Poet Quest 4

Inspiration

Describe the happiest place on earth or in your mind.

Knowledge

In Quest 1 we learned about feet and for the sake of the drill we used each syllable as a beat. Before we explore deeper caverns—take on later Poet’s Quests, we need to understand more about beats and meter.

Stressed Syllables - The syllables in a word that you say loud and concise. (Typically, a shorter syllable.)

Unstressed Syllables - The syllables you can get away mumbling and people will still be able to understand what you’re saying. (Typically, a longer syllable.)

In iambic pentameter popularized by William Shakespeare it’s easy to see the daDUM repeat five times in his lines.

Iambic - An unstressed beat followed by a stressed beat
Penta - Five (In this case, five repeating iambs.)
Meter - Beats

da - unstressed
DUM - stressed

For example,

u / u / u / u / u /
“Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?”

“Shall” is unstressed while “I” is stressed.
Then we have a two syllable word, “Compare” where the first syllable “com” is unstressed and the second “pare” is stressed.

Encouragement

It takes practice to hear the beats in your own writing but I encourage you to read poetry or verse out loud where you can visualize the “u” and “/” symbols above them. Most likely you will read them correctly as you’ve been capable of beats as long as you have spoken.

It may take practice to use what you already know in your own poetry. Don’t let it discourage you. You’ll learn more than just beats as you read other poet’s compositions.

Challenge

Write a single line about your happiest place on earth in iambic pentameter. That’s five feet (or ten syllables) with the rhythm daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM.

Then, if you’re up for it, share it in the comments or send it to us via carrier pigeon (e-mail) here for feedback.