»
Main Forums
»
Teen Poetry #9
»
Saying Sorry
| Teen Poetry #9 |
|
Saying Sorry |
|
Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois 
|
My body's turning sick As the waves begin to turn I see your tears falling My heart left to get burn I say I'm here for you But I feel so far away I'm caught in between it Trapped within the words I say I'm drowning under all Sinking into the dirt floor Dying to catch my breath My mind oh so unsure Finding hard to speak my mind Answers spoaken in silence Shadows within my soul Filling the gap in distance Good-bye is always hard To just spit all out and say That saying sorry now Isn't gonna let you stay |
||
| © Copyright 2009 Zach Booker-Scott - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
moonbeam
since 2005-12-24
Posts 2356 |
Zach This poem is not free verse, it has a rhyme scheme and unless it follows a metrical pattern it will never sound right. If you want to write rhyming poetry that sounds right then you need to hear the stress patterns of language. That is why you NEED to be able to write metrically (in meter). But you can do it. In fact you are already doing it, because your natural inclination as an English speaker is to write predominantly in iambic rhythm (da DUM). Now all you need to do is to be able to see when you are writing iambically and when not! Easy! Let's look at the poem line by line: My body's turning sick Perfectly iambic (da DUM da DUM) my BOD y's TURN ing SICK da DUM da DUM da DUM As the waves begin to turn Ok this isn't major, but you have an extra syllable in there and it's spoiling the rhythm - "the" At the moment it reads: as the WAVES be GIN to TURN da da DUM da DUM da DUM We just need to lose the "the" to make it: as WAVES be GIN to TURN da DUM da DUM da DUM Perfect now. I see your tears falling Now then the problem with this line is that "falling" as with most words ending in "ing" is stressed on the first syllable. "Ing" is a very week syllable and is unstressed. So falling is FALL ing. Can you hear that? Unfortunately this has the effect of placing the DUM in the wrong place to make it perfectly iambic (as it happens it doesn't sound bad because the way you have written it does actually constitute a permitted exception to perfect iambic patterning, but for the purposes of learning we are shooting for perfect iambic rhythm). So at present you have: i SEE your TEARS FALL ing da DUM da DUM DUM da This is easily fixed however by finding a word or words that do da DUM instead of DUM da. For instance: i SEE your TEARS so BRIGHT da DUM da DUM da DUM My heart left to get burn Right now this can be scanned. my HEART LEFT to get BURN da DUM DUM da da DUM As you can see this doesn't follow the da DUM pattern, nor to be honest does it make grammatical sense. We can fix both of these instantly and easily by making it: my HEART is LEFT to BURN. da DUM da DUM da DUM I say I'm here for you Perfect Iambs !! i SAY i'm HERE for YOU da DUM da DUM da DUM But I feel so far away The one extra syllable "I" messes up this line. Change to: but FEEL so FAR a WAY Perfect now. I'm caught in between it Not so good this one. i'm CAUGHT in be TWEEN it da DUM da da DUM da "Between" is a word with the stress on the second syllable - be TWEEN. You need a word with the stress on the first syllable instead. We could fix it with: i'm CAUGHT be TWEEN it ALL da DUM da DUM da DUM Trapped within the words I say Again you have that pesky extra syllable that's messing things up - "with". Right now it reads: TRAPPED WITH (or with) in the WORDS i SAY This line raises some issues to do with acceptable variations with iambic rhythm. If you were to remove the "with" which is causing a problem and probably could be stressed or unstressed, you would be left with: TRAPPED in the WORDS i SAY DUM da da DUM da DUM I know it's not perfect da DUM because you have a DUM da at the start of the line, but it doesn't read badly and it is in fact what is called a trochaic substitution - a DUM da instead of a da DUM. Not a problem if you don't do it too often. So now we have: My body's turning sick As waves begin to turn I see your tears so bright My heart is left to burn. I say I'm here for you But feel so far away I'm caught between it all Trapped in the words I say. Can you hear how that reads more smoothly? I'll quickly look at the rest and make some changes to make it iambic. Hopefully you can figure out why I did what I did: I'm drowning under all And sinking to the floor Dying to catch my breath My mind oh so unsure So hard to speak my mind In silence answer you Shadows within my soul Fill gaps between us two Good-bye is always hard To spit all out and say That saying sorry now Will never let you stay Hope this helps. M |
||
|
Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois |
That helps oh so much. I finally caught the da, dum pattern. But this also makes it hard to do the syllable patterns and the da, dum patterns. I threw in the falling, the, and with's to keep the even syllable pattern. But now that you went through it and I actually read it all with the da,dum pattern this whole poem is messed up.. GRRRR.. Oh well. I'll just keep both things in mind and try to work on it. Thanks M -Zach When I see your smile, and I know it’s not for me, that’s when I’ll miss you. |
||
|
moonbeam
since 2005-12-24
Posts 2356 |
Humm, I've just responded to you on the other thread Zach  .Don't worry too much about syllables - in any case if you were aiming for 6 7 6 7 - I am not sure that it follows that. What were you aiming for btw? Maybe we'll look at it tomorrow. Take care. M |
||
|
Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois |
6,7,6,7 pattern was my main goal. But I think I messed up on a few. I was sorta in a rush while half way through. So it probably got messed up along the way. Any thoughts M? -Zach When I see your smile, and I know it’s not for me, that’s when I’ll miss you. |
||
|
moonbeam
since 2005-12-24
Posts 2356 |
Yes Zach there were a few errors in the 6 7 6 7. Also you made it hard for yourself by choosing 7 Syllables. This is because da DUM's are in pairs. So think of a 6 syllable line as 3 pairs of da DUM's, as follows: da DUM da DUM da DUM So the next line length up would be 4 pairs of da DUM's da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM Ok so far so good, so here's what you might do if you want to write a poem with varying line lengths: da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM This format actually has a name "Hymnal Stanza". And you can rhyme it as you did in your poem abcb. In other words line 1 has rhyme (a) line two has rhyme (b) line three has rhyme (c) and line 4 has rhyme (b) again. Hence abcb. Lines two and four rhyme. If it had been abac then lines 1 and 3 would've rhymed. Just as a matter of interest Robert Burns's famous poem about the rose is written in the 8 6 8 6 format with abab rhyme: 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 played in tune. Now how about you have a shot at it? Maybe I'll just see if I can rewrite the opening of your poem to give you a start: My body's turning sick with pain As waves begin to turn I see your tears so bright and sad My heart is left to burn. I say I'm here for you my love But feel so far away I'm caught between a yes and no Trapped in the words I say. Do you see that by just adding a couple of words to the longer lines STILL KEEPING THE da DUM PATTERN, the poem has become beautifully balanced and smooth and you have the alternating line lengths that you wanted. It's not magic Zach. You can do it. Have a go! M [This message has been edited by moonbeam (02-21-2009 07:43 AM).] |
||
|
Octave Member
since 2008-07-29
Posts 186Highlands, Scotland. |
Nice poem Zach, i always enjoy reading your stuff. (: Moonbeam, i have never in my life heard of metres in poetry, this has helped me so much. Thank you for opening my eyes to this "rule". |
||
|
GothicCherry Member
since 2008-09-16
Posts 471TN |
I love your words and images Zack. The way Moonbeam wrote it out did help it to flow a better tho. |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
