PART ONE:
1) The mermaid lived in the tropical sea
2) My grandmother bought me a bicycle
3) On saturdays i go to my nans house
4) I like to eat spaghetti bolognese
5) I saw a hippopotamus today
6) My mother reads me a bedtime story
7) The crocodile ate my beautiful shoe
8) The burgular stole my valuable chain
9) I dont care what people think about me
10) Im telling you i saw an alien
11) My camera phone fell in the grimy sea
12) I went on holiday to disneyland
13) I want to buy a yellow pencil case
14) I usually take a bath after school
15) I love to slurp coke in the cinema
16) I love to shop and spend all my cash
17) My little brother is a champion
18) I often felt neglected as a kid
19) I am not prejudice iam a worm
20) I feel proud to be a colourful worm
PART TWO:
What I'd like to eat
I like to eat spaghetti bolognese,
and when i do i throw it on the wall.
Outside the window
Outside my window there stands a small
girl. she weeps and shrieks until her nose turns big.
My body
My hair was whooshing through the
refreshing breeze. Who expected it to be so pretty
A recent dream
I dreamt about that evil and scary
witch again. She died.
Tasks overdue
I often get frustrated with my mum
because she doesnt help me with my tasks.
Hello! This is my first Task as a moderator. It was a pleasure and a privilege to read your work - and I hope that in return my comments are helpful ones!
ReplyDeletePart One:
Overall, you have grasped the iambic pentameter form really well. I especially like the way you make use of variations in pronunciation to your advantage: BURG-uh-LAR (as opposed to BURG-lar), CAM-ra (as opposed to CAM-e-RA), USE-ua-LLY (as opposed to USE-u-AL-ly). It’s a very canny use of rhythm, plus it’s really useful to have stock of words like these that can be manipulated to your advantage.
A few times (numbers 7, 12 & 18) you are short of the ten syllables needed. It’s worthwhile checking back over you work to ensure you have the right amount of syllables, as with just a few alterations these could become lines of iambic pentameter (‘The crocodile ate my shoe and then burped’ is a quick example – I’m sure you could come up with a better one!)
You’ve got a really good grasp of the iambic foot (this is a really handy tool! I’ve been told the iambic foot is the most commonly found foot in poetry because it’s closest to the natural rhythm of real human speech. The rhythm is thus very attractive, especially when read aloud). In fact, there’s only a couple of little niggles as regards to the stresses of your lines. In number 15, ‘drinking’ has to be stressed as drink-ING to fit iambic pentameter. You can just about get away with this, although a more natural stress would be DRINK-ing. In number 20, ‘proud’ is the most important word of the line – as such, maybe that word should be stressed. Could you rephrase 15 & 20 to achieve these things?
Part Two:
This task shows that you really do have a fantastic grip on iambic pentameter – good work! I especially like your use of seemingly simple language in order to show some fiery Italian-style sprit on ‘What I’d like to eat.’ This seeming discrepancy between tone and content makes you sit up and take notice – and raises a smile.
The only line that isn’t perfect in terms of syllables, stress and feet is ‘she was small and ugly with a big nose’. The words that are being stressed to make this into iambic pentameter are often the least important ones in the line: ‘she WAS small AND ug-LY with A big NOSE.’ The words are pushed into a bit of an unnatural rhythm – ug-LY as opposed to UG-ly. Also, one of the useful things about stresses as that they can be used to EMPHASISE the important words. Maybe you could rephrase this line to stress just how small/ugly/big nosed the little girl is?!
As you’ve got such good ownership of iambic pentameter, you could experiment further with caesura and enjambment. The couplets of ‘Outside the window’ and ‘A recent dream’, although enjambed, are not fully dependent on each other for their meaning. ‘I was dreaming about an evil witch. / She was pulling my hair and scratching me’ would still make logical and grammatical sense. The ‘My body’ couplet is end-stopped as well. Try out making your lines more heavily enjambed, so that one doesn’t make sense without the other, and give using caesura a go. I’m sure you’re more than up to the task :)
Part One
ReplyDeleteYou have grasped the basic concepts of iambic footing, which is no easy task! However a couple of times I noticed that the stresses of your syllables fell a little awkwardly. For example, in line 15, as readers we naturally wish to attribute a stress to the word I. However, to fit an iambic meter, we are forced to stress the word am, which makes it sound more like an aggressive response than a statement. (I am drinking coke). Also, that follows on to stress “ing” which is isn’t ideal. Although saying this, it is possible for you to adapt the stresses of the words to your advantage, which I noticed you have done in line 10. “I’m telling you” compliments the alternative stressing of your words, giving more emphasis to your words.
I would also advise to be careful of words that you use, as although they can appear to fit into an iambic footing, they can slip into spondee. For example, the ending three words of line 11 “deep blue sea” are such strong blunt words that they each require emphasis, and therefore, the subsequent accumulation of stressed words pushes your sentence into a spondaic metre.
I find your choice of words very interesting, and was impressed with your brave choice of incorporating longer words into your sentences. It can sometimes be daunting to use longer words when concentrating on stresses, but I feel that you have coped really well. My advice to you is to concentrate on your line length, as that will be an easy way to improve your work. Then just double check where your stresses fall to ensure that you keep up your iambic metre all the way through.
Part Two
It is noticeably harder to work on footing when there are no restrictions upon line length. Even though you are concentrating on the content of the couplets, remember to pay close attention to the meter, as it can easily slip into another footing. A couple of times the stresses fall awkwardly, for example, in “I saw a little girl crying”, the stress falls on “ing”, which is discomforting for the reader. This can be easily rectified by rearranging your words without sacrificing the content. For example, “A little girl was crying outside”.
Generally, I was very impressed with your ideas, and look forward to hearing more from you! I hope my comments have been helpful, let me know if you have any questions. Gina.
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteGreat to read your work. Before I talk about the task itself, I must say you have a good eye for imagery: "I am proud to be a colourful worm" is lovely!
There are a few instances in the task here where the rhythm doesn't quite work, while at other times you've got it pitch-perfect. "I saw a hippopotamus today" and "I'm telling you I saw an alien" are perfectly iambic, as are "I want to buy a yellow pencilcase" and "I felt neglected as a kid". If you read these aloud to yourself, they fit the rhythm without sounding forced - you're not putting unnatural stress on any of the syllables in order to make it fit the rhythm.
The ones which are slightly less successful are generally those which SOUND a little odd when you read them aloud: we read number 16 as "I LOVE to SHOP and SPEND all MY mon-EY" if it's to fit the iambic rhythm, which sounds a little odd. If the word doesn't fit, try playing around with a different one: maybe "I love to shop and spend all of my cash" is a bit more rhythmic.
Very often, it's just a tiny tweak needed in order to make the line iambic. The "Tasks overdue" couplet, for example, could be "I often get frustrated with my mum / because she doesn't help me with my work". That way, it's OFT-en that we read, rather than VER-y.
Really well done, though - you're definitely getting there. My suggestion would be to read aloud what you've written - it always helps me when I know that something isn't quite right, but can't tell what!
Cheers,
Penny
Hello Eyez...or Angel...whichever you prefer to be referred to as.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the first word to come to mind when reading your work is 'fun'. There's a playful chaos about lines that are self-contained not just through being end-stopped, but through being largely unrelated except through the pervading carefree atmosphere. You have basically created a world of different facets which, although disparate, all connect together to create a satisfying whole.
I should also point out that line 19 was the funniest line I have read in a considerable amount of time.
The main problems are the occasional issues with rhythm and stresses which have already been picked up on. You definitely have some work to do on this but I wouldn't worry about it; mastering the technicalities of writing is easier than mastering creative vision, which you don't have a problem with.
For line 15 a possible substitute would be "I like to drink coke in the cinema" as the stress is then on "drink".
Similarly, line 16 could be changed to "I shop until my money is all spent", particularly if you want to use the word "money" as it just won't work as a final word due to the stress being on the penultimate syllable.
Similarly your only problems in part 2 are your stresses, particularly in the middle three couplets. When using words such as "crying", "ugly", "very", "silky", "dreaming", and "pulling", you have a tendency to place the stress on the final syllable (the ING or Y).
Examples of substitutes could be:
"I dreamt about an evil witch again
She always pulls my hair and scratches me"
"My hair is very long, and silky too" (this also gives you an excuse for a caesura)
"A little girl is crying hard outside;
A small and ugly girl with her big nose"
I'm sure you can think of much better substitutes than I did...and if you can't you can always ask the crying little girl outside your window to help you out if she knows anything about poetic technique. Of course I can't condone such sadism but you never know, she may be a latter-day Emily Dickinson.
In any case, I'll finish with another positive, which is that 'What I'd like to eat' is probably your strongest couplet as it links up with line 4, and it reinforces the disparate chaos of the poem. The violent nature of the couplet is both playful and yet possibly somewhat sinister as well, thus suggesting further dimensions to the poem.
In any case, well done and good luck with the next assignment,
Eoghan 'there's nothing wrong with big noses; big noses have character' Lavery
Hey Angeleyez,
ReplyDeletePart One is really fantastic. You've managed to take the iambic rhythm by the lead and some of your lines are lovely.
"I'm telling you i saw an alien" is child-like and fun to imagine, great work. ;)
It would be fantastic to see you grasp a single subject in one of your future tasks. You're obviously in control of the iambic rhythm already, so it would be a challenge to see if you could surround a particular subject at the same time. ^^
Grear work, keep it up.
E.
Hey Everyone,
ReplyDeleteThank You For Pointing Out The Mistakes. I've Edited It.. Hope It's Okay Now..!
Thank You For The Great Advice Aswell. It Has Been Very Useful.
Xx ClOuD xX