Metrical pattern of a poem

[lizzytysh]

OMG
I feel like I'm in R2D2 world!
A "trochee tetrameter"!?! DANG. I need to take a poetry class.
Love the technique with the chin and fingers that you suggested, Cate.

[lizzytysh]

So, here I THINK is 'properly' marked for how I THINK I read it [take it for what it's worth... Hint: little]:

The young leaves shiver on their green

Chill, as the broad gray sky exhales

Rough winds, although the time entails

A mellow heat that might have been.


An early visitation from

Recumbent summer, leaping spring

Having sped by, flapped a hot wing

And fled this cold park where we come

No idea how it may or may not align with what others have suggested.

[Cate]

hey - see, I thought that you'd be good at that Lizzy. You're an excellent speller, you probably have a good ear for sound and rhythms.

~~

okay and is S2L3 consequently a trochee tetrameter ?

no, I don't think so (I don't think it's that complicated) tap it out

ha VING| sped BY| flapped A| hot WING

(this could make a good add for KFC)

[lizzytysh]

This is so not easy.

[kenzulu]

hey thanks for your try lizzy,

could you maybe add the feets ? there should be four at each line, right ?

[lizzytysh]

Ha. Thanks, Cate. This is enough to drive you mad. Every time I read it, I want to change something...
and I've NO idea why I have some emphases butted up against each other

I need to go clean my refrigerator.
You know it's bad when I give in to housework calling.

Carry on, Cate .
Marcia!?! Helen!?! Norman!?!

[lizzytysh]

What's a foot, other than the obvious one at the bottom of my leg, kenzulu.
Four at each line? I have NO idea...
Someone[????]

[HelenOE]

What's a foot, other than the obvious one at the bottom of my leg, kenzulu.
Four at each line? I have NO idea...
Someone[????]

A foot is the basic unit of meter. For example, iambic pentameter (the line of a sonnet) is five iambic feet. Each foot is 2 syllables, with the stressed syllable coming second. Here's a Shakespeare line, divided by feet:
"Rough winds/do shake/the dar-/-ling buds/of May"

Tetrameter has four feet to a line. A trochee (adjective form, trochaic) is the opposite of an iamb: a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.

I think one reason we're having trouble with the example poem is that it wants to be iambic (da DUM da DUM) but it has a lot of metrical irregularities. Some of the lines you scanned, I hear this way:

The young leaves shiver on their green

Chill, as the broad gray sky exhales

Rough winds, although the time entails

In this bit, the first and third lines are decently iambic ("on" in the first line wouldn't be emphasized in normal speech, but that's a very minor sin) but the second line forces you either to read the first two syllables (the first foot) as a trochee, preserving the natural speech rhythm, or to read it as an iamb like the rest of the line, giving you an unnatural sing-songy effect. You can get away with a few departures from the metrical pattern of a poem (and I think that's better than twisting the natural speech rhythm out of recognition) but if you do it too often, you lose the beat. It's all a judgment call for the poet.

[lizzytysh]

Thanks for your help on this, too, Helen. When I have more time, I'll return to it. I so much would love to be able to properly analyze, much less write, poetry. Hat off and deep bows to those who do.