[Tim Murphy]

Clive, I don't hear the virtual beat at all, any more than I see dancers freeze after each measure of a waltz. In fact, when I write or read trimeter, I find myself writing and hearing in units of twelve, much like hexameters with an internal rhyme at the caesura. Aha! you will say, Caesura! And caesurae I'm deeply familiar with by having done the Wulf. Do you hear a virtual beat at the end of every dimeter half line in Beowulf, thus making it virtual hexameter, rather than accentual tetrameter? I am baffled.

Terese, Bob's is a wonderful poem, but it ain't trimeter. Bob distinguishes between metrical and non-metrical poems in his Collected by the inclusion or omission of initial caps. There are a lot of lines in this poem which have four beats.

[Mark Allinson]

Tim,

This is valuable advice, thank you.

Maybe it's my exposure to the 17th C., but I have this almost compulsive need to get all the syllables as well as the beats. I do see from your example that the apocopation works to increase energy, but I still resist it. I shall experiment.

The slant rhymes are uncommon for me. I usually chime like a gong, and get weary of folk suggesting I tone it down. I thought I would try for the muted chimes in this for a change. My preference is for full rhyme, and I might take your advice to use it here.

Clive,

You are so right to see the single sentence, it is so obvious now I see it. I will certainly re-punctuate as you suggest, which leaves me with the conjunctions. Again I blame the 17th C, and especially Donne, who holds the record for connectives in English poetry - av of 24/10 lines, where most have 12-18/10.

I thank you for your help.

Fascinating discussion of the "virtual beat."

------------------
Mark Allinson

[Terese Coe]

Tim

Yes, I noticed the tet lines, and the di as well; hmm, you mean Robert calls this free verse?

I hope you're not putting me on.

[A. E. Stallings]

I certainly hear a virtual beat in trimeters, one that is much more marked when 3s are mixed in any combination with 4s (ballad meter or other combo), when you suddenly realize the a 4 is a fully completed 3--i.e., throwing a 4 in with 3s doesn't disturb the rhythm at all. As in Tennyson's Break, Break, Break....

[Tim Murphy]

Alicia, I certainly hear the missing foot in ballad stanza and its variants, but not in pure trimeter. If I as a reader were to pause at line ends, it would destroy the poem I'm reading. Nonetheless, Clive has indicated he would educate me here today!

Terese, yes, it's free verse, and a fine example of how the writer of real formal accomplishment can manipulate its rhythms.

[Henry Quince]

Like Tim, I haven’t been conscious of a “virtual beat” in trimeter. Clive, on that argument — that the ear wants to “round up” the number of beats to an even number — do you hear a ghostly sixth beat at the end of every pentameter line? A ghostly eighth beat in heptameter?

I can certainly understand the point in mixed tet/tri. And I can convince myself I might (perhaps) be hearing the virtual extra beat in trimeter verse that is regularly iambic. But not where the meter is more varied iambic and anapaestic: there the rhythm seems to preclude it.

Tim, pondering your point and Clive’s about weaving longer sentences into trimeter, I embarked on an exercise and found this one coming to me easily in ten minutes last night. Does that show? Will you let me get away with the one off-rhyme?


Endings

There we shall know no hurry
and there an end of strife;
there never a care or worry
will cut like a butcher’s knife,
and never a letter scare us
with death to be confronted,
nor ever a phone call tear us
apart with news unwanted:

there no more will trouble
puncture sweet pleasure’s bubble,
if pleasure indeed can last
when it is we who have passed
and gone for good and all
and others must take the call.


Henry

[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 16, 2004).]

[Tim Murphy]

Henry, I think this is very fine; but again, we do our serious workshopping at Deep End, where you should post this poem if you feel a need to refine it. Puncturing the bubble detracts to my ear from the gravity of the poem, which is very Hardy.

As I survey all the dimeters and trimeters posted at these open mics, I am underwhelmed and reminded just how difficult these tiny measures are to manipulate. There are exceptions: Roger's children's poems are truly superb, and Wendy is in her element. When he has time, Clive will post a scholarly piece on the virtual beat in trimeter. Meantime, I'm interviewing Helen; and we hope to have her aboard this weekend.

[Henry Quince]

Tim, apologies if I’ve done the wrong thing in posting this here. I was under the impression you had invited postings of our own trimeter attempts in this open mic thread, which is full of them. Of course, I understand that you’d like to move on to the next Lariat project now.

Henry

After checking with Tim to see if open-mic posting of trimeter here is still appropriate (it is), here's my offering:


<u>Souvenirs</u>

Bullfight capes from Madrid,
Egyptian busts of stone,
a plastic Indian squid,
two flasks of Scots cologne,
French letters, Belgian beer,
chipped Russian iconettes,
a fresh-hewn stone-age spear,
dried Polish cigarettes,
fine carvings, Chinese ferns,
small clogs from Amsterdam,
Czech candles, Grecian urns,
a model German tram
...are how I spent my cash
in places picturesque.
Where should I put this trash
that home makes so grotesque?



[This message has been edited by Geertjan a.k.a. Fugwozzle (edited June 21, 2004).]

[Tim Murphy]

I told Fugsy that I loved the list and disliked the final quatrain, which he has now edited and improved. I'm still having problems with its syntax, the strain of the inversion and the rather tortured last line. Any suggestions out there?