[AZ Foreman]

Has anyone tried writing English poetry using the Old Latin saturnian meter?

[Douglas G. Brown]

Give us an example or two, and some of us might give it a try.

[Julie Steiner]

I'm pretty sure the answer is no, Alex. Can't say I'm tempted to try it, since most readers of English poetry--including myself--can't even recognize the most popular classical meters, except for dactylic hexameter (when the dactyls aren't too substituted-out) and sapphics (and then only thanks to the shorter fourth line making me take a closer look at the first three). And the saturnian meter seems to have been unpopular even in antiquity.

But I'm open to being convinced that it's been unjustly neglected, if your experiments are successful.

[Orwn Acra]

Just the uranian one.

[AZ Foreman]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

And the saturnian meter seems to have been unpopular even in antiquity.

It was popular, and indeed the norm for poetic composition (including the earliest Latin translation of Homer), before the introduction of Greek meters which completely ousted it.

[Ann Drysdale]

It's hard to look on something as a norm when there appears to be so little consensus as to its actual "identity". Examples seem to vary according to the poet to whom the fragments are credited. Is there a definitive "Saturnian"?

[Skip Dewahl]

Come on, you all want to be the first to crack the mystery saturnian, so, someone supply a textbook example of reasonable length indicating cadence, stress marks and metrics, then, have at it, y'all! Umm, on second thought, that attempt would be slightly easier than getting a selfie with God. Think I'll opt out.