Instead of counting beats or feet, count syllables only. Examples of syllabic verse include the Haiku.
The exercise:
Part 1: Alternate lines of seven and five syllables, two quatrains worth.
Torrential tropical rain
Against my window
I feel a chill in the air
And miss my warm bed
In the afternoon it slows
To a light drizzle
The umbrellas still stay out
The dark clouds remain
Part 2: Two stanzas of verse with the following number of syllables in the successive lines - 3, 6, 1, 4, 8, 4, 1, 6, 3
On my bed
I find short coarse white fur
Cats
Can’t keep them off
Who knows what they trek on my sheets
From the garden
Or
From the wide world outside
What to do…
They do say
Cats are clean animals
And
These born hunters
Keep the roaches and the lizards down
And so I brush
Off
The fur from my sheets and
Pat their heads
This is the last poetry-writing exercise on metre. Moving on to rhyme!
The exercise:
Part 1: Alternate lines of seven and five syllables, two quatrains worth.
Torrential tropical rain
Against my window
I feel a chill in the air
And miss my warm bed
In the afternoon it slows
To a light drizzle
The umbrellas still stay out
The dark clouds remain
Part 2: Two stanzas of verse with the following number of syllables in the successive lines - 3, 6, 1, 4, 8, 4, 1, 6, 3
On my bed
I find short coarse white fur
Cats
Can’t keep them off
Who knows what they trek on my sheets
From the garden
Or
From the wide world outside
What to do…
They do say
Cats are clean animals
And
These born hunters
Keep the roaches and the lizards down
And so I brush
Off
The fur from my sheets and
Pat their heads
This is the last poetry-writing exercise on metre. Moving on to rhyme!
p.s. Due to popular demand please find below one photo of cats on my bed.
I like the poem in Part 2!
ReplyDeleteIf I'd written it this weekend, I'd have referred to Dinky's new habit of pulling my towel off the rail and lying on it :-(
ReplyDeleteHave had to shift the position of the towel. Hopefully he will "forget" this little trick of his.