The Everything Writing Poetry Book (18 page)

Once you have your lists, look at each word. Did you include words with more than one syllable? Did you use a lot of nouns and verbs? You need to be aware of your choices for two main reasons. Not only do these ending words have to rhyme, but, for the most part, they must also fall into the iambic foot pattern. You will be creating masculine or rising rhymes, so the stresses of any polysyllabic words should fall on the last syllable.

Constructing the Lines

Now, try an exercise for creating the lines of a sonnet. Begin by writing a descriptive passage of forty to seventy words. Use your surrounding environment, personal feelings, or a memory for inspiration. Here's an example:

A cloth doll is sitting on the sofa beside me. She has tan flannel skin that is soft to the touch. She is wearing a green felt dress over a yellow felt shirt and red felt booties. She has brown yarn hair tied in a pink flannel bow. She has black bead eyes, brown felt eyebrows, green felt cheeks, and lavender felt lips turned up in a smile
.

The next step is to arrange this passage into lines of ten syllables each. Remember that the sonnet form calls for lines in iambic pentameter, meaning five two-syllable feet. At this point, you do not need to worry about foot patterns or rhymes. Just worry about getting the right number of syllables in the line. Here's how the previous passage looks when set into lines:

A cloth doll is sitting on the sofa
beside me. She has tan flannel skin that
is soft to the touch. She is wearing a
green felt dress over a yellow felt shirt
and red felt booties. She has brown yarn hair
tied in a pink flannel bow. She has black
bead eyes, brown felt eyebrows, pink felt cheeks, and
lavender felt lips turned up in a smile
.

The example passage just happened to have enough syllables to create eight ten-syllable lines. But don't be discouraged if the passage you write does not have a perfect syllable count. When you write a real sonnet, these details will be more important; but this exercise is just for practice. And the more practice, the better. Try this exercise several more times with other descriptions you have written or with passages from books, magazines, or newspapers. The source is not important as long as the passage has fairly concrete details. Once you have done this exercise a number of times, you will notice your passages looking more and more like poems.

Finding Your Footing

The next step is to get used to the iambic foot pattern that dominates the sonnet form. A brief exercise will help you get started on this. First, create two lists: One list should contain single words of two or more syllables that have stress on the last syllable, and the second list should be made up of monosyllabic word pairs in which the second word receives the stress. These words do not have to rhyme.

If you are not sure where the stresses fall, remember the rules of thumb you learned in Chapter 6. Also, listen to your voice as you say the words out loud. With stressed syllables, your voice goes up in pitch and volume, and you pronounce all the letters; with unstressed syllables, your voice goes down in pitch and volume, and you may dampen or omit the vowel sounds. As a last resort, look up the words in the dictionary to discover where their stresses lie. Here's an example:

Iambic Pattern Exercise

lambic Pattern Exercise (continued)

A second exercise for training yourself in meter is a bit more complicated. Start with another forty-to seventy-word description, arrange the words so that ten syllables fall into each line, and then arrange or change the words so that the lines are dominated by the iambic foot pattern. Again, the words don't have to rhyme, and not every foot in each line has to be iambic, but most of the feet must have the unstressed-STRESSED pattern. Recalling the previous passage about the doll, consider the following:

A doll is sitting on the sofa next
to me. Her skin's a flannel tan that's soft
to touch. She wears a green felt dress atop
a yellow felt shirt, and red baby boot-
ies. A pink flannel bow ties down her hair,
the brown yarn strands cut short and neat. Brown felt
eyebrows above her black bead eyes, pink felt
cheeks. Her lavender felt lips curl a smile
.

This time, your passage should have the same number of syllables in each line. But don't worry if it doesn't—if the last line of your earlier draft has fewer than ten syllables, you have space to make changes. Notice that many changes were needed to make this doll passage fit the meter, and it still isn't perfect.

If you scan these lines, you will notice that they aren't all in a perfect iambic pentameter. However, the iamb comes through enough to create a rhythm that works behind the surface beats of each line. Once you have completed this step for yourself, your lines will be in blank verse—unrhymed lines of ten syllables dominated by iambs.

The next step—which is significantly more difficult—is to try to make your lines rhyme. However, if you feel you're not quite ready for this challenge, you can try a simpler exercise to practice with rhyme and meter before returning to your blank verse. Go back to one of your rhyming lists, get another sheet of paper, and write lines of iambic pentameter, placing those rhyming words at the ends. The lines don't have to make sense when you put them together; they just have to obey the rhyme scheme.

About Odes

While the sonnet is an old form, the ode dates back even further. Forms of the ode appeared in ancient Greek plays and were originally sung by the chorus between the scenes. These ode forms involved a three-part structure: the
strophe
, during which the chorus danced to the left; the
antistrophe
, during which the chorus danced to the right; and the
epode
, during which the chorus stood still.

Another form of the ode was performed at public events, such as athletic games. One of the most famous poets of antiquity, Pindar, sang odes to the victors of wrestling matches, chariot races, foot races, and other events. Aside from glorifying the athlete, his family, and his trainer, Pindar was careful to speak highly of the gods and of the athlete's city of origin. Pindar also followed the three-part structure for the ode found in the Greek plays. The lengths of the stanzas and the lines could vary from poem to poem, but usually, within the same poem, the strophe and the antistrophe had the same stanza form and number of lines, while the epode had a different form and number.

The most famous writer of odes in Roman times, Horace, adjusted the form of the poem. He did not follow the older three-part structure but rather used quatrains that contained stricter line lengths and a regular rhyme scheme. Like Pindar, however, Horace continued to exalt the subjects of his poems and make many references to the gods.

The Romantic poets of England, particularly Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley, created masterpieces with new renditions of the ode form. They experimented freely with rhyme schemes, lengths of lines, and lengths of stanzas, and they wrote about objects, people, and places that inspired a contemplative mood. The tone of the ode, as a result, became less overbearing and more refined.

Ode Form

As you have probably surmised, the form of the ode is not nearly as strict as that of the sonnet. Generally speaking, though, the ode should be long enough to be read aloud to an audience, without exceeding a length of about two pages. As far as content, you should offer praise for or a meditation on your subject, whether it's the president of the United States or a caterpillar. For this reason, the ode is usually a lyric, and it can center on imagery, emotion, or argument. Consider the following ode by John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”:

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
    Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
    A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
    Of deities or mortals, or of both,
        In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
    What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
    What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
    Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
        Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
        She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
    Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
    For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
    For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
        For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
        A burning forehead, and a parching tongue
.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
    To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
    And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
    Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
        Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
    Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
        Why thou art desolate, can e'er return
.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
    Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
    Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
    When old age shall this generation waste,
        Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
    Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know
.

You may have noted that the speaker of Keats's poem addresses his subjects directly, sometimes beginning with the word O. This form of direct address, also known as the
vocative
, is a common feature of the ode and may be an element you include in odes of your own.