Poem Template - Explication (Page 3 of 4) in pdf

line is not iambic, but an anapest or dactyl substitution - here is where you need an eraser, for

you must work backwards and forwards to find the substituted foot.

4. After marking off the feet, to determine the kind of foot each is (i.e., where the relative

stress falls), weigh with your ear the relative stress within each foot alone, in isolation from the

others in the line, but do not wrench the reading of that foot from the normal flow of the entire

line. Then mark the stressed syllables with your pencil.

Random points:

iambic verse is most common

trochees are the most often substituted, especially at the beginning of the line

when a two or three syllable word is also a foot, the dictionary will show you how to scan the

foot

the syllables of one word can appear in adjacent feet

anapests appear quite often because the first two syllables are so light and nearly elided that the

foot provides very little departure from an iambic form

meter does not provide the rhythm of a poem, only its base

rhythm is the total play of the speaking voice over the actual (scanned) meter and involves such

things as caesura, balance, antithesis, open and closed couplets, run-on (enjambed) and end-

stopped lines, verse paragraphing

Here are some poems to practice on.

Once by the Pacific

The shattered water made a misty din.

Great waves looked over others coming in,

And thought of doing something to the shore

That water never did to land before.

The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,

Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.

You could not tell, and yet it looked as if

The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,

The cliff in being backed by continent;

It looked as if a night of dark intent

Was coming, and not only a night, an age.

Someone had better be prepared for rage.

There would be more than ocean-water broken

Before God’s last Put out the Light was spoken.

— Robert Frost

Spring and Fall:

to a young child

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Poem Template - Explication Page 3