word vs. poetic meter

[29wordsforsnow]

My dear fellow expert poets,

I've found my wits' end. I try to accompany a friend's artwork with some poetic words to hint on what's happening 'outside' his drawing.

For once, I tried to come up with something that has a kind of classic poetic melody. For a happy moment in time I was half sure that I found a trochaic meter, but checking the single words in a dictionary merriam-webster (confirmed by rhymezone) revealed, from my point of view, a very dilettantish attempt. According to merriam-webster - here apostrophe for stressed, comma for unstressed syllable - my lines don't have the steady fall and rise (foot?) of a trochaic meter when strictly looking on the single words:

‘Her ‘ear ‘had ‘caught ‘a ‘si,lent ‘sigh
‘that ‘spoke ‘of ‘banned ,de’si,res
‘her ‘nude,ful ‘skin ‘was ‘hot,ly ‘cooled
‘by ‘breath ‘of ‘close ,de’vou,rers


On the other hand I found something about 'Poetic Meter' from Music Theory Course for Earlham College with examples that show certain words can be stressed(?) differently...Yes, call me a confused amateur now!

Probably mixing even and uneven syllable count plus ending lines with twisted meter isn't really 'classic' too?

So...how bad is it? When concentrating while reciting I hear a melody, but will others too?

Many, many thanks in advance for the insight you share with me.

 

[Piscator]

Your analysis is way above my head but the last line

by ‘breath ‘of ‘close ,de’vou,rers

clunks and to my ear sounds better with

by ‘breath ‘of ‘close, ad’mir,ers

Whatever it is hot and sexy.

But really others here are much better qualified to quantify the word and meter.

 

[champagne1982]

‘her ‘nude,ful ‘skin ‘was ‘hot,ly ‘cooled
How about naked? Nude sends thoughts of being merely unclothed to me,
Whereas naked makes me consider the idea of exposure, even if covered.

 

[Tzara]

My dear fellow expert poets,

I've found my wits' end. I try to accompany a friend's artwork with some poetic words to hint on what's happening 'outside' his drawing.

For once, I tried to come up with something that has a kind of classic poetic melody. For a happy moment in time I was half sure that I found a trochaic meter, but checking the single words in a dictionary merriam-webster (confirmed by rhymezone) revealed, from my point of view, a very dilettantish attempt. According to merriam-webster - here apostrophe for stressed, comma for unstressed syllable - my lines don't have the steady fall and rise (foot?) of a trochaic meter when strictly looking on the single words:

‘Her ‘ear ‘had ‘caught ‘a ‘si,lent ‘sigh
‘that ‘spoke ‘of ‘banned ,de’si,res
‘her ‘nude,ful ‘skin ‘was ‘hot,ly ‘cooled
‘by ‘breath ‘of ‘close ,de’vou,rers


On the other hand I found something about 'Poetic Meter' from Music Theory Course for Earlham College with examples that show certain words can be stressed(?) differently...Yes, call me a confused amateur now!

Probably mixing even and uneven syllable count plus ending lines with twisted meter isn't really 'classic' too?

So...how bad is it? When concentrating while reciting I hear a melody, but will others too?

Many, many thanks in advance for the insight you share with me.

You poem is, to my ear, in common meter--i.e. alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. I would scan it like this:

Her ear / had caught / a si / lent sigh
that spoke / of banned / de·sires
her nude / ful skin / was hot / ly cooled
by breath / of close / de·vourers​

Common meter is, as its name indicates, a commonly used metrical form. Think of the hymn "Amazing Grace," for example, which is also in common meter:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.​

While I think the term refers only (or at least primarily) to the metrical pattern, the ABAB rhyme pattern is usually associated with it as well (as opposed to the related ballad stanza, which is often ABCB, and which doesn't require as strict adherence to the iambic meter).

Trochaic meter, which you mention, is based on a stressed+unstressed foot, the opposite of the iambic foot you are using. A classic example of trochaic meter is Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha":

Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains?​

The first line, for example, scans like this:

Should you / ask me, / whence these / stor·ies?​

Tetrameter, like your first and third lines, but with the stress pattern reversed.

I also strongly second Champie's suggestion of replacing "nudeful" with "naked" though for me it's as much because I don't think "nudeful" is a word--if it is (I couldn't find a dictionary entry for it), it certainly isn't very common.

And I would try to replace "devourers" in the last line. It not only sounds rather clumsy (to sound it as a single syllable, it ends up being really drawn out), it also seems to to suggest (at least to me) a zombie consuming flesh more than a lover's kisses.

My opinion, though. Yours is what counts.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

clunks and to my ear sounds better with

by ‘breath ‘of ‘close, ad’mir,ers[/]

Whatever it is hot and sexy.

‘her ‘nude,ful ‘skin ‘was ‘hot,ly ‘cooled
How about naked? Nude sends thoughts of being merely unclothed to me,
Whereas naked makes me consider the idea of exposure, even if covered.

First, thanks both of you for you quick answers.

I should have added that the poem, at this point, refers to a fully clothed woman that is 'outside' the action - "audience"(?) to some exhibitionists. So both, 'admirers' and 'naked', fit better...unfortunately 'lovers' and 'bare' miss a syllable each.

Thanks & hugs to both of you

 

[29wordsforsnow]

...

I also strongly second Champie's suggestion of replacing "nudeful" with "naked" though for me it's as much because I don't think "nudeful" is a word--if it is (I couldn't find a dictionary entry for it), it certainly isn't very common.

And I would try to replace "devourers" in the last line. It not only sounds rather clumsy (to sound it as a single syllable, it ends up being really drawn out), it also seems to to suggest (at least to me) a zombie consuming flesh more than a lover's kisses.

Thanks, Tzara, especially for the analysis of foot/meter, exactly what I was looking for.

I think I'll return to the desk once more to somehow have 'lovers' and 'bare'...

'Nudeful' was my personal shakespeare'ian moment - yes, I know, don't fiddle with the classics - by the way, legend says, he invented the word 'critic' (Love’s Labour Lost), and more importantly 'undress' (Taming of the Shrew), good guy!

 

[SimonDoom]

I agree completely with Tzara. You've written four lines in iambic, not trochaic, meter. The "feet" consist of two syllables, with the emphasis on the second. The first and third lines have four feet; the second and fourth lines have three.

This is a very common rhyming scheme, often used for comic purposes. When the second and fourth lines end rhyme, as they do in this case, more or less, it's fair to call it iambic septameter. That is, seven two-syllabled feet with the emphasis always on the second syllable.

A classic example is this, from Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking Glass:

The time has come the walrus said
To talk of many things
Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings

Another example is the Ballad of Gilligans's Island, which is somewhat looser in its use of syllables:

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A Tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this mighty ship

In the Gilligan's Island example, it's clearly iambic, but it's loose, because the first and second lines each contain a foot that consists of three syllables -- "and you'll hear" and "of a fate-". Technically, that's sneaking an "anapestic" foot into each line (unstressed, unstressed, and stressed), but it's still fair to call this an example of iambic meter.

You can't figure out the feet and emphasis from a dictionary. You have to write the words on the page and sound them out to get the emphasis right. Tzara scanned your four lines exactly right.

When you've read enough poetry the beat seems obvious, but it's not as obvious at first. Get a stick or object and pretend it's a drum stick and hit something when your ear tells you that you are hitting the downbeat in the poem. If you really try it you'll get the hang of it and see that your poem is definitely iambic, not trochaic.

I like the suggestions you've already had to replace "nudeful" with "naked" and "devourers" with "admirers."

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Thanks for all your help:

Her ear had caught a silent sigh
that spoke of banned desires
the bare skin neck was hotly cooled
by breath of close-by lovers

 

[Tzara]

Thanks for all your help:

Her ear had caught a silent sigh
that spoke of banned desires
the bare skin neck was hotly cooled
by breath of close-by lovers

I think this is a step backwards from the original--my opinion, of course.

Let me first discuss your modification of the last line. The original scanned as:

by breath / of close / de·vourers​

which was, if one (generously) read "devourers" as bisyllabic, kept the metrical pattern true (which assumes "desires" is read as two syllables, more of which in a moment). The revised line now scans as:

by breath / of close- / by lov·ers​

Seven syllables rather than six, and ending on an unstressed syllable. I'm assuming you're sounding your second line as:

that spoke / of banned / de·si·res​

The dictionaries I consulted agreed that "desire" is two syllables, which makes the metrical flow a problem in your revised reading, but even if one assumes you are correct in sounding "desires" as three syllables, that introduces a new problem--the rhyme doesn't work.

In English, rhymes that end on an unstressed syllable are known as "feminine rhymes" (as opposed to the more common "masculine rhymes" where the rhyme ends on a stressed syllable). Don't blame me for the sexist wording, please. But feminine rhymes are also different in that the last two syllables constitute the rhyme, with the penultimate syllable carrying the rhymed sound and the ending syllable being the same between the rhymed words. So "lovers" would rhyme with "hovers" or "covers" or "discovers," or in slant rhymes with "mothers" or even "endeavors," but "desires" is really a stretch. You seem to be rhyming the "si" or "desires" with the "ov" of "lovers," which doesn't work very well. The suggestion someone made of "admirers" would work better as the long I sound in the second syllable matches the long I in "desires," and the endings match, assuming you hear "desires" as three syllables.

Simon said in his post that sometimes the sounding of words in a metrical context are somewhat fluid. So your sounding of "desires" as three syllables is not all that unusual. Here's a Shakespeare quote (from Pericles 1.1.19-21 that sounds the word exactly like that:

Ye gods that made me man, and sway in love,
That have / in·flam'd / de·si / re in / my breast
To taste the fruit of yon celestial tree​

in order to make the line satisfy the metrical requirements of iambic pentameter. Similarly, multiple syllables can be kind of slurred together to fit the meter, as in the famous beginning of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet 2.2.2-3:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is / the east, / and Jul / iet is / the sun.​

So there's a lot of flexibility of how the accents are sounded. I happen to think your choice of "lovers" mucks things up, but that's simply my opinion and advice.

I'm also not crazy about "the bare skin neck," which seems to me redundant, but I'll leave that alone, having probably said too much already.

Anyway, ignore all this if it doesn't work for you.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Yes, my feeling from intoning 'desires' was also it's more a bi-syllable - but m-w had a different opinion...which, in my attempt to adopt the different length of the lines probably 'broke' something.

Thanks for all your help, I try to take care of all the advice in the future.

Meanwhile, I found a co-pilot to steer me through the stormy sea of poetry - so much fun to collaborate! Hope to see you soon in 'A Row Behind'

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Thanks for all your help:

Her ear had caught a silent sigh
that spoke of banned desires
the bare skin neck was hotly cooled
by breath of close-by lovers

Whatever is 'hotly cooled'? To my mind the last word should be 'fires'

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Thanks to everyone for the kind critique and help. It's highly appreciated to get some pointers where I lost track of...sanity(?)...

Whatever is 'hotly cooled'?

I tried to use contradictory words to emphasize certain details, first. In this case, I tried to paint a picture of 'excited breath that, though it's hot, can still cool down her skin, i.e. she's even more excited'.

To my mind the last word should be 'fires'

The first attempt included also those nearby rhymes, which I wanted to give another try as they almost worked in a another poem...

...but with a little help from my friends, primarily by application of leg-wise mechanics to my read-end, I threw all that overboard and, I hope, turned it into a more decent one.

So, once more, thanks for all your precious help, everyone, and to last but not least to everyone who contributed to this.