Perry, I too was self-taught when I first started writing in meter. One can intuit a lot about the rules just by reading a lot of metrical poems. But the comments here helped me learn the rules behind those poems, and now if I break one of the rules, I do so intentionally, not inadvertently. One big breakthrough for me was learning how to wrap an unstressed syllable at the end of a line into the next line seamlessly by starting that line on a stressed syllable.
Susan
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