Best Iamb Poems
i write metric verse therefore iamb.
Today I feel iambic! I would say
of all the meters, I like it the best.
An iamb starts with some soft sound to say
then ev'ry second syllable is stressed.
Trochees likewise, alternate their stresses;
even-numbered syllables are muted.
Nowhere near as popular (my guess is) -
Trochee fans, though, fervently dispute it.
Feet are the units of meter - such fun!
Dactyls have syllables STRESSED/, un-/, and un-.
"T'was the Night Before Christmas" is in Anapest:
that's a foot with three syllables: un-/, un-/, and
STRESSED.
The meter is the pattern of the beats within a line
"Iambic" and "Heptameter" describe this line just fine.
Anapestic Tetrameter: four anapests;
and the best part of THIS lecture series? No tests!
Trimeter has three feet
Tetrameter has just four feet
Pentameter adds one foot, making five
Hexameter adds one: six feet in this beehive
Heptameter has seven feet, but now it's getting late;
and so I'll close with this (you may have guessed):
Octameter has eight!
written 1 July 2023
Is this the world that was so young
and fresh and fair but yesterday?
From leafy bows the robin sung
Is this the world that was so young?
Wild bees upon the clover swung
And grove and field with bloom were gay
Is this the world that was so young
and fresh and fair but yesterday?
Is this the world that was so young
and fresh and fair but yesterday?
Sere leaves beneath our feet are flung
Is this the world that was so young?
As if wild hands spectre wrung
Hither and thither, sobbing, sway
Is this the world that was so young
and fresh and fair but yesterday?
+++
October 9, 2014
Form: Triolet (Iamb Tetrameter)
Dr. Ram Mehta
Second place win
Contest: Structured Forms Iamb Verse III by Giorgio V.
When I was young the broom sage grew so tall
It towered over me, fuzzy tickling
Right there in front of momma harvesting
Harvesting just enough sage for a broom
Broom sage to sweep the hearth clean of debris
A hearth white washed with Georgia kaolin
Nothing to cover the dirty black sooted bricks
In summer even the inside was white washed
Taller now towering over the sage
Whose sick sparse shoots reach up to claim sunlight
Purple hues shimmer in breeze, wait for spring
Renewed to live again, again, again
Like sage cut, fashioned into a hearth broom
Life is short, wears away the youthful joy
Soon the end in sight, retired to kindling
Laid down upon the white washed inside brick
Awaiting morn when a spark will ignite.
A roaring fire will spring forth ablaze
While all the family gathers around
Warmed by the hearth of a happy snug home
Written:December 9, 2015
Definition of Blank Verse
Blank verse is a literary device defined as un-rhyming verse written in iambic pentameter. In poetry and prose, it has a consistent meter with 10 syllables in each line (pentameter); where, unstressed syllables are followed by stressed ones and five of which are stressed but do not rhyme. It is also known as un-rhymed iambic pentameter.
•Blank verse poetry has no fixed number of lines.
•Blank verse can be composed in any kind of meter, such as iamb, trochee, spondee and dactyl
I chose this form because I did not want to rhyme..
Haibun trying to read your mind from afar,
sitting acrostic from you at the bar.
Iamb itching to sit on the stool beside you,
but somebody's sonnet - and I don't think she'll move.
Are we just a couplet of friends having drinks?
Maybe you quintella me what you think.
I feel giddy and dizain without any warning,
and I know I'm going to feel verse in the morning.
But we've been playing footles and it feels so right,
so why not just tanka me home tonight?
Iamb, Trochee, Spondee, Pyrrhic. Do those words have meaning for you? If not, you may find it handy as a poet to learn how to employ at least a few of them. They are names for the most common of the two-syllable feet used in classic poetry forms and many rhymed forms of today (there are other metrical feet used for 3 syllables). Poets can practice to become skilled at any one of them, but often poets are drawn to just a few when they write naturally. Iamb is the one that I prefer. When your words rise and fall in an unstressed to stressed rhythmic pattern, you are using iambic meter. Five feet of these unstressed-stressed syllables is called pentameter. That is why a sonnet is written in Iambic Pentameter. The traditonal sonnet writer uses ten syllables which are divided into five feet of unstressed/stressed syllables.
Here is the way Iamb looks if I show just two-syllable examples: de/TEST, un/LOVED, a/ WORD, go/ HOME. It would sound unnatural to say DEtest, UNloved, A word or GO home. The poet chooses his metrical foot and simply goes with the flow! If I choose to write a triolet, I would use Iambic Tetrameter (8 syllables with 4 feet of Iamb). When you consider all the different combinations of feet and meter, there is much to be learned! You can even mix up types of meter or use them unrhymed! To some poets it comes naturally -no textbook required. I have known free verse poets to say, "I just don't 'hear' it." But a few of those poets practiced and practiced; with time I saw them grow!
For those who want to practice poetry
in such a way to make their poems sing,
Iambic meter is one way to go.
Unstressed, then stressed creates a pleasant flow.
So give your words some musicality.
Keep practicing, and then your skills will grow.
Aug. 5, 2018
Today I’d like to talk to you about how meter plays a part in
how we write a poem and sometimes in how we speak
The above lines, which are not at all poetic, are written in a specific
rhythm, or meter. Go back and read them again. You’ll pick up on
the rhythm: da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, etc. (unaccented syllable,
accented syllable, etc.)
The meter most commonly employed in poetry is iambic pentameter:
An iamb consists of an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable.
“Penta” means five. Therefore, five iambs create the meter called
iambic pentameter. Now, we’ll look at the top two lines again, this
time dividing the words into three lines: 1. Today I’d like to talk to you
about 2. how meter plays a part in how we write 3. a poem and some-
times in how we speak. This plain, literal language is written in the
rhythm used in many poems—iambic pentameter.
Literary examples, followed by everyday language, all in iambic pentameter:
“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall.” (Robert Browning)
My rubber ball went bouncing down the hall! (Yours truly)
*****************************
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (THE Bard)
Let’s stop and buy some gum along the way. (Yours truly)
****************************
Ask me for trochees, dactyls, anapests,
and spondees. All will take me quite a while.
Request tetrameter and trimeter.
Will do! But none of these will make me smile
like writing five neat iambs in each line.
I most enjoy this well-established style.
August 1, 2018
Contest Title: Reads Like Music--Haibun-Look poetry contest
Sponsor: Line Gauthier
In the Beginning was the Word
Just a sound really
A somber echo into the abyss
that kickstarted the whole universe
(was the noise beautiful? was it ugly?
who's to say for sure...
...it was the First)
But it did its job
It filled the eternal silence
Before the wonder and the chaos
(before the peace and the violence)
And the Word was with God
But who was He? (or was it She?)
When did IT step up to the plate
to flip on the Switch
and kiss monotony goodbye?
And pronouns aside...
(we got bigger fish to fry,
believe you me)
...stick all the Hows and Whatifs
where the sun don't shine
I wanna know WHY
WHY it's all here instead of not
WHY instead of infinite space
I see nothing but Your Face:
a world full of splendor,
a world full of ugly
(you have a schedule to keep,
but before you leave,
I just wanna know)
WHY you created me
to long for what I couldn't
to do the things I shouldn't
Odds are equally as good
I could have been anyone else
(that's just not the way
the cookie crumbled)
But I guess I could be grateful
(instead of full of pride ... humbled)
(after all) I'm the only Me
that'll ever be around
(and WHY am I writing this now?)
I should be getting into bed,
instead I let unaswerables fill my head
I should have dreams to chase,
roses to smell,
instead I willingly get tangled in the weeds:
forget about the present,
dabble in the past,
fuss about what hasn't happened yet
I can't see the forest for the trees
(don't know the purpose of You
nor the purpose of Me)
Yet I tear open the Bible
with words to read,
and somehow comfortingly
they come back to Thee
The Word became Flesh
And the Flesh started to speak
syllables
... then seeds
Hims, Hers, Wes
And You and Me
sentences
... then sinew
And quick as a wink, wouldn't you know?
A whole human grew...
..cutting the world in two
No longer just Dark and Light, Day and Night
Now we have what's False
Now we have what's True
...and dwelt among us
giving His Blood
He took your broken-pitiful-self
and said,
"It is Enough."
'Course as a grim teller of tall tales,
(albeit poetic) reasonable rhyming
quasi roundelay I readily admitted to feign
cuz, stringing words together with
pride and prejudice plus
sense and sensibility, jocularity,
and conformity I dissed deign
(spoiler alert) iamb, trochaic,
dactylic, and anapestic metrical reign
jest your ordinary garden variety
dollar short day late dime a dozen
penniless citizen banker Abel and Cain,
yet mine mean mien blithely, daringly,
fatuously, ludicrously, nauseatingly,
pretentiously playfully urbane
many (if not all readers)
will coon sitter
yours truly harmlessly insane,
whose feeble attempts
to wax and wane
oft times falls flat (splat goes Matt)
as if dropped out plane,
without a parachute
instantly recuperating while lain
supine (winded, but...
none the worse) asthma brain
suffers concussion, confusion, contusion
actually, immediately, and unexpectedly
knocked fluent German speaking ability
within germane guy verständlich?
If ye really comprehend
trademark non Turkish gobbledygook
then explain (using
language of least familiarity),
but best to commence
with eye catching hook
impossible mission
apt lit pupils (mine)
to evade even momentarily
riveting, spellbinding,
and transfixing look
courtesy ingenious way
with word ye snook
cored me and took
wind out my sails.
Nor could I breakaway courtesy automobile,
cuz 2009 Hyundai Sonata
would not start... yea for real,
thus finding me ready to yoke
neck (think gibbet) each heel
dangling as body goes limp
blessedly, finally, happily
ridding me of any/all hangups,
one less goo goo gaga born this way
poker face cards for him to deal.
UNGABLUZUM describes this schlemiel!
Its feet are tiny dimeter,
Body, spirit, soul, trimeter,
Would you look at those ears and eyes
Whose tetrameter rhyme defies
Its foot with pentameter toes,
Smelled by monometer nose!
Don’t fret when its iamb voice speaks
Cheerful quatrains for days and weeks.
Stand still while it jabbers spondee,
In stanzas of metered trochee.
Well, my friend, please do not pretend,
Or you’ll cause more stress at the end.
Each verse it speaks is oh, so sweet
For it’s growing Longfellow feet!
Sit back, relax, put on a smile,
You’ve been zapped by a poet’s grandchild!
short-long
iamb song,or
long-short trochaic,taut,
spondaic long,with syllables
slow-slow-
mono
di,tri,tetra
penta,hexa,hepta
octa,which choice numbers for my
metre?
dactyl
and anapestic
with syllables three-
this poetry's a stress to far..
for me !
A good poetry emanates from the heart of the poet, vibrates in its rhythm that resonates in the mind of the reader. The form of poetry has evolved over the years with literary experiments on poetic expressions where the muse weaves tapestry of words. The traditional forms of verse use some kind of rhythmic pattern called meter (meaning ‘measure’ in Greek), a scheme of stressed and unstressed syllables. Each set of such syllables comprises a foot, the building block of meter. The lines of most of English poetry are like garlands that string together the foot, the individual rhythmic unit, the flower. The arrangement of syllables (stressed, unstressed) in these units in lines of a poem may vary, deciding its meter, such as, Iamb (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable), Pyrrhic (2 unstressed syllables), Spondee (2 stressed syllables), Trochee (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable), Anapest (2 unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable), and Dactyl (a stressed syllable followed by 2 unstressed syllables). The length of the line is controlled by the number of feet, giving the metric pattern to the poem, such as, monometer (1 foot), dimeter (2 feet), trimeter (3 feet), tetrameter (4 feet), pentameter (5 feet), hexameter (6 feet) etc. In this basic pattern the rhythm is how the words flow with the meter. Rhythm can be created by repetition of words that flow in metric pattern or by breaking up the flow with longer or shorter lines. A poem is indeed like a river that flows with words in lines rippling in rhythmic pattern.
In the mountains cascades the brook in glee,
water of the foothill river is free,
the feet of banks dancing ripples embrace,
the rhythm of flow wraps the river in grace.
Ripples may come, ripples may go, it flows
to the ocean, placid ocean it goes.
July 19, 2018
(The poem is set in iambic pentameter with rhythmic repetition of words in the last two lines.)
If I were a sonnet poem
A lover would read my proem
she’d recite all my lines
and would stress my end rhymes
and love the syllables iamb.
rhythmic structure of a verse
study of metre prosody
patterns of syllables of types
stressed syllables at regular interval
qualitative
long short short dactyl
long long spondee in dead classics
alexandrine twelve syllables in french
five characters in chinese all rules then
people had lot of time to spare
sequence of feet is a metre too
stressed and unstressed like people
five iambic feet are iambic pentameter
paradise lost and sonnets
trochee is stressed unstressed reverse of iamb then
spondee anapest dactyl amphibrach pyrrhic
metric cousins
iamb in two anapest in three common modern english
unrhymed iambic penta is blank verse
bill and milton liked it rhymed pair of lines in
iambic is heroic couplet now for humor
The Demonic Prince
Demons
The legion of demons
They dwell
In the cold place of hell
Tempt thee
The depth of hell's empty
They're here
For it's time to spread fear
Black crows
Come out of the shadows
They mean
They mean to ruin thee
But who
The demon inside you
Split Couplet Variation:
- Iambic monometer
- Iambic trimeter
Rhyme Scheme:
- Coupled rhyme (AA, BB, CC, etc.)
Keeping Rhythm or Meter:
- The ti-tum rhythm is known as an iamb
- An iamb is a metrical foot
- An iamb is disyllabic
- An iamb has an unstressed syllable on the first sound and a stressed syllable on the second sound
An unstressed syllable sound:
- Lower
- Shorter
- Quieter
A stressed syllable sound:
- Higher
- Longer
- Louder
If the poetic meter of the poetic form is iambic monometer & iambic trimeter:
- Iambic means of or using iambs
- Monometer is a line of verse consisting of one metrical foot
- If an iamb is a metrical foot and the poetic meter is an iambic monometer, then it is simply just one iamb (ti-tum)
- Trimeter is a line of verse consisting of three metrical feet
- Again, if an iamb is a metrical foot and the poetic meter is iambic trimeter, then there are three iambs (ti-tum, ti-tum, ti-tum)
Track: Madchild - Write It Down