[A. E. Stallings]

I find the Bread I Break by Thomas pretty straight-forward accentual syllabic, if strict on the syllabic end. Remember, it is not just having a strict syllable count, but not being strictly accentual.

The Tennyson is an experiment in classical hendecasyllables, which are not the same as "syllabics". Although, insomuch as we don't really register vowel length in English scansion, they have about the same effect! Nor would I consider sapphics "syllabic," despite, again, a strict syllable count

Here is another wonderful Donald Justice one:

The Thin Man

I indulge myself
in rich refusals.
Nothing suffices.

I hone myself to
This edge. Asleep, I
Am a horizon.


-Donald Justice


It's a wonderful poem--so thin and so rich. I love the paradoxes of the first stanza, and the pun in "nothing suffices." Again, you can tell this is composed IN syllabics, letting the syllable count force those vital line breaks (hone myself to/ this edge). I love the image of the "I" asleep that becomes the horizon--this is a poem that almost animates itself. It is important that that I be at the end/edge of the line. "horizon" takes over the last three syllables of the poem, stretching out, well, like a horizon. Notice that most (not all, but most) successful syllabics are not only in odd numbers of syllables per line, but, perhaps taking off from haiku, in odd-numbered-line stanzas, often in threes.