Metre

[Achebe]

I find regular meter predictable, infantile, boring....nay, barbaric.
It's challenging to write in regular meter and still not frustrate the reader, but so is swinging your schlong between two neodymium magnets. There are better things to do.
Free verse is the only verse there should be.

[Lizzie]

I like a steady, rolling meter if (1) the language is fresh and not monosyllabic, and (2) there's some nice enjambment going on, and (3) if there's more slant rhyme than perfect rhyme.

I love meter when it's natural and subtle.

I think that Dickenson does well in these respects. I just got a book of Stanley Kunitz, and his meter is so gentle and unassuming; he's such a pleasure to read even if I have no idea what he's on about until the 4th read.

[ellajam]

Ah, but when it's done well enough to disappear and just pull me along without a thought to it it's sublime. It has the appeal of lapping waves, a background steadiness that frees the mind to wander.

It's a tool like any other. There's a difference between a box built by a child, an proficient woodworker or an craftsman/artist. Let's not blame the tool because it's often wielded without finesse.

[CRNDLSM]

All verse is free, free to meter or not.

I tried making up New forms.
A block poem of seven lines
of seven syllables each,
and one line of any length.
Challenging, outside the norm,
generic, easy to find
rhymes for any subject, preach-
y or not, depending what I had to drinketh...

[Leanne]

I find regular meter predictable, infantile, boring....nay, barbaric.
It's challenging to write in regular meter and still not frustrate the reader, but so is swinging your schlong between two neodymium magnets. There are better things to do.
Free verse is the only verse there should be.

I find comments about meter being predictable predictable. There are indeed better things to do, like learning how to write in meter without the assistance of repulsive magnets.

[rayheinrich]

All verse composed of pronounceable words, no matter its constraints, possesses intrinsic meter.
Short syllables, long ones, pauses...
And pressing your lips tightly together doesn't alter this as your brain first perceives a written word as a sequence of sounds (fMRI studies have shown).
Speech is about 200,000 years old and writing 5,000; and you learn to speak/listen years before you learn to write/read.

So, yeah, it's obvious I guess: Life is about dancing.

[RiverNotch]

All verse composed of pronounceable words, no matter its constraints, possesses intrinsic meter.
Short syllables, long ones, pauses...
And pressing your lips tightly together doesn't alter this as your brain first perceives a written word as a sequence of sounds (fMRI studies have shown).
Speech is about 200,000 years old and writing 5,000; and you learn to speak/listen years before you learn to write/read.

So, yeah, it's obvious I guess: Life is about dancing.

I remember watching something on youtube from a channel that had pretty good expositions on sciencey stuff I actually knew about that singing may be the natural condition for most talking animals (eg birds), it's just that, unlike birds, humans can't fly to escape their hunters.

[milo]

I find regular meter predictable, infantile, boring....nay, barbaric.
It's challenging to write in regular meter and still not frustrate the reader, but so is swinging your schlong between two neodymium magnets. There are better things to do.
Free verse is the only verse there should be.

Yah, I don’t like brown socks

[rayheinrich]

Yah, I don’t like brown socks

    Only predictable, infantile, boring....nay, barbaric people don't like brown socks.

[vagabond]

barbaric people don´t like socks at all

[rayheinrich]

barbaric people don´t like socks at all

    People that write don't as well. Socks tend to cause you to slip when you're dancing.
    Most experienced writers own at least two pairs of rubber socks*, sometimes many more (Hemingway).



*Which explains the high incidence of toenail fungus in experienced writers.

[vagabond]

maybe ernest invented them, it only took the world some time to recognize their advantages and marketing to made them broadly available.

[rayheinrich]

maybe ernest invented them, it only took the world some time to recognize their advantages and marketing to made them broadly available.

    A much older invention... humans who lived near trees capable of producing latex were making shoes from it (I think
    that qualifies) well back into the stone age.

    As far as writers go, I have no idea how far that goes back (obviously less than 5,000 years);
    but I do know that Molière was particularly fond of them.


Rubber socks/sandals/shoes were capable of producing regular meter
(and handy for not slipping in the blood of human sacrifice):

“Ancient civilizations in much of Mexico and Central America were making different
grades of rubber 3,000 years before Charles Goodyear "stabilized" the stuff in the
mid-19th century, new research suggests.

The Aztec, Olmec, and Maya of Mesoamerica are known to have made rubber using
natural latex—a milky, sap-like fluid found in some plants. Ancient rubber makers
harvested latex from rubber trees and mixed it with juice from morning glory
vines, which contains a chemical that makes the solidified latex less brittle.

Latex-to-morning glory proportions could be varied to produce soft to medium
to hard rubber.  This more durable rubber might have been used in the Aztec
rubber sandals described by Spanish conquistadors.”

- from article in National Geographic News

[milo]

Yah, I don’t like brown socks

    Only predictable, infantile, boring....nay, barbaric people don't like brown socks.

Since you put it that way perhaps I do like brown socks

[rayheinrich]

Ah, but when it's done well enough to disappear and just pull me along without a thought to it it's sublime. It has the appeal of lapping waves, a background steadiness that frees the mind to wander.

    Like a mom's heartbeat is to a baby.

[rowens]

It's because people's nerves are too impatient, they want to jump over. The soul was solid and balanced any even meter. Now you just want it to split off, the beat at the end of an even footed meter to spread out and spread mayonnaise over the nerve end. To dot some mustard or betteryet hotsauce in it. We have knots, sort of like RD Laing, in our feelings. We want some long psychedelic lines instead of pure african beats. We want some liquor store carwashes in our veins instead of straight hiho hiho to our heart . . .

---

And these straight long lines get fixed. And the beats are a lame. So we keep trying to retalk and fix language in our own way that fits the savage beat. We need some more sophisticated raps, or some divers and deeper higher mayonnaise. -- For Turner Classic Movies, this is LOu COstello ++§€.

[rayheinrich]

It's because people's nerves are too impatient, they want to jump over. The soul was solid and balanced any even meter. Now you just want it to split off, the beat at the end of an even footed meter to spread out and spread mayonnaise over the nerve end. To dot some  mustard or betteryet hotsauce in it. We have knots, sort of like RD Laing, in our feelings. We want some long psychedelic lines instead of pure african beats. We want some liquor store carwashes in our veins instead of straight hiho hiho to our heart . . .

---

And these straight long lines get fixed. And the beats are a lame. So we keep trying to retalk and fix language in our own way that fits the savage beat. We need some more sophisticated raps, or some divers and deeper higher mayonnaise. -- For Turner Classic Movies, this is LOu COstello ++§€.

    Amazing! I remain steadfastly in awe of your beat.

[rowens]

And I'm going to beat my woman until I get satisfied.

We're in poetry discussion, ffs, give it a break. Just because someone likes a post of yours you don't have to make yourself respulsive, deal with it. /mod-ella

---

And I'm going to beat my woman until I get satisfied.

We're in poetry discussion, ffs, give it a break. Just because someone likes a post of yours you don't have to make yourself respulsive, deal with it. /mod-ella

You must not know your Robert Johnson. Basic blues metre.