Building Blocks
December was the season of gifting, and boy did I end up getting a lot of building-themed presents for the kids in my life. Whether you’re working with Legos or Minecraft, it’s still popular to make big things out of little things – and then, um, make them into little things again. And then leave legos in the carpet like brightly colored caltrops for people to step on.
This month I wanted to focus on one of those little things for our poetry slam, a building block that’s critical to your ability to write in verse but one that’s rarely seen in isolation: scansion. And what better way to work on scansion than to write a poem entirely dependent on it but with no other rules?
Fortunately, some genius already came up with that idea, and it’s called blank verse.
Blank verse and free verse get mistaken for each other frequently in amateur descriptions, but they’re not the same thing at all. Free verse is exactly that: free. No rules. No rhymes, no meter, no syllable counting, nothing. But blank verse has a rule: there has to be meter. So let’s talk about meter, and about scansion, which is a fancy way of talking about meter.
So, about this “meter” thing
Poetry and music have a lot in common. No, really, they do. At least, poetry with meter has a lot in common with music, which also has a meter. You see where I’m going with this. But where music might be “the blues” or “a waltz,” poetry would be “iambic” (two syllables: unstressed + stressed) or “dactylic” (three syllables: stressed + unstressed + unstressed). Don’t worry; we’re not going to make you memorize all these terms. They’re just a handy shorthand. (There’s a chart down below if you want to know them all, though.)
Another handy shorthand is how to write in metric notation. It’s pretty easy: you only need two things, the u and the / key. A “u” means that a “beat” or syllable is unstressed, and a “/” means that there’s stress on the syllable. What’s stress? Think about saying the word “syllable.” You probably said it “SYL-la-bul” right? SYL is the stressed syllable in syllable. And see how SYL-la-bul is broken into three parts? That means there’s three syllables in syllable. Syllable is starting to look weird right about now, but bear with me. So if we were describing syllable instead of writing it, we’d say “/ u u” because there’s a stressed (loud) syllable followed by two unstressed (quieter) syllables. And now you’ve written the word “syllable” using metric notation.
Let’s listen to a couple types of music, and see if you can distinguish the meter. Listen for the stressed (/) and unstressed (u) beats.
Blues:
Guitar riffs:
Feel the beat: one-TWO-three-FOUR one-TWO-three-FOUR one-TWO-three-FOUR
And in metric notation: u/ u/ u/ u/ u/ u/
Now let’s try it with an actual song. Don’t worry about the lyrics, just feel the beat:
Let the Good Times Roll
Feel it? one-TWO-three-FOUR one-TWO-three-FOUR one-TWO-three-FOUR
Poetic syllables: u/ u/ u/ u/ u/ u/
Waltz:
Chopin: Op. 64 No.2
Feel the beat: ONE-two-three ONE-two-three ONE-two-three ONE-two-three
Poetic syllables: /uu /uu /uu /uu
And again, with lyrics…
Scarborough Fair
Feel the beat: ONE-two-three ONE-two-three ONE-two-three ONE-two-three
Poetic syllables: /uu /uu /uu /uu
Natural rhythms
What does this all have to do with this month’s poetry slam? Well, blank verse is all about making stressed and unstressed syllables fall in a consistent, defined, but natural, pattern.
Read these lines out loud – but whisper the unstressed syllables.
When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me,
“Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree.”
(From: Lemon Tree by Will Holt)
You can clearly hear where the stressed syllables fall. In fact, you can tap your foot as you read along, as though it were a song.
When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me,
“Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree.”
Or:
u/ u/ u/ u/ u/ u/ u/
u/ u/ u/ u/ u/ u/ u/
Now try this stanza of free verse, whispering the unstressed syllables:
I don’t need an Oven here
My Coffee never Cools down.
I tried raisin’ a Lemon Tree
but it just Sank in the Sand.
(From Born in a Desert by Harshath Vidheya)
The rhythm is erratic, irregular. Yes, you could force yourself to read it in trochaic tetrameter – the first line works nicely – but once you hit “cools,” the rhythm goes out the window.
/u /u /u /
u /u /uu /
/u /uu /u /
uuu /u u/ (or possibly u /u /uu /? This line could be read several ways)
Instead of a consistent pattern of syllables, each line is different.
Need a refresher on talking about meter?
For a more in-depth review of scansion, check out our previous posts on blank verse:
But if you don’t have the time or inclination for that, or just need a quick refresher:
When you describe meter in a poem, you’re usually talking about “feet per line.” So you say “I’m writing in [descriptive name of foot] [prefix that says how many feet] meter.”
Here’s a nifty chart that lets you know what the name is for each type of repeated metric foot.
And right here is a chart of the numeral prefixes in English. If you’re not sure whether you’ve put the prefix onto “meter” correctly, you can always do a search for the word you made to see if it’s a real one!
Let’s try it: If your line has five iambs to a line, you’re writing in iambic (that’s the descriptive name) penta (cause five) meter. Iambic pentameter. Boom! You’re Shakespeare!
How do I turn knowing meter into writing a poem?
Now that you know how to talk about meter, let’s talk about writing a poem in meter. Fortunately, “it needs meter” is the only rule you have to adhere to for blank verse, so we can jump right into writing!
At its most basic, blank verse is
- at least two lines
- with matching meter
- but no rhyme,
which means that all you have to do is pick a meter, and you’re off! I’ll often build from one word or phrase that tickles my fancy.
The simplest way:
Pick one metric foot, and write in it. I’m picking iambs, and using iambic pentameter (fancy talk for “five iambs to a line” or “five ‘u/’ pairs to a line”) because that’s my favorite, but you do you!
My meter:
u/ u/ u/ u/ u/
My poem:
I counted seven leaves upon the sill
The wind that brought them promised – but it lied
Once you’ve got two lines down, here are a few ways you can mix it up:
+1 difficulty: Add more lines
This seems easy, but the longer your poem, the harder it gets to make it sound natural. It’s okay to let a sentence break across lines (that’s called enjambment, for folks who like to know technical terms).
Just remember that a line break acts almost like punctuation – it lends a greater weight to the end of the line. Sometimes this has a great effect – it can smooth out the sing-songy nature of repetitive metrical patterns – but sometimes it leaves a word dangling awkwardly. Make sure you’re being deliberate in how you use it.
+2 difficulty: Mix and match
Try lines of three sets (trimeter), four sets (tetrameter), or even more. Or mix and match iambs with anapests or trochees with dactyls – you don’t need to stick to just one type per line. Your metric pattern can be “u/ /uu uu/ u/” if you want! Just make the meter of each line match up with the rest.
The key is to make whichever meter you choose feel natural, which means not forcing the wrong stress on any given syllable. When you’re writing metrical verse, you want to be able to tap your foot, nod your head – whatever it is you do to keep the beat when you’re listening to music.
+3 difficulty: Metric variation
Not every line needs to be the same, but the overall pattern needs to be replicated. Think of the structure of a limerick: lines 1, 2, and 5 all match, and lines 3 and 4 match. You can use the same structure for blank verse, making sure that your meter is consistent for each section.
While it doesn’t quite conform to strict metrical rules, I can’t help but share this non-rhyming limerick by W.S. Gilbert, which should give you an idea of what this might sound like:
There was an old man of St Bees
Who was horribly stung by a wasp.
When they said: “Does it hurt?”
He replied: “No, it doesn’t,
I’m so glad it wasn’t a hornet!”
+4 difficulty: Internal rhymes and alliteration
While blank verse should not have rhyming lines, it’s perfectly acceptable – and can be quite lovely – to play with internal rhymes. In some cases this can be as simple as writing a poem where the FIRST word of each line is the rhyme. Or where a single sound is often repeated (the “oo” or “u” sound is popular and soothing).
Whether you stick to the tried-and-true iambic pentameter for your blank verse or experiment a little, mastering strict scansion will give you a solid foundation for whatever you want to build next.
About the author:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.
