do the lines have credible conflict, counterpoint, juxtaposition, or anything else that shows a push-pull tension?
• Does the poem have distinctive language and an interesting voice?

• Do my word choices bring to mind interesting connotations and sounds?

• Did I emphasize certain syllables or rhymes for a special effect?

• Does the poem have musicality that can be heard by reading aloud?

• Is the overall tone in keeping with the theme and subject?

• Does the poem hint of humor rather than mere wit or cleverness?

• Does anything in the poem need correcting?

• Does the form fit the idea or story?

• Do the line-breaks work well in my free verse?

• What would happen if I break the lines differently?

• Does my traditional poem nicely fit a traditional form?

• If not, does each variation in the pattern have a purpose?

• Does it work?

• Did I take any risks to keep the poem from clicking shut at the end?

• Does the length and style suit the needs of most poetry journals?

• Will readers want to read this poem again and again?

• Would I love this poem if someone else had written it?



Mary Sayler, poet-writer ...