Metre (explained using frogs)

Before we get into the specifics of poetic form, it is important to know what metre is: metre is the rhythm of the poem, consisting of patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. Different combinations of these have different names.

The most commonly used one in English poetry is Iambic metre: an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one:

Each pair of unstressed and stressed syllables is called an 'Iambic Foot'.

So, lets have some examples. You may have heard that Shakespeare's plays were mostly written in iambic feet, but not in rhyme - this was called blank verse. Probably the most commonly quoted line as an example of iambic metre is from Richard III: 

'A Horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!' 

It is also the metre used in ballads and sonnets, and all sorts of other things. Basically, iambic feet in English are easy. And they sound good. So you see them all over the place. The most commonly used metre is iambic pentameter - it is found in blank verse, as well as sonnets. This means five iambic feet side by side, like so:

A good hunting ground for iambic feet is Milton's 'Paradise Lost' - here's a bit of Book I:

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, Heavenly Muse, (etc, etc, etc.)

He goes on like that for several thousand lines. Probably not a good place to start if you're not already into reading poetry and/or Christian theology, even if his Devil is rather dashing. But this is a good example of continuous use of iambic feet. Milton takes his rhythm seriously.

The other commonly used measure is the Trochaic Foot, which is just an iambic foot backwards:

Trochaic feet, or trochee, are not quite as common as their iambic cousins, but you still find them in many places. A particularly famous example of trochee is William Blake's 'The Tiger'; in the first stanza, the first three lines are trochaic and the final one is iambic:

TIGER, tiger, burning bright          

In the forests of the night,  

What immortal hand or eye           

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

(William Blake, ‘The Tiger’)

He omits the second syllable of the last trochaic foot, so his metre could be rendered in frogs as follows:

This is, apparently, a common thing to do when using trochee. If you have a burning desire to find out exactly why, look at Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled. It has a very good chapter on metre, because Stephen Fry knows everything. But in terms of the poetic forms I will be talking about in the next few posts, this is all you need to know. 

Summary:

• Some poems have metre
• Iambic feet [unstressed-stressed] are very common
• Five iambic feet in a row is called iambic pentameter
• Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter is called blank verse
• Trochaic feet [stressed-unstressed] are less common but still fabulous

But because useless knowledge is fun, here's some more: (u=unstressed s=stressed)
Anapest - u-u-s
Dactyl - s-u-u
Amphibrach -u-s-u
Pyrric - u-u

You may guess from the names that these originate in ancient Greek poetry (yuck), but they're found in some surprising and entertaining places; take You are Old, Father William by Lewis Carroll: a most amusing use of the anapest.

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "As I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—
Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "And your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

What are poems, anyway?

Lets start from the beginning. Most literature courses split texts into three categories: prose, poetry and drama. This can get confusing, because many plays are written in verse, and sometimes poems are written in prose, so essentially it is all lies. There is literature, and there is prose and verse and drama, but all these categories are porous, which means they are often more trouble than they are worth. Plus literature itself is not very clearly defined, but lets not even open that can of worms (yet). Here is a diagram to help place poetry:

There are some characteristics poems often have: the text is usually divided into lines, giving the poem a fixed shape on the page. Sometimes, these lines rhyme with each other; often this is in a repeating pattern. The poem is also likely to have a particular rhythm. This is not to say that a prose text or a play can't have a rhythm, or the odd rhyme. But in the case of poetry, often these things have a significant effect on the way we read the text, and influence the kind of meaning we extract from it.

Poets also tend to use poetic or literary devices. Again, these are not exclusive to poetry, but they tend to show up a lot more regularly in poems than in anything else. Here are some common ones:

Alliteration: repetition of the same consonant sound

Now the news.   Night raids on
Five cities.   Fires started.
Pressure applied   by pincer movement
In threatening thrust.  (W. H. Auden, 'The Age of Anxiety')

Assonance: repetition of the same vowel sound

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie (Robert Burns, 'To a mouse')

(The trick with both alliteration and assonance is that they refer to the repetition of the sound and not of the letter. In English, because it would have been far too simple otherwise, there are multiple ways of spelling the same sound - a rough ruff, enough stuff, fluffy epiphany, shivering nation....

Rhyme: repetition of the same word-ending

The way was long, the wind was cold,

The Minstrel was infirm and old;

His wither'd cheek, and tresses gray,

Seem'd to have known a better day;

The harp, his sole remaining joy,

Was carried by an orphan boy. (Walter Scott, 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel')

Metaphor: saying one thing but meaning another:

The words in his book wormed off the pages. (Sylvia Plath, 'Suicide off egg rock')

in this example, the subject is losing control of his thoughts, or his thoughts are losing their meaning, as he prepares to commit suicide. There is no book.

Metonymy: using a part to refer to the whole or specific to refer to general

watched my English teacher poke his earwax

with a well-chewed HB and get the class

to join his easy mocking of my essay

where I'd used verdant herbage for green grass.

(Edwin Morgan, 'Seven Decades')

Simile: saying something is like something else

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That’s sweetly play'd in tune. (Robert Burns, 'My Love is Like a Red Red Rose')

Personification: giving human qualities to something that is not human

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name 

(T. S. Eliot, 'The Naming of Cats')

Onomatopoeia: using words that sound like the sound you wish to convey (or inventing words that do). There is a whole poem full of examples:

RUNNING WATER (Onomatopoeia)

water plops into pond

splish-splash downhill

warbling magpies in tree

trilling, melodic thrill

whoosh, passing breeze

flags flutter and flap

frog croaks, bird whistles

babbling bubbles from tap  (By Lee Emmett)

So, now that those basic things have been explained, we can move onto poetic form, and try to establish what the point is in that. But I am rather tired, so that will have to wait till next time.