Christian poet Mary Harwell Sayler invites you into poetry
Showing posts with label iambic meter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iambic meter. Show all posts
Friday, September 30, 2011
Sonnets traditionally require poets to use rhythmic rhymes and argue nicely in fourteen lines
Poets who prefer writing with rhyme and rhythm do well to get acquainted with traditional forms of English poetry. Why? Traditional verse forms, such as the villanelle discussed last time or the sonnet this time, have been popular since their appearance many years before Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450.
If you’re inclined to write poetry of 20 lines or less with strong rhymes and solid rhythmic beat, consider revising those poems with the sonnet in mind. If you’re inclined to write poems with strong opinions and solid arguments, that’s even better!
So, what do you need to do to shape a poem into a sonnet?
Even up the meter. Although other types of meter can certainly be used, let’s stick with the old standby – iambic pentameter. As discussed in the previous article “Scan a poem. Catch the beat,” iambic pentameter means each line has five feet, most of which are iambs. And, as previously discussed in the same article and in “Poetry forms help re-form a poem as you revise,” an iamb is a foot of meter consisting of two syllables that end on an upbeat note.
Occasionally, a poem might have an extra syllable or two to allow variation without losing the beat, but generally a line of iambic pentameter has 10 syllables per line with the even numbers accentuated the majority of the time.
Confine your sonnet to 14 lines.
Follow a rhyme pattern of your choice. An “a” marks the first rhyme, “b” the second, and so on with the most long-lived patterns being Italian (Petrarchan), Spenserian, and Shakespearean. Each of those forms has its own rhyme scheme as follows:
Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet – The first eight lines (octave) have a rhyming pattern of a b b a a b b a, while the last six lines (sextet) offer rhyme options such as c d c d c d or c d e c d e.
Spenserian Sonnet – Edmund Spencer, author of The Faerie Queen, invented the pattern of a b a b b c b c c d c d e e.
Shakespearean Sonnet – William Shakespeare experimented with the use of three quatrains (verses of four lines each) in his sonnets, which closed on a couplet (two rhyming lines.) That rhyme scheme usually followed this pattern:
a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g
The couplet at the end of a Shakespearean sonnet can nicely close a debate or open the ending of the poem into a new way of thinking. An Italian sonnet, however, might state a case in the octave and present the other side in the last six lines. So, while a villanelle works well when you want to emphasize and repeat a particular thought or obsession, the sonnet works great when you present an unusual viewpoint, express an opinion, make a case, or just feel like arguing!
~~
© 2011, Mary Harwell Sayler
~~
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Villanelles need something worth repeating
Do you find yourself saying the same thing, over and over? Great! Try a villanelle.
Start by writing a sentence stating a strong opinion, belief, warning, or lament.
Say, for example, you wonder if it’s always right or wise for victors in war to redesign a culture. Can an outsider really know what will work best for a people with a different geographical landscape, different natural resources, or different traditions? I had those thoughts as I tried to convey my father’s questions and war experiences in a series of poems, which brought to mind these two lines: “We come along and tell them what to do/ but who knows what is right for them or true?”
Shape your two key lines or sentences into iambic pentameter.
As discussed in a previous article, “Scan a poem. Catch the beat,” an iamb is a two-syllable foot with the accent on the second syllable, and pentameter (penta meaning five) is a line of poetry whose meter (measurement) consists of five feet.
For example, the first line to be repeated in my villanelle has five straight iambs, while the rhyming line has four iambs with a spondee (two-syllable foot with both syllables stressed) to give a little variation without losing either the pentameter length of the line or the iambic beat:
we COME/ aLONG/ and TELL/ them WHAT/ to DO
but WHO/ KNOWS WHAT/ is RIGHT/ for THEM/ or TRUE?
Follow the traditional pattern of a villanelle.
This form of traditional poetry consists of 19 lines with five stanzas of three lines each and a quatrain (four lines) at the end.
After placing the lines you will repeat in the first and third lines of your first verse, you then alternate those lines throughout the poem, bringing them together at the end to close the poem. As you might imagine, though, this could get boring! So the catch is to have a slight variation, say, in the connotations of your key rhymes, as the poem builds momentum and deepens its meaning.
Use easy-to-rhyme rhymes.
Another trick to writing a successful villanelle comes in finding words that readily rhyme but contribute to the meaning of the poem. Since you only have two rhyming sounds for the whole poem, give plenty of thought (and ear!) to rhyme A for the two key lines you repeat. Also, you need new words with an A rhyme for the first line of every verse.
Consider, too, the sounds and meanings available in rhyme B since that sound will resound from the second line of every verse. For example, rhyme A in my villanelle echoes do/ true and rhyme B way/say, both of which offered many rhyming words I could choose from as the poem proceeded.
Trying to Get the Story Straight
by Mary Harwell Sayler
We come along and tell them what to do
and pay their workers in a different way,
but who knows what is right for them or true?
Demands made on the rich are rare and few,
but the poor have little choice in what we say
when we come along and tell them what to do
about living their own lives, but tell me. Who
can speak for another or even know how to pray
for what’s best for them – or right or true?
With food scarce, black market prices are too
high for anyone but the very rich to pay
unless we come along and tell them what to do
with their own money, capping costs, so you
and I can afford things too, if we have our say,
but who knows what is right for them or true?
Workmen stand around like there’s nothing to do!
And standing in rubble, they laze the day away
until we come along and tell them what to do,
but who knows what is right for us – or true?
(c) 2012, Mary Harwell Sayler
~~
Start by writing a sentence stating a strong opinion, belief, warning, or lament.
Say, for example, you wonder if it’s always right or wise for victors in war to redesign a culture. Can an outsider really know what will work best for a people with a different geographical landscape, different natural resources, or different traditions? I had those thoughts as I tried to convey my father’s questions and war experiences in a series of poems, which brought to mind these two lines: “We come along and tell them what to do/ but who knows what is right for them or true?”
Shape your two key lines or sentences into iambic pentameter.
As discussed in a previous article, “Scan a poem. Catch the beat,” an iamb is a two-syllable foot with the accent on the second syllable, and pentameter (penta meaning five) is a line of poetry whose meter (measurement) consists of five feet.
For example, the first line to be repeated in my villanelle has five straight iambs, while the rhyming line has four iambs with a spondee (two-syllable foot with both syllables stressed) to give a little variation without losing either the pentameter length of the line or the iambic beat:
we COME/ aLONG/ and TELL/ them WHAT/ to DO
but WHO/ KNOWS WHAT/ is RIGHT/ for THEM/ or TRUE?
Follow the traditional pattern of a villanelle.
This form of traditional poetry consists of 19 lines with five stanzas of three lines each and a quatrain (four lines) at the end.
After placing the lines you will repeat in the first and third lines of your first verse, you then alternate those lines throughout the poem, bringing them together at the end to close the poem. As you might imagine, though, this could get boring! So the catch is to have a slight variation, say, in the connotations of your key rhymes, as the poem builds momentum and deepens its meaning.
Use easy-to-rhyme rhymes.
Another trick to writing a successful villanelle comes in finding words that readily rhyme but contribute to the meaning of the poem. Since you only have two rhyming sounds for the whole poem, give plenty of thought (and ear!) to rhyme A for the two key lines you repeat. Also, you need new words with an A rhyme for the first line of every verse.
Consider, too, the sounds and meanings available in rhyme B since that sound will resound from the second line of every verse. For example, rhyme A in my villanelle echoes do/ true and rhyme B way/say, both of which offered many rhyming words I could choose from as the poem proceeded.
Trying to Get the Story Straight
by Mary Harwell Sayler
We come along and tell them what to do
and pay their workers in a different way,
but who knows what is right for them or true?
Demands made on the rich are rare and few,
but the poor have little choice in what we say
when we come along and tell them what to do
about living their own lives, but tell me. Who
can speak for another or even know how to pray
for what’s best for them – or right or true?
With food scarce, black market prices are too
high for anyone but the very rich to pay
unless we come along and tell them what to do
with their own money, capping costs, so you
and I can afford things too, if we have our say,
but who knows what is right for them or true?
Workmen stand around like there’s nothing to do!
And standing in rubble, they laze the day away
until we come along and tell them what to do,
but who knows what is right for us – or true?
(c) 2012, Mary Harwell Sayler
~~
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Rhyme, rhythm, reality: traditional English verse
As holidays make the rounds again, most of us reach toward the familiar ring of tradition before that circle passes by for another year. Somewhere in the rounds, poetry holds a special place of honor with holiday patterns of rhyme and rhythm, for example, in hymn lyrics, carols, Christmas bedtime stories, and those favorite nursery rhymes that go over the rivers and into the woods to find Grandma’s idyllic house among the oaks and pines. But stop! Grandma not only lives in a condo near the strip mall where she works, she will seriously chastise you if you call her Granny.
Despite such deterrents, some of us just want to go back. Some of us still want poetry that chimes each line’s end with the regular beat of our own hearts. Some of us cling to old traditions, but more likely, we simply do not want to throw out the customs, practices, or convictions of many, many hundreds of years of traditional English verse. Maybe we like repetition and meter. Maybe we hold sentiments even though we do not want our poems to be sentimental. Maybe we don’t want our writing to be ritualized but want it to be real.
So how do we keep old patterns yet adapt them realistically to contemporary poetry? First we need to hear the rhythm that pulsed within our ancient English predecessors. Usually this could be counted as regular thumps of four beats per line with a slight pause or caesura mid-way. On either side of that mini-break stretched vowels with fairly equal waves of sound. In addition, alliteration echoed the consonants from line to line, turning up the volume and making each poem more memorable – a particularly important technique since pen and paper had not yet confined poems to silence on the written page.
Those patterns of Old English verse still provide a fun form for practicing poetry writing. But language developed, and so did sophisticated, sometimes highly intricate, patterns of end-line rhyme. The rhythmic rap changed somewhat, too, as iambic pentameter became the popular choice of poets and readers. Why? Practicalities! Each line of approximately ten syllables nicely fit the width of the page and also the natural breath of the reader.
To break down that line-break even more: Pentameter = the Latin word penta (meaning five) + meter (measure) of iambic feet. These feet do not make a yardstick, but they’re just as basic. i.e., An iamb is two syllables with emphasis placed on the second syllable, which makes the iambic foot upbeat. The next most popular foot, a trochee, also has two syllables but with the accent first, and it’s downhill from there. So a trochee is downbeat. Poems can be written in trochees, of course, but usually a trochaic foot steps into a line of iambic pentameter to bring a little jazz step – a variation that does not lose the beat.
Once you know this basic two-step dance of poetry, it’s as though you’ve learned a new language or discovered how to fly, and you feel like your poems can do anything! You can rhyme or not. You can devise a mid-line rhyme scheme or begin lines with rhyme or substitute slant rhyme in a Shakespearean sonnet pattern. Yes, your poems might draw from another time, but absorbed by sound and beauty, you’ll find lively ways to adapt old traditions to your renewed voice and perhaps step into a unique place in poetic history.
(c) 2010, Mary Harwell Sayler
Despite such deterrents, some of us just want to go back. Some of us still want poetry that chimes each line’s end with the regular beat of our own hearts. Some of us cling to old traditions, but more likely, we simply do not want to throw out the customs, practices, or convictions of many, many hundreds of years of traditional English verse. Maybe we like repetition and meter. Maybe we hold sentiments even though we do not want our poems to be sentimental. Maybe we don’t want our writing to be ritualized but want it to be real.
So how do we keep old patterns yet adapt them realistically to contemporary poetry? First we need to hear the rhythm that pulsed within our ancient English predecessors. Usually this could be counted as regular thumps of four beats per line with a slight pause or caesura mid-way. On either side of that mini-break stretched vowels with fairly equal waves of sound. In addition, alliteration echoed the consonants from line to line, turning up the volume and making each poem more memorable – a particularly important technique since pen and paper had not yet confined poems to silence on the written page.
Those patterns of Old English verse still provide a fun form for practicing poetry writing. But language developed, and so did sophisticated, sometimes highly intricate, patterns of end-line rhyme. The rhythmic rap changed somewhat, too, as iambic pentameter became the popular choice of poets and readers. Why? Practicalities! Each line of approximately ten syllables nicely fit the width of the page and also the natural breath of the reader.
To break down that line-break even more: Pentameter = the Latin word penta (meaning five) + meter (measure) of iambic feet. These feet do not make a yardstick, but they’re just as basic. i.e., An iamb is two syllables with emphasis placed on the second syllable, which makes the iambic foot upbeat. The next most popular foot, a trochee, also has two syllables but with the accent first, and it’s downhill from there. So a trochee is downbeat. Poems can be written in trochees, of course, but usually a trochaic foot steps into a line of iambic pentameter to bring a little jazz step – a variation that does not lose the beat.
Once you know this basic two-step dance of poetry, it’s as though you’ve learned a new language or discovered how to fly, and you feel like your poems can do anything! You can rhyme or not. You can devise a mid-line rhyme scheme or begin lines with rhyme or substitute slant rhyme in a Shakespearean sonnet pattern. Yes, your poems might draw from another time, but absorbed by sound and beauty, you’ll find lively ways to adapt old traditions to your renewed voice and perhaps step into a unique place in poetic history.
(c) 2010, Mary Harwell Sayler
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