[Tony Barnstone]

Hi Folks,

Like many who are writing in metrical forms these days, I am an autodidact. I taught myself from books, by trying and failing and trying again, by imitating Frost and Yeats and Shakespeare, and of course I was lucky enough to have my father to go to for advice along the way. Still, I do feel that there are gaps in my education, gap so wide "even two can pass abreast" as it might be.

The issue that concerns me these days is that of substitutions in iambic meters.

My own esthetics have pushed me to believe that not all substitutions are created equal.

I find it clumsy and unnerving when a troche is subbed in, except at the start of a line, start of a clause, or start of a sentence. "SOMEthing /there IS /that DOES /n't LOVE /a WALL" is fine, but "aCROSS /the LINE /of STRAIGHT /TREES in / the SNOW" feels off. It feels as the poet wasn't acrobatic enough to write the poem the right way, and so popped in a substitution that didn't have a rhythmic imperative (i.e., to start off the new phrase or sentence or line with a bang). Thoughts on this?

I find pyrrhics and spondees pretty useless except as joined together into a double iamb. If I were going to use one of them, I would prefer the spondee over the pyrrhic, but even then I'm guessing that in almost all cases 1/2 of the spondee would get demoted in context, making the point moot. The exception is first position, where the spondee doesn't follow the stressed syllable of an iamb, and so without 3 stressed syllables in a row one could argue that demotion doesn't happen. Even then, it feels clumsy to me, as it puts an extra stress into the line. Again, I'm happy to be schooled on this stuff.

Anapests, well, I just don't like 'em. If I have an anapest, I will almost always make it dissipate into an elision, or I'll convert it into a double iamb, or I'll split the foot and add a stress at the start and make it a troche-iamb sequence, assuming that it's positioned after a rhythmic break. They're fine for ballads, limericks and light verse, and in fact are necessary for them, but when popped into iambic meter they carry a whiff of clumsiness and goofiness that I generally dislike. I don't even let myself use them in blank verse. Very, very rarely I'll allow myself to get away with one, but VERY rarely. Am I too rigid? Thoughts?

Okay, next issue: catalexis. I get that catalexis is typically used in trochaic tetrameter and is usually positioned in the final foot (TYger / TYger/ BURNing/BRIGHT), but with a shift in vision couldn't such meter also be read as iambic tetrameter with the catalectic foot in the first position (TY/ger TY/ ger BURN/ing BRIGHT)? It seems less obvious in this line because of the way the words fall, but it works well for other lines of the poem (IN / the FOR/ests OF/the NIGHT). Question is, why would one want to do so? For me, it's just a question of how to use catalexis in Iambic meter. It seems to me if you do so, then the calalectic foot necessarily shifts from the last to the first position. Otherwise, the line ends with two stressed syllables in a row and starts weakly. Compare:

Oh TY / ger TY / ger BURN / ing BRIGHT / RED

to

TY / ger TY / ger BURN / in BRIGHT / ly RED

Anyhoo, that is MY practice, or at least the practice I've been using for the past several years. Thoughts on this would be welcome, also!

Yours,

Tony

p.s. I am going through the busiest period in my life, to date, so have been pretty absent from these forums, except as a "lurker." Sorry not to be more present.

[Susan McLean]

Tony,
I try to play a conversational tone against iambic meter, which means that I use anapests, mid-line trochees, and double iambs relatively often. I also sub in a pyrrhic without a spondee as a promotion on a few occasions and demote the middle stress if I seem to have three stresses in a row. I follow Timothy Steele's idea of relative stress to justify moves like this. Context is everything. If the line reads naturally and I can hear the right number of stresses in a pattern that isn't too disruptive, I go with it. As for catalexis, if the previous line has a hypermetric unstressed syllable, it is perfectly natural, but not obligatory, to start the next line with a stress, either a headless iamb or a trochee.

Susan

[Tony Barnstone]

Hi Susan,

Oh, yes, I'm with you on most of that. Pyrrhics and spondees are fine with me, so long as they are promoted / demoted or working as a double iamb. But would you put a spondee in if it clearly put an extra stress into the line? Would you put a pyrrhic in if it clearly made the line lack a stress?

What substitutions do you find jarring and inelegant?

Thanks!

Tony

[Roger Slater]

"But would you put a spondee in if it clearly put an extra stress into the line? Would you put a pyrrhic in if it clearly made the line lack a stress?"

No, I don't think you'd do that. But I also don't think it's all that easy to find a case where it "clearly" operates the way you describe, since I think a reader attuned to meter will generally "feel" where the beat belongs or doesn't belong, and register the proper demotion/promotion accordingly, if the basic metrical pattern is otherwise established. I think Susan hits the nail on the head when she refers to conversational tone -- it is there in the conversational tone that the identity of this or that beat might be obscured or ignored, since conversational tone is what it spoken in reality, whereas the metrical beat is something that underlies the conversational tone and often corresponds with it but sometimes is just an inertial sort of feeling that serves as an underpinning or counterpoint for the "felt" meter.

I wouldn't automatically disapprove of a line like "aCROSS /the LINE /of STRAIGHT /TREES in / the SNOW" -- there's a tension, to be sure, with the "in" wanting to take a beat, and feeling as if it is taking one (at least to the part of us that is tracking the metrical underpinnings), while "trees" battles to take the emphasis (and probably does so for the part of us that is tracking the conversational tone), and the effect can, in theory and in context, be just the sort of effect that is called for. This kind of thing has to be handled with great skill, of course, and often sounds bad because the skill is lacking, so it's safer to avoid it (as I do), but it's the kind of thing I believe people like Tim Murphy manage to pull off fairly often.

Interesting, of course, but you obviously have a practical handle on all of this in writing your own verse, so it's probably best not to overthink it.

[Maryann Corbett]

Originally Posted by Tony Barnstone

What substitutions do you find jarring and inelegant?

I'll volunteer one: in pentameter, a headless line that begins with a word that does not ordinarily take stress, such as a conjunction or preposition. These bother me even when they're preceded by a line with a feminine ending, and even though some people argue that the feminine ending should signal that the new line starts with a stress. Let me try making up a couplet like that on the fly--

I watched the snowflakes settle in the lamplight
with the sound of carols in the background.

Without fail, I read "with the" as the start of an anapest and end up tripping.

On the larger question--what were you taught about where substitutions are permitted?--very anciently, I was taught that in pentameter, trochaic substitutions are permitted in the first and third feet only. I fell away from that strict observance many years ago. Too many substitutions can certainly muddy the meter, but if a reader can find our five stresses in a pentameter line, I think we might get away with anything. Ciardi would have agreed with me; Nemerov would probably not.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Maryann, email me and I'll send you my little list of Shakespeare's substitutions. Frankly, I think the whole idea that a line of I5 has to have five stresses is very strange.

rsgwynn1@cs.com

[Michael Cantor]

Random thoughts -

My personal rules are that (a) there are no rules, and (b) context is everything. Specific substitutions may or may not work, depending on how strongly meter is established by preceding lines, and the voice of the poem - brisk and conversational, or formal - it can all make a difference.

Personally, I am far more comfortable varying the rhythm - caesuras, breaks, enjambments, dashes - to add life to a poem than in deliberately sliding in substitutions. If a substitution occurs accidentally, and it sounds reasonable (context is key), I'll go with it.

I will sometimes deliberately inject a substitution - even a clinker - to underline something in the poem, to offer an awkward reading to accentuate an awkward moment. Context (did I say that?)

I also find that I tend to be more metrically faithful in rhymed verse, particularly fixed forms, and less so when I am writing blank verse. It just seems to feel right that way - nothing deliberate.

I do use headless lines fairly frequently - sometimes for effect, to start a line a bit more brutally; and sometimes because it follows a feminine line and I almost always follow a feminine ending with a troachaic (or headless, or whatever you want to call it) start, because - well, because my ear thinks that's the natural order of things.

Final point. I get a kick out of these discussions on substitutions because, almost invariably, if I use a substitution - particularly in a fixed form - one or more critters are going to note the metrical anomaly when I workshop

[Bill Carpenter]

Great questions. Open Paradise Lost anywhere and see all kinds of substitutions, though his anapests like yours can usually be read as elisions (an r, an l, or nothing between two vowels).

I think a reversed fourth foot can be fine. Like connecting with a slow pitch. It isolates and emphasizes the last stress.

[Jayne Osborn]

Hi Tony,

Still, I do feel that there are gaps in my education, gap so wide "even two can pass abreast" as it might be.

Make that "four abreast", then, in my case! Pyrrhics, anapests, trochees, catalexis, promoted, demoted, substitutions, headless... complex stuff, this poetry!

I'm intrigued by Maryann's question:
On the larger question--what were you taught about where substitutions are permitted?--very anciently, I was taught that in pentameter, trochaic substitutions are permitted in the first and third feet only.

Taught it to that level? Where? At school? University? I've never been taught anything along these lines but, like you, 'I taught myself from books', and still have to double-check some of the more obscure poetic devices.
(You sound knowledgeable enough about it all, to me, Tony! )

[Maryann Corbett]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

I'm intrigued by Maryann's question:
On the larger question--what were you taught about where substitutions are permitted?--very anciently, I was taught that in pentameter, trochaic substitutions are permitted in the first and third feet only.

Taught it to that level? Where? At school? University?

University, Jayne. I'm recalling a book, one that was a "recommended text" rather than the main text, and mainly a reference, in an honors literature survey. Darn if I can remember which book. Not much help; sorry.