Meter

[om3gag0th666]

How many of you write in meter?

[Godslayer Jillian]

I always try to place rythm in my rhymes. I don't like free verses.

[om3gag0th666]

So I'm going to assume you're familiar with probably one of the most USED meters: iambic.

Whose woods these are I think I know -- Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. [line one]

[Godslayer Jillian]

I can recognize meter, but I don't think I could name the different kinds there are aside from the iambic pentameter. I must ask, meter and rythm are not the same thing, right?

[om3gag0th666]

Well Meter and rhytmn are kind of the same. Let me give you a quick run-over of meter/feet.

an iamb is unstressed-stressed. Such as: the way.

Way is stressed more, you can hear it if you say it out loud.

a trochee, is stressed-unstressed. Ex. Way the.

an anapest is a metrical foot consisting of, unstressed-unstressed-stressed. Ex. but between...

a dactyl is the reverse of an anapest so: Breaking the...

It's based upon syllables, so for instance: A word like, Between would be an entire iambic foot, a word like, Jubilee would be an entire anapest foot since it's last syllable is stressed, albeit jub is secondary stress, a word like imperturbable is also an anapest.

Now onto length, this is easy.

Think prefix:

Monometer
Dimeter
Trimeter
Tetrameter
Pentameter
Hexameter

and so on and so forth, I used to know the rest, but I'd have to check some poetry books I have about.

Then there are other meters that are four syllables long, like major ionics, and minor ionics.

Like: I believe major ionics is a spondee (two stressed) followed by a pyhrric (two unstressed) and the reverse is true for the other.

So, Break into the...major ionic, minor ionic: the machine broke.

Just try reading poetry out loud, you will hear the scansion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansion

Check that out if you want.

[om3gag0th666]

I meant pyrrhic, not pyhrric, I screwed that up big time.

[HumanePain]

This is the best contribution I have seen you make to the site OmegaGoth. Useful reference. (And since the h is silent in pyrrhic, it is easy to misplace. We all make tpyos too. Remember that, like when you see someone use "complement" instead of "compliment", be a little more tolerant.)

[Geisel]

I'm pretty evenly split between writing in meter or free-verse, but for silent reading I prefer free-verse. For reading aloud, I prefer meter.

[DarkHeartedDemoness]

I find that the tone of a metered poem tends to be more sing-song, and when I want that tone for my poem (either ironically or literally) I use meter. When I want a more fragmented poem, I use free verse without a specific meter pattern.

[om3gag0th666]

I like writing in meter, because it is important to me right now, I think once I have done this all perfectly, I will move onto something else.

[Crying_Crimson_Tears]

Sometimes I write in meter, but very rarely. I prefer to write in free verse.

[Born Again]

I tend to write more in free-verse than meter. Although rhyming is pleasant to the ear, I enjoy having my freedom.

Some of my most recent poems portrayed my experimentation with rhyming, but I'm still green to the matter.

Om3gag0th666, the explanation and detail you gave for meter was very profitable as well interesting.

I found that the different syllables in meter help create poems that "flow" by appeasing the aggravation to create suitable words that rhyme.

[om3gag0th666]

Scansion is very difficult, like for instance: A word like I almost is never stressed, but in this example it is:

But I have promises to keep...

Scansion is quite difficult to master, but it's the gravy on the meat for me, I like to use it, eventually it can be done without sounding weird, like Dr.Seuss who wrote in anapestic tetrameter:

I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.
An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent.

He did start that with a trochee though, but it's still cool. Check out Dr.Seuss, he's brilliant.