Exercise 1: Iambic Pentameter
1. Within your reach, a place imbued with light.
2. A huge gold star embedded on your door.
3. Such sleepless nights remembering each line.
4. Behind each smile is fear of lonliness.
Exercise 2: Trochaic Tetrameters
1. Zip and pull your tightest outfit.
2. Reel out that red carpet.
3. One martini, shaken not stirred.
Exercise 3: Dactylic Trimeters
1. Face up to facts, it looks better now.
2. Constant reaction of looking back.
Exercise 4: Anapestic Dimeters
1. Here's my hand, hold me close.
2. Playful truth is not new.
3. It is lust that betrays.
Exercise 5: Quatrain; abab; Iambic pentameters
1. As children, dreams seem such a reality,
Another page out of a fairytale.
We try to see with hope, serenity,
Till truth can find it's way behind the veil.
2. Look back. Just listen. Hear the running feet.
You should know that you're being snapped and chased.
Now quick. Speed up, don't stop and take defeat,
All this to see your nice round face.
Exercise 6: Quatrain; abab; anapestic tetrameter/anapestic trimeter/anapestic tetrameter/anapestic trimeter
1. I see love can be taken just so many times,
But just how many times can you give?
For each script brings a different type of lust crime,
But in acting you have to relive.
2. To be free you must learn from mistakes and your pain,
And from this you will soar up one day.
A bright light and one colourful stage shall remain,
For the girl with the blooming bouquet.
For the girl with the blooming bouquet.
Found this task really challenging. D;
ReplyDelete-crosses fingers-
Hope it's okay.
^^
Dear E.,
ReplyDeleteWell done! I hear you on the 'trickiness' - but 99% of the time your meter is spot on, and also (which is harder of course, but a real achievement) it's not just 'correct' but GOOD writing.
Now, about that 1%!
To my mind, exercises 1 and 4 are no problem.
But for example in Ex. 3 #2:
'CON-stant re- ACT-ion of' are two perfect dactyls, but 'LOOK-ing back' is a bit artificial. It's more likely to be read as an anapest, 'look-ing BACK'.
There are one or two places where you use a 'spondee' instad of the trochee or dactyl. I don't know if you've met that term? It's when there are TWO syllables, BOTH equall stressed. Like, 'high five' We don't say HIGH five, or high FIVE (well, not usually!)
Here's an example i found on the web of a spondee inserted in what is otehrwise a poem in iambic pentameter. The spondee is in teh first two syllables:
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
/ FULL MAN/ ya GLOR/ yous MORN/ ing HAVE/ i SEEN/
/ spondee/ iamb/ iamb/ iamb/ iamb/
Make sense?
So, in Ex. 2, while #1 is spot-on, I think #2 for example actually uses two spondees: REEL OUT that RED CARpet. To make it trochaic tetrameter, you need to put the emphasis on 'THAT', which is a bit artificial! Sound a bit like someone shopping in Home Depot ;o)
In ex. 5, there are two places where it just doesn't add up right:
'reality' - 4 syllables; you would need to read it as 'REE-al-ty'...you need something with that meter, e.g. 'luxury'(LUX-ur-EE). In the final line, you're short a few beats - what you need is something more like 'your niceLY roundED face'.
Well, that's my bit about 'accuracy' of meter... but don't worry, these are just a couple of dodgy spots among what is overall very good. You seem to have a good sound grasp of the techniques.
Additionaly, as I said earlier, a lot of this has a nice ring to it.
Your very first one-liner works particularly well to my mind. It's striking, and seems to open up a sense of dreamlike possibility - if you have the time to spare, why not keep going with it and use it as the first line in a poem? And the last two lines of Ex.6 - great image, and 'blooming bouquet' is marvellous (though I'm afraid you'd have to alter it a little as you can 'wait for' but not 'await for' - it's just 'await'. You could change the second last line to 'is what waits', perhaps?)
Claire
(Wow, that was a long comment!)
Thanks Claire. :)
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate all your comments. And, yes, I fully understand 'spondee' idea. ^^
Shopping for carpets seem like fun! XD But I'll see what I can do to edit it.
You've been a great help!
Eternity.
claire_a should have given you all you need to know, but I'll add my bit too, just in case... :)
ReplyDeleteExercise 1: perfect (apart from your spelling of loneliness!)
Exercise 2: your first line is spot on; your second is one foot too short (plus the whole spondee issue); and your third ends with an iamb.
Exercise 3: Like claire says, it's only the anapest at the end of line 2 that let you down.
Exercise 4: spot on! :)
Exercise 5:
1. Your first two lines don't work - "reality" and "out OF"; but the second two lines = perfect.
2. It's just line 4 which lets the other perfect lines down.
Exercise 6:
1. "lust" doesn't work unstressed, but otherwise excellent.
2. again, "bright" doesn't work unstressed, but the FINAL line is one of the most perfect lines of poetry anywhere on this whole blog! :)