Hello! I am going to give details on my writing style including literary devices, metrical feet, dactyl and anapaest form and references.
writing in patterns
A meter is a type of writing pattern that is inspired by old traditional poets such as William Shakespeare. Most common meters are iambic pentameter and Tetrameter. They require a foot to be repeated (with Tetrameter being four).
Tetrameter is written with an unstressed and stressed pattern starting with an unstressed syllable (a syllable that you do not emphasize such as RE in redemption).
This is a line from my poem titled “Nova Mathilda”:
The warmth between her pales is fine,
now I’m going to break it down into feet.
– = stressed
u = unstressed
u-/u-/ u-/ u-
in the above detail you can see four feet of unstressed/stressed patterns.
Octameter is a metrical line consisting of eight feet. A “Trochaic” octameter is a stressed/unstressed pattern often associated with octameter.
the following line is from my poem titled “I Introduce to you a Tragedian”:
Sipping, sipping over wines the fairest potions of them all,
When broken up by feet it looks like this:
-u/-u/-u/-u/-u/-u/-u/-/
The last foot can be called a half foot.
These meters were first used by Italian and Greek writers and are now considered outdated by some (not in my eyes however!).
Lastly, there are feet such as dactyl and anapaest. Once you are familiarized with the general use of iambic pentameter and blank verse poetry it will come naturally to you.
Dactylic feet are in a pattern such as this:
-uu =stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.
There by the/ mill in the/ deepest pit,
That is an example of dactylic feet. There is no rhyme or given amount of feet as long as you have the pattern right.
Anapaestic feet are in a pattern such as this:
Uu— = two unstressed syllables followed by three stressed syllables.
In the plentiful/ months of Istanbul/ there be childless seas
That is a metrical line of three anapaest feet.
imagine using all meters in one piece! That would be painfully hard to do even the poorest quality work! I am thankful to have learned from Dave Neilson and Cathy Miller from CW 160-170 in college. They taught us to not only use narrative as if you’re telling a story but to think of poetry like music. Writing music is not much different because you still have to use meters and feet only they’re called time signatures.
I hope you picked up a few thing from this article! Thank you for reading,
Beacon Man
alexthewriterdot 