Exercise 1: Iambic Pentameters
When I look in the mirror I dont see
The person who you think is me
Exercise 2: Trochaic Tetrameters
I dont think that you care
You never seemed to hear
Exercise 3: Dactylic Trimeters
It would be splendidly beautiful.
Exercise 4: Anapestic Dimeters
Basically, I dont care
Exercise 5: Quatrain; abab; iambic pentameters
I have forgotten every single sin
And I have repented all of my own
I found your love letters in the old bin
Perhaps I will pick up my lonely phone..
Exercise 6: Quatrain; abab; anapestic tetrameter/anapestic trimeter/anapestic tetrameter/anapestic trimeter.
Im wrong, Im so wrong, we were never ment to be
When fate tears us apart, try and be strong
Like a sick love song, it is a catastrophe
So I bid you adieu, goodbye and so long.
I think this looks like a very difficult assignment. I remember doing these same types of exercises as a second year university student and thought they were difficult! I know you probably hear this from your teachers, but the more you practice with scansion and meter, the easier it will become.
ReplyDeleteHere your rhythm is a bit erratic. For example, in the first exercise, the first line reads like a combination of iambic and anapestic pentameter, but the second line is perfect. Your dactylic trimeter looks good, too, but then your anapestic dimeter looks dactylic to me.
Poetry is not my forte, but when I had to write poetic lines in school or uni, it helped me to read to myself out loud and put extra emphasis on the accented syllables. And I also write the accent marks over each accented syllable so I can visually see where the emphasis lies.
I hope some of this will help in future poetry writing. Let me know if you have questions!
Hi Punk Rock Princess
ReplyDeleteI agree largely with 'Orange' re ll the meter stuff. I think reading this out loud is a great idea - you will be able to hear the beat of the lines and the pulse of the poem.
Structure-wise, you could develop more of an argument between this couple in verses/excercises 3 and 4, so we can see some of the disagreement that led to their breaking up.
And the 'sin' aspect of verse 5. Perhaps the narrator has forgiven the sins of her ex rather than forgotten them. This would read stronger especially as she then re-reads the old love letters and then thinks about picking up the phone.
Could you not have something stronger than fate tearing them apart as you have in the last verse? How about something more earthy, more human such as two-timing, cheating, whatever? The ending loses power if you stick with fate breaking these two up. After all, it is human behaviour that has caused this split, not fate! Exploring this issue may give you a much stronger final verse.
Hope this helps
ann g
Exercise 1: spot on apart from a missing foot at the end of Line 2 (you need another dee-DUM)
ReplyDeleteExercise 2: Remember that trochaic meter goes DUM-dee DUM-dee DUM-dee etc. (and remember you have a trochaic first name, so if ever you're stuck use that as your beat). So your lines would read:
I dont THINK that YOU care
YOU neVER seemed TO hear
Whereas, said properly, they are perfectly IAMBIC (not trochaic): i DONT think THAT you CARE / you NEver SEEMED to HEAR
Exercise 3: Perfect (but only one attempt?)
Exercise 4: "Basically" is dactylic not anapestic (i.e. BAsically). "I don't care" is a perfect anapest though, so how about: "In a word, I don't care"?
Exercise 5: Right number of syllables, but with several of the wrong sounds stressed.
Line 1: "have" doesn't sound right stressed here;
Line 2 and line 3: you have one iamb, followed by one anapest, followed by one iamb, followed by one anapest ("and I have rePENted ALL of my OWN" ... "i FOUND your love LETters IN the old BIN") - so need some reworking...
Line 4: this is fine, as long as you realise your meaning is affected by stressing "will"; in other words, you are kind of responding to an argument (e.g. "OK then, I bloody well WILL pick it up!)
Exercise 6: "when fate tears us apart" and "so I bid you adieu" are perfectly anapestic - so see if you can spread that rhythm elsewhere in the quatrain.
Good luck with your Task 18 redraft! You see, you ARE getting there. :)
Hey,
ReplyDeleteSorry it's taken me a while to get back to you. Hope some of this can still be useful.
First exercise. Cool image there, and just need an extra couple a syllables for the last line.
Second exercise needs to be trochaic; maybe get a good, strong word to start your poem and go from there.
Third exercise is ace, and very polite : )
Fourth: Bas-ic-cal-ly is four syllable I reckon, but second part is good. I'm sure you'd have got that in another read through.
Fifth. Good opening line. I must stress that I'm finding it hard to count stresses on syllables, so no fret if there's the odd mistake. I know anything you need to do has kind of been covered, so I'll just mention that you have some cool ideas for poetry subjects, in this and in number six. You choose emotive things, and you deal with them well. I'm sure you can iron out metric stuff from the other comments (and they're better than me to be honest) and I'm keen to read your redraft.
Well done, seriously - this isn't easy stuff, and the only way to get better is to throw yourself into it; you've done ace.
Take care,
Andy