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Unread 04-08-2002, 08:40 AM
Michael Juster Michael Juster is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Belmont MA
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Portia: People write books on these questions, so I will try to be brief but helpful. I think of metrical poetry as poetry arranged in a pattern of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. In the word "Juster" the first syllable is stressed and the second is not. A "foot" is a group of two or three syllables linked by sound. "Juster" is a foot called a "trochee" ("tro-kee"), for instance. "Disneyland" is a three syllable foot with the stress on the first syllable called a "dactyl". This stuff gets tricky, but can become almost as natural as riding a bike. I'm away from my library and have a horrible memory, but I would check out Tim Steele's Missing Measures and All The Fun's In How You Say A Thing, although there are also good books by John Hollander (Rhyme's Reason) and Paul Fussell (darned if I remember the title, but someone will help me).
A sonnet is a rhymed fourteen line poem almsot always written in a particular meter called iambic pentameter--a ten or eleven syllable line in which the even-numbered syllables are stressed (although some variations to avoid monotony are not only OK but desirable). There are some set rhyme schemes that are famous and some people make up their own "nonce" sonnets. There's a terrific site called "Sonnet Central" that has some splendid "Introduction to the Sonnet" material that you should check out if you want more info.
If you're thinking about writing a sonnet (one of the joys of my life), I would hold off a little until you're comfortable writing unrhymed iambic pentameter. Trying to write in rhyme AND meter when you haven't done either is generally too hard to start with.
Good luck!
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