A little exercise for you

Hi everyone,

Here’s something to try. The bulk of American verse is comprised of four meters: iambic (da DA), anapestic (da da DA), trochaic (DA da), and dactylic (DA da da).

In your journal, start a list of found meters, something like when we played with found poems some time ago. The examples normally won’t be long but it sharpens the eye (and ear) to pick up patterns of language in prose and it reminds us that what the poet does is harness the natural rhythms of how we speak into shorter, more compact editions. Another nice feature of collecting examples is that you just might find a use for some of them in your own work.

IAMBIC (da DA)
I laughed until I nearly wet myself

ANAPESTIC (da da DA)
Is permission to publish you poetry granted?

TROCHAIC (DA da)
Billy needed water badly

DACTYLIC (DA da da)
Nobody noticed the river was rising

David