Eratosphere Forums - Metrical Poetry, Free Verse, Fiction, Art, Critique, Discussions Able Muse - a review of poetry, prose and art

Forum Left Top

Notices

Reply
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #11  
Unread 12-14-2001, 12:15 PM
Jan D. Hodge Jan D. Hodge is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Sioux City, IA
Posts: 905
Post

Quote:
Originally posted by ChrisW:
You startle me greatly, old man! I read Hollander's description in Rhyme's Reason and the one in the Hollander and Hecht book -- either I missed this requirement or I forgot it.
Guess it's time to go check out the H and H book again and look.
Sorry, Chris, but of the 73 d-ds in Jiggery-Pokery, (three of which occur in notes), nary a one uses a feminine rhyme, unless one wants to stretch the point and consider this, which occurs in a footnote as a "coarser" variation of one by Hecht, an example:

Higgledy-Piggledy
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Walked round his garden, in-
Toning his vowels,

Paused, then apologized:
"Dicotyledonous
Beans do the windiest
Things to one's bowels!"

--John Hollander

The norm is emphatically monosyllabic rhyme, made more effective by the truncated dactylic lines.

Thanks, Hugh, for the "McWhirtle" ["double anapest"? or "double amphibrach"?], though I can't agree with you that it is "superior" to the d-d. Easier to compose, no doubt, though that doesn't seem to me to be a plus. But more enjoyable to read? Well . . . perhaps by default, since most d-ds simply don't work very well? [Dactylic is certainly the hardest of the standard meters to use effectively in English.]

Speaking of "amphibrachic dimeter," I have an acquaintance who has a gift and a passion for tossing off amphibrachic monometer "sonnets" [i.e. English sonnet rhyme scheme]. Talk about esoteric forms!

And Latin phrases do have a way of screwing up English meter, don't they?

Cheers,
Jan



[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited December 14, 2001).]
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Unread 12-14-2001, 12:26 PM
ChrisW ChrisW is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 1,651
Post

Well, maybe so, but I'd like to find the rule.
And even so, I don't see why one can't extend the concept a bit.
I'd have thought it was less of an extension than eliminating the nonsense word -- which to me seems perfectly fine, though clearly non-standard.
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Unread 12-14-2001, 12:49 PM
Hugh Clary Hugh Clary is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA
Posts: 233
Post


Hey, if Wendy Cope can bend the rules, so can the rest of us! (note line 4)

Emily Dickinson

Higgledy-piggledy
Emily Dickinson
Liked to use dashes
Instead of full stops.

Nowadays, faced with such
Idiosyncrasy,
Critics and editors
Send for the cops.

Reply With Quote
  #14  
Unread 12-14-2001, 01:25 PM
Jan D. Hodge Jan D. Hodge is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Sioux City, IA
Posts: 905
Post

Quote:
Originally posted by Hugh Clary:

Hey, if Wendy Cope can bend the rules, so can the rest of us! (note line 4)

Emily Dickinson

Higgledy-piggledy
Emily Dickinson
Liked to use dashes
Instead of full stops.
Of course we can bend, or break, or even smash to smithereens, the rules--and I say: Full steam ahead! The question is one of (relative) effectiveness, though, and my ear likes the punch of the sudden rhyme leaping from the normative dactyls.

P.S.: Cope's example isn't really a metrical exception at all, but simply a matter of conventional (printed) appearance. The "founding fathers" established the "legitimacy" of hyphenating words at the ends of lines to preserve the (metrical) form, and the cited lines sound, and for H and H would have been written:

Liked to use dashes in-
Stead of full stops.

Yep, they even capitalized the second syllable of the hyphenated word. All a matter of which conventions one accepts, I suppose.

Cheers,
Jan
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Unread 12-14-2001, 02:57 PM
Hugh Clary Hugh Clary is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA
Posts: 233
Post


I dare say you are correct, Jan.

Bruce Newling was kind enough to send me many pages of his McWhirtles. I will rummage around and post a few on a separate thread if I can discover where I stashed them.

Meanwhile, thinking of your friend's "amphibrachic monometer sonnets", how about a DD using the fewest words possible? Incredibly tough to write one that makes any sense, but here is a shot at it:

Varius-Barius
Heliogabalus
Overdiversified
Bachelorhood;

Tri-sexuality's
Characteristically
Ideologically
Misunderstood.

Reply With Quote
  #16  
Unread 12-16-2001, 06:34 PM
Hugh Clary Hugh Clary is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA
Posts: 233
Post


Laughingstock - Gaffingstock
Clark, to be Superman,
Changes his clothing, but
Loses his smarts!

Why in the hell does he
Bassackward-wearingly
Pull up the trouser legs
Lacking his shorts?

Reply With Quote
  #17  
Unread 12-19-2001, 03:44 PM
Hugh Clary Hugh Clary is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA
Posts: 233
Post


Hastily - Pastily
Sextus Tarquinius
Quick on the trigger when
Bedding Lucrece,

Later suspected some
Labiogingival
Efforts at first might have
Saved him some grief.

Reply With Quote
  #18  
Unread 01-16-2002, 07:15 AM
Carol Taylor Carol Taylor is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Houston, TX, USA
Posts: 7,827
Post

Doubly-troubly,
Carol, her Duchessness
pulling a moribund
thread to the top,

hoping to activate
simul-tenaciously
twice-over jeopardy:
post till we drop.


Reply With Quote
  #19  
Unread 01-16-2002, 07:28 AM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: New York
Posts: 16,475
Post

Dactyls are hard for me,
two dactyls harder still;
iambs and anapests
flow in my blood.

Trochees and amphibrachs
vary pentameter
nicely to my tin ear;
dactyls just thud.

Reply With Quote
  #20  
Unread 01-16-2002, 07:41 AM
joyeleonora joyeleonora is offline
New Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Europe
Posts: 48
Post

Sexiest pecksiest
Iain Donnachaidh
drool-worthy sixpack
very nice butt

choose instead of me
superficially
a cradle robbing hussy
that's also a slut

Gabriëlle Joy Eleonora
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump



Forum Right Top
Forum Left Bottom Forum Right Bottom
 
Right Left
Member Login
Forgot password?
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Statistics:
Forum Members: 8,399
Total Threads: 21,840
Total Posts: 270,796
There are 853 users
currently browsing forums.
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Sponsor:
Donate & Support Able Muse / Eratosphere
Forum LeftForum Right
Right Right
Right Bottom Left Right Bottom Right

Hosted by ApplauZ Online