Rhythm Lesson 4

Let's Play Footsie

The very first thing I want you to think about in this lesson is the word "tempo." When you hear the word tempo what comes to mind? What is the strongest thought that comes to your mind? If you are like me, that thought is "music." The speed, or lack thereof with which music is played is the perfect example of tempo.

Lets define Rythm
Rythm is an essential element of all poetry. It is the regular or progressive pattern of recurrent accents in the flow of a poem as determined by the arses and theses of the metrical feet, i.e., the rise and fall of stress. The measure of rhythmic quantity is the meter.

Just as the conductor of a symphony orchestra controls the tempo and strength of the music with delicate nuance, the poet controls the pace and force of the poem by manipulating sounds through word selection and arrangement. How can a poetcontrol the tempo of a poem? Theere are several methods that we will discuss in this lesson. Controlling the tempo of your poem is of major importance as to how it is received, and to the message which the poem is meant to relay. This is so importantthat I will reiterate this point immediately. Controlling the tempo of your poem is of major importance as to how it is received, and to the message which the poem is meant to relay.

As we noted in Lesson 3, the line breaks are one way to control the flow and set the mood along with the images presented.  Short, staccato lines generate a sense of dramatic intensity, short lines also give a sense of speed to a stanza while longer lines produce a flowing emotional effect, lending to a slower read stanza.  The structure of the stanza can also have a similar effect.

If the short line were in music it would be played staccato from the Italian past-participle staccare which means to detach from, and the Latin s-ex attaccare which means to attack. When you place these together you get the true idea, the short line would be played fast. In poetry, the short line is read more quickly than a long line."

If the long line were in music it would be played legato from the Italian which literally means tied together which indicates musical notes that are played smoothly, transitioning from note to note with no silence between. In poetry the long line is read in the same way, smoothly from word to word with no silent breaks.

By these definitions you can see that a short line in poetry will be read with faster tempo, and more intensity in the voice, giving the impressionthat this line has much meaning in the over all tone of the poem. The long line in poetry would be read slowly as in a melodic line in a symphany. It would be used in essance to create a peaceful, or soothing effect in a poem. The long line, and the short line are two methods of controlling tempo in a poem.

meter: A measure of rhythmic quantity; the organized succession of groups of syllables at basically regular intervals in a line of poetry, according to definite metrical patterns. In classic Greek and Latin versification, meter depended on the way long and short syllables were arranged to succeed one another, but in Enlish the distinction is between accented and unaccented syllables.The unit of meter is the foot, thus the sub title of the lesson. Metrical lines are named for the constituent foot, and for the number of feet in the line:
Monometer is (1) one metric foot,dimeteris(2) metric feet, trimeter is (3) three metric feet, tetrameter is (4) four metric feet, pentameter is (5) metric feet, hexameter is (6) six metric feet, heptameter is (7) seven metric feet, octameteris(8) eight metric feet; thus a line containing five iambic feet for example, would be called iambic pentameter. Rarely does a line exceed six metric feet.

foot: A unit of rhythm or meter; the division of verse of a group of syllables, one of which is long, or accented.
Example:
The boy / stood on / the burn / ing deck. contains four iambic, metrical feet. The most common poetic feet used in English poetry are the iamb, anapest, trochee, dactyl, and spondee. In classical verse, there are twenty-eight dfferent types of foot.

iamb: or iambus, or iambic: The most common metrical foot in English, German, and Russian verse, and in many other languages as well. It consists of two syllables, a short, or unaccented syllable followed by a long, or accented syllable, as in the example given under foot. I will retype the sentence showing the unstressed syllables in lower case letters, and the stressed syllables in upper case.
"the BOY / stood ON / the BURN / ing DECK."
Another way of looking at the iambic foot is that it is written in the same way that we naturally speak to each other.

accent: the rhythmically significant stress in the articulation of words, giving some syllables more relative prominence than others. In words of two or more syllables, one syllable is almost invariably stressed more strongly than the other two syllables. In one syllable words, the degree of stress normally depends on teir grammatical function. Nouns, verbs, and adjectives are usually given more stress than articles or prepositions. The words in a line of poetry are usually arranged so that the accents occur at regular intervals with the meter defined by the placement of the accents within the foot. Acent should not be construed as emphasis.

Punctuation is another tool the poet uses to manage the pace of the poem.  Commas, periods, colons, and dashes signal the reader to pause briefly and absorb the significance of an image or thought.  By using punctuation, the poet can end a thought in the middle of a line, called “caesura,” or carry a thought over into the next line, called “enjambment.”  The caesura is useful in breaking up the strident cadence of a strict metrical pattern.  Enjambment is often used to create a sense of forward motion in the rhythm of the poem. Just as the words in a poem paint a picture for the reader, punctuation givesebb and flow to the poem, use it correctly, but use it wisely.

Contemporary poets frequently use various forms of internal musical devices to soften the overbearing effect created by the attention-drawing perfect end-rhymes and rigid metrical patterns.
One of the most important devices in establishing musicality in English language poetry is the forming of partial rhymes by using identical vowel sounds, known as assonance.

The repetition of consonant sounds is also an important element in the creation of internal music in poetry.  Alliteration refers to the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of the word (dank, dark, dreary days).  Repetition of consonant sounds that aren’t at the beginning of words is known as consonance.  Words that both begin and end with the same consonant sounds is said to have rich, or full, consonance.  Ending words with a consonant sound is called partial consonance, sometimes also called terminal alliteration (garden, Eden, fallen).

The consonants are considered the “physical” identity of the word, and the vowels are the “spirit,” providing the musical, breathy part of any syllable.  You can usually read a sentence with the vowels left out, but it is the vowels that provide the melody (oo, ee, ah).

These repetitions of sound tie phrases together musically and create a subtler effect than the ordinary end-rhymes.  Poets make conscious use of these devices, selecting every syllable to shape phrases and sentences and establish a particular voice, tone, pace, or shade of meaning.  Repetition and variation are both important in making your poetry flow gracefully.  The poet clusters and disperses the various effects of structure, rhyming and other sound devices to create a rhythm that reinforces the theme of the poem.

A dictionary and a good thesaurus are valuable tools for writers.  The thesaurus is not to be used to find exotic synonyms that you think will make your work sound more eloquent, but to retrieve the whole spectrum of common words that have the meaning and sound you are looking for.

Careful design of the word selection and arrangement, the length and density of each line, and the breakdown of stanzas provide a natural rhythm.  That is, through much toil in search of precise language, experimentation with forming lines and stanzas, and extensive revision, the poet carefully crafts a work that appears natural, authentic, and convincing to the reader.

Discussion Topic:
How important do you think proper punctuation is in the scheme of controlling rhythm in a poem? Be thorough in your answer.

ASSIGNMENT:  Write 12 to 16 lines of poetry about nature, but your poem should be written in iambic tetrameter. Each line will contain eight (8) syllales, four (4) metric feet. (tetrameter) The accent of each line should be:

U - S / U - S / U - S / U - S
u = unstressed
s = stressed