[Susan McLean]

Perry, accentual-syllabic meter is the strictest meter. It counts both syllables and beats, and it has rules about what kind of variations can be used and what kind can't. Accentual meter counts only beats per line. In between the two is loose iambic meter, which is mainly iambic but allows an anapest or two per line to loosen the meter. Syllabic verse is not in a pattern of metrical feet at all, because it involves counting only syllables, so it will sound like free verse.

If you want to write metrical verse, it does not have to be strictly regular. Iambic meter, in particular, is very flexible, allowing a lot of variations, and anapestic meter usually includes a few iambs (as in limericks). But you need to learn to hear the beats as you write, if you want to write in meter. Check a dictionary for the stresses in words if you are uncertain about where they fall. Unstressed syllables can carry the beat (that is called "promotion") and stressed syllables can be "demoted" to unstressed in order to carry the beat. It is common to have only four stresses in an iambic pentameter line because of promotion, but if you get the pattern of stresses wrong, it will sound like free verse, which is not the object of writing in meter. I suggest looking at a book such as Timothy Steele's All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing to get some idea of how it works.

Susan