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Falling rain
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0 posted 2009-02-20 01:07 PM




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
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1 posted 2009-02-20 04:25 PM


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
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2 posted 2009-02-20 04:51 PM


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
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3 posted 2009-02-20 05:15 PM


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
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4 posted 2009-02-20 08:58 PM


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
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5 posted 2009-02-21 04:25 AM


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 186
Highlands, Scotland.
6 posted 2009-02-21 08:47 AM


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 471
TN
7 posted 2009-03-06 09:06 AM


I love your words and images Zack. The way Moonbeam wrote it out did help it to flow a better tho.
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