[jasonhuff]

how about we just start with the first two stanzas of the first poem, "Origami". i realize that i may have been a bit too quick-spoken. i mean i have trouble with meter, so maybe it is my reading of it. either way, this can only help me better understand meter.

the KIDS are GOOD at this. their NIMble FINGers
DOUBle and FOLD and DOUBle FOLD the PAGes,
MAKing MIMetic Icons for ALL Ages.
the FLOOR of the SCHOOL is LITTered with DEAD RINGers:

see, i don't know if i'm reading it right. i'm looking and the only reason i would put any stress on 'this' is because it falls into the right spot in the meter, but then wouldn't that make 'their' just as important? if you stress the one wouldn't you stress the other? but that really isn't something i'd quibble over, something i'd like to hear your opinion on. i've had that question when trying to write in meter. that's three unstressed in a row. and i know that is a problem i had in a recent sonnet. it's the second stanza that just loses me completely.

SONGBIRDS that REALly FLAP their WINGS, RARE CRANES,
BLEACHED bonSAI TREES, PALE GHOULS, TWO kinds of HATS,
DWARF STARS, WHITE ROSes, PERsian COPyCATS,
SMALL PACKet BOATS, WHOLE FLEETS of FLYable PLANES.

i figure the way that those who have mastered meter go on about him, that it's got to be more metrical than the way i read it. so maybe i need help in learning how to read and hear meter better. in the first line is that pesky that and their again. this time they work out right, but if i stress it in the first stanza, wouldn't i stress it here? and how am i to decide whether song or bird gets the stress. just by placement in the line? and right there at the end of the first line, i don't understand why you wouldn't put any stress on rare. line two seems to be stressed from start to finish (i had to look up bonsai, since whenever i hear the word i only hear mr. myagi screaming, bonSAI!, turns out either gets the stress). in fact, i sort of wanted to put some emphais on kinds as well. what doesn't get stressed? how do you decide? placement in the line seems to be it, but then you are throwing away the natural stresses in language and forcing it to fit a predetermined pattern. it's a problem i had throughout the book.

it's things like this that get me all confused about meter. i'm asking an honest question here. i don't understand. so please lets remember that i'm just a student, new to this. i'm really trying to learn.

i read the double exposures, really a clever idea. and i can see how difficult that would be to write successfully.

jason

[jasonhuff]

isn't anyone going to help me understand how to read this? i really did have a problem understanding what to stress and what not to.

thanks
jason

[nyctom]

Hi Jason:

I am no metrical expert, but I read both passages as iambic with an additional syllable on some lines--like fingers. You don't make it easy on yourself though--those are both passages chuckafull with modified and complex nouns, so it is easy to read it a different way. But as Carol has told me, VOCAL stress is not the same as a METICAL BEAT. Ask Carol to explain this when she has time. I would screw it up, but her explanation cleared up a good deal of confusion for me. The meter of a piece is the foundation--it doesn't change, but you can change the vocal stresses. They often act in counterpoint to each other. It makes a passage more rhythmically interesting and keeps it from going all singsongy on you. Williamson likes puns and word games--so it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he also likes to fool around with vocal stress to vary that underlying metical beat pulsing through the lines.

Say it out loud. Luckily I live alone so no one will smirk as I sit here and tap the beat out with a pencil on the desk or say it deliberately singsongy like that Little Rascals' episode. That helps. And Alicia is right: start small--I started with children's poems because unlike Mr. Williamson, they are very simple in their meter (little kids like a strong beat--one reason Dr Suess is a genius). Then read more outloud. Out loud is the important part--you have to HEAR the words in your ear as well as in your head. And, most important, trust your ear. I must admit I haven't done the other thing Tim and his cronies such as Mr. Hecht suggest--memorizing poems. That is because I am basically lazy. LOL. But I can see how it is good advice. If you memorize the poems, it will get into your bloodstream faster. I wouldn't worry about the terminology--learn to hear the beat. If ain't got that beat swingin' it is gonna sound all wrong. The terminology is liable to be confusing. I know I still have to run for the prosody manual for the terms.

Hope that helps. There are tons of threads on this if you go through the archives. Try putting in something like "scansion" or "substitutions" into the search field. I bet you will get back 40-100 threads.

nyctom

[A. E. Stallings]

Jason,

Nyctom is quite right--vocal and metrical stress (despite what some may say) is NOT the same. When vocal and metrical and semantic stress all coincide, over and over, you get sing-song verse. In this trochaic tetrameter (catalectic, as Bob would have me point out), all the stresses coincice:

TY ger, tY ger, BURN ing BRIGHT

If Blake had kept that up through the entire poem, it would be quite annoying. But in the next line we have:

IN the FOR est OF the NIGHT

Where we more more monosyllables, and the prepositions IN and OF are promoted to stressed, though they are small words, and of slightly lesser importance, than, say, nouns or verbs.

Both lines are metrically the same, but to me have very different sounds. Some of what makes the difference in lines is speed, for instance. If there are many unstressed words that are, however, important and full of long vowels or consonants, you get a slow line. If a line is full of small and short syllables (even the stressed ones), and multi-syllabic words that trip off the tongue, the line speeds up. To me that is rhythm, rather than meter.

Re how you scan your sample passages:

the KIDS are GOOD at this. their NIMble FINGers

You only have four stresses here--a problem, since we are in iambic pentameter. THIS, a pronoun and semantically very important, gets a stress also. Remember that, especially in ip, regarding monosyllables, they will tend to be stressed or unstressed simply by a process of alternation, based on what preceds them--unless there is very strong semantic evidence to the contrary (and "the", for instance, is almost never stressed):

the KIDS are GOOD at THIS, their NIM ble FIN gers

This is a line where semantic, vocal, and metrical stress coincide--thus it has a strong pulse and skims along. Also a good opening line, as it is so metrically sure-footed. It sets the beat.

DOUBle and FOLD and DOUBle FOLD the PAGes,

I'd scan the same as you. A trochee for iamb switch in the first foot is such a common variation that it is hardly considered one (and this is one substitution we should be seeing more of on the metrical boards).

MAKing MIMetic Icons for ALL Ages.

Again, the trochee/iamb switch in first foot. Your scansion here is fine--though I might have

MAK ing mi MET ic IC ons FOR all AG es

(Note that, VERY often, prepositions are promoted, despite how we tend to say them in speech. Though your ALL AG es is also perfectly possible, and perhaps closer to speech.)

the FLOOR of the SCHOOL is LITTered with DEAD RINGers:

I'd probably scan that one the same as you--though on some days I might promote "with" slightly and demote "dead." If "dead" is unstressed, though, it is a heavy and emphatic unstressed syllable, slowing the line down.

Now here you have LOTS of heavy UNSTRESSED syllables. That is what is tripping you up.

This is how you scan it, putting in more than five stresses a line sometimes (problematic for pentameter):

SONGBIRDS that REALly FLAP their WINGS, RARE CRANES,
BLEACHED bonSAI TREES, PALE GHOULS, TWO kinds of HATS,
DWARF STARS, WHITE ROSes, PERsian COPyCATS,
SMALL PACKet BOATS, WHOLE FLEETS of FLYable PLANES.

Here is how I "scan" it:

SONG birds that REAL ly FLAP their WINGS rare CRANES
bleached BON sai TREES, pale GHOULS, two KINDS of HATS
(or perhaps TWO kinds of HATS)
dwarf STARS, white ROS es, PER sian COP y CATS
small PACK et BOATS whole FLEETS of FLY ab le PLANES

Personally, for me a spondee (two stressed syllables back to back in one foot), is usually a rhythm, not a meter, thus usually consists of a heavy, slow unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable (also, often, heavy and slow). For me, "bleached" "pale" "dwarf" "white" "small" "whole" are unstressed syllables that are nevertheless very important and slow down how we say the line. Notice, as Steele would point out, that these are also all modifiers, and of slightly less semantic importance than the nouns they modify. Not everyone uses this method--many prefer the traditional Greek feet, and lines with five feet but more or even fewer than five stresses. I think this is confusing for beginners, and that this method--pentameter equals FIVE and ONLY FIVE stresses a line, though employing heavy unstressed syllables--is more pragmatic.

Hope this is of some help.

[jasonhuff]

thanks alicia. i'm going to have to mull over this a little bit, but i think i understand what you are saying. it adds a new level of confusion to meter. but i tend to get more confused when something complicated is explained, then as i sit and think on it for a few hours or few days, it clears up and starts to make sense to me. it's why i don't do a lot of classroom participation. but it makes email and message boards a great forum for me.

i do have steele's book on meter. i suppose i should break it out and start reading it.

jason

[graywyvern]

enjoyed this. a small footnote: the form of the "double
exposure" is not original (thought he may be unaware of
his predecessors)--it is found in various compilations
of wordplay as the Equivoque', & several anonymous
examples must date from either the 18th or the 19th
century.

i will have to say that his are the best i've seen.

According to the Oxford Guide to Word Games (Augarde, 1984):

"The fashion for them is said to have been started by
a French poet appropriately called Cre'tin, who died in
1525..."

& goes on to give one from 1679 in English that reads
Protestant across & Catholic down columnwise.


[This message has been edited by graywyvern (edited December 14, 2001).]

[Tom]

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[This message has been edited by Tom (edited January 30, 2005).]