[John Hutchcraft]

I'd never noticed the syllabic pattern in that one - which, I note, she breaks in the penultimate line . . . which ends on the words "well-done sum." Ha!

Thanks for pointing this out, Janet. I've heard it said, and I agree, that syllabics tend to work best when the count is odd-numbered; otherwise, they fall too easily into iambs, in which case, what's the point of writing syllabics? I think it's interesting that Plath has used a gently undulating arrangement here. I'm not sure it lends all that much to the poem (except in the "well-done sum" line, which is my new favorite thing) but I'd be surprised if it didn't help her pare her lines down.

Though who really knows?

[A. E. Stallings]

I don't understand the argument that syllabics are not also written for the ear or that they would not have "sonics". They can have rhyme, internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance, rhythms of all kinds--though they would tend to eschew "regularly" patterned beats, else they are accentual syllabic. All of the poems I have presented here gain by being read aloud.

Yes, Janet, that Plath looks syllabic to me, alternating 8's and 7's. I think Hughes first "assigned" syllabics to her as an exercise--that is how "Mushrooms" got its start. But "Mushrooms" definitely goes beyond mere exercise.

It seem to me also that "composition aid" will be intrinsic to the outcome of the poem if it is really working, not just a gimmick, just as a sonnet form might be a composition aid, but is also something more than that if it is to be mroe than exercise. I would encourage folks to try syllabics--and probably the best way to start is haiku stanzas--to see what I am talking about. And yes, if you like rhyme, rhyme! And they are probably better on the whole for description than, say, narrative (for whatever reason--at least going by "successful" examples). I could even post a couple of my syllabic poems, if you like, and say something about the composition and how, for me, they work.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Oh, please do. It would be a boon.

[A. E. Stallings]

I'll try to come back to that if there is interest. In the meantime, a blog post by Annie Finch over at Harriet on Moore's "What Are Years":

http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/...does.html#more

[Janet Kenny]

Originally Posted by A. E. Stallings

Yes, Janet, that Plath looks syllabic to me, alternating 8's and 7's. I think Hughes first "assigned" syllabics to her as an exercise--that is how "Mushrooms" got its start. But "Mushrooms" definitely goes beyond mere exercise.

Alicia, the aspect of "You're" that overwhelms me is its spontaneous passion and immediacy. It isn't at all a poem that is bound up in its method.

I did once write rather a lot of syllabic poems. I'll see if I can find any of them.
Janet

[A. E. Stallings]

It's a charming poem, and reminds one how good Plath was on motherhood--and how positive she was capable of being. I imagine the nine-line stanzas (as the nine lines of Metaphors) are a deliberate nod to the months of pregnancy.

Another neat syllabic poem (I like when, as here, syllabics use extreme enjambments, even, say, hyphenating words--lines pushing and breaking at the syllable-count barriers), "Probation," by Averill Curdy in Poetry some years back:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=10

It's in a Moore-ish-like cunningly-rhymed complex stanza form--5,7,6,6,4

[E. Shaun Russell]

I'd really love to see a syllabic "class" here, you know...perhaps at Drills & Amusements? I guess it could be considered a "drill"?

I'm eager to try more with this form, but I'd want a lot of feedback as I worked through it.

[Seree Zohar]

Alicia - please do post yr work and explanation. Curioser and curioser, I get. I'd also love to see a class on this, of Stephen C's or Vanessa Gebbie's format.

[John Hutchcraft]

Originally Posted by A. E. Stallings

I don't understand the argument that syllabics are not also written for the ear or that they would not have "sonics". They can have rhyme, internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance, rhythms of all kinds--though they would tend to eschew "regularly" patterned beats, else they are accentual syllabic. All of the poems I have presented here gain by being read aloud.

Alicia, I don't understand that argument either. Who in their right mind would say that "Fern Hill" is not written for the ear? There's nothing about syllabics that's intrinsically incompatible with the richest sonics.

The assertion I've been making is that "lots of" poems in syllabics are "not necessarily" written for the ear. "Lots of" is imprecise - I suppose I would change that to "at least some." Moore's, for instance, I don't think are written for the ear - though on reflection, that phrase "written for the ear" is imprecise, too. What I mean in Moore's case is that she didn't break the lines so that the reader would "hear" the lineation. This is supported by having heard recordings of Moore having read her work, which she reads as if it were unlineated prose. It still offers a certain amount of aural pleasure, but not because of the end-rhymes.

Anyway. The point is that one can find some poems in syllabics that are richly and obviously "for the ear," and at least some that are not obviously for the ear, and lots in between. The same is true of blank verse, and even rhymed accentual-syllabic verse. Syllabics don't necessarily make verse less "sonic" or more. They're just a way of measuring a line, purely a prosodic scheme, compatible with any number of other choices about how to make a poem.

P.S. I'm not a big fan of "What Are Years?", but I love the way Annie Finch describes the experience of being taken "into the zone" by Moore in a way that doesn't comport with, perhaps, more expected ways of going there, ways that usually involve "the musical part of the brain." Moore's music is very, very weird. The reason I keep harping on her is because I think she represents an approach to syllabics that takes prose, rather than rhymed iambics, as a formal starting place.