Learning Meter #4: Writing with Meter

This article is for: Beginning and Intermediate poets

In previous posts in this series on meter, I’ve covered stressed and unstressed syllables, finding stresses in sentences, and using stresses to find the four main meters in poetry.

Now, at last, we’re on to the exciting part:

How you can actually write using meter

After all I’ve told you about stresses etc. so far, I’d forgive you for feeling that writing with meter is impossibly difficult and you’ll never learn to do it!

But I think I can convince you that actually it’s easier than it seems, and you totally can do it!

How to write a line of iambic pentameter

Let’s suppose you fancy your hand at a bit of blank verse—that is, iambic pentameter that’s unrhymed.

First, a quick recap of what “iambic pentameter” means (and for more on this, see the previous article in the series):

iambic = a repeated pattern of syllables that goes like this: unstressed-stressed
pentameter = this pattern gets repeated 5 times, making 10 syllables in total in the line.

So the finished thing should have a pattern that does like this:

unstressed-stressed | unstressed-stressed | unstressed-stressed | unstressed-stressed | unstressed-stressed .

Now we’re ready to start.

1. Write a sentence—any sentence

To begin with, we don’t think about the meter—we just think about what we want to say in the poem.

So if I wanted to write about the ice that was all over my neighborhood this morning, I might create this sentence

Ice is everywhere, slick and thick, and opaque like ice cream or clear as terror.

2. Scan your sentence

To “scan” means to find where the stressed and unstressed syllables are, as outlined in Lesson #2.

In this case, here’s what I get:

ICE is EV-ry-where, SLICK and THICK, and op-AQUE like ICE cream or CLEAR as TER-ror.

3. Look for places where you’ve already got the pattern you want

I want to do as little work as needed to turn this line into iambic pentameter!

So, I start by looking for places that are already iambic, or close to it:

| op-AQUE | like ICE is there already
| or CLEAR | as TER-ror is almost there—I just have that last unstressed syllable spoiling it.
SLICK | and THICK is hopeful:—two stressed separated by an unstressed syllable
ICE | is EV-ry-where isn’t bad—again I’ve got two stressed separated by an unstressed.

So without intending to, I’ve actually done quite a lot of my work already. Bargain!

And this helps to show us why iambic has been so dominant in English: we often end up writing or speaking it anyway, so it just seems to fit our language rather well.

But there is still work to be done, so it’s time to:

4. Expand the meter by making small changes

OK, so I’ve got some proto-iambic things happening.

If I want to make the line full iambic, I now need to fiddle with the line.

I might need to:

Add words to give extra syllables
Cut words or shorten words to take out syllables
Swap multi-syllable words in or out to get the right syllable count and stress pattern
Move some words around.

Let’s see what I need to do in this line.

At the start, can I add a single unstressed syllable before “Ice,” to start off iambic?

Yup, sure can! A simple “The” would do it. Or more ambitiously, a single-syllable adjective, like “fresh” or “sly.”

Giving me:

Sly ICE | is EV-ry| where, SLICK | and THICK |

That’s looking good!

I just have one problem: the “ry” part of “everywhere” gives me one too many unstressed syllables. How can I remove that syllable?

One option is to look for a two-syllable word that has the stress on the first syllable, like AP-ple. Then I’d have:

Sly ICE | is AP| ple, SLICK | and THICK |

Perfect! Except of course “apple” makes no sense there!!

Dang, I’ll have to find a two-syllable word with that pattern of stress that means something like “everywhere.”

Maybe “total”?

Sly ICE | is TO| tal, SLICK | and THICK |

Nearly there!

Now let’s do

and opAQUE like ICE cream or CLEAR as TERror.

At the start of this part, I have two unstressed syllables before “AQUE.” I need to lose one of them.

Well, do I really need the “and”? I do not! So I can cut it, and get:

Sly ICE | is TO | tal, SLICK | and THICK — | opAQUE |

BINGO! This is line of iambic pentameter.

And that wasn’t too much work, was it?

And I can easily keep it going, just by cutting the word “or” and changing “terror” to the single-syllable “dread”:

like ICE | cream, CLEAR | as DREAD.

So I end up with:

Sly ice is total, slick and thick—opaque
like ice cream, clear as dread.

How this helps you write better poetry

At the end of this process, you’ll have successfully written in meter.

Well done! That by itself is enough to be proud of.

But along the way, you might notice how the use of meter pushes you to be more creative and adventurous with your language.

For example, doesn’t the ice sound more menacing when I said it was “total,” than when it was just “everywhere”?
I also got to give the ice some evil personality, when I added “sly.”
And I also think “dread” sounds stronger than “terror,” because it’s one single, hard syllable.

I made all those choices mainly because of the meter, but the meaning of my poem has also been boosted a lot.

Is it always this slow?

No! The more you do this, the easier it gets.

Eventually, if you practice enough, you’ll even find yourself writing in meter automatically, barely stopping to think about it.

Even if you don’t get that far, you’ll still learn a lot about rhythm and the power of stresses to help you in free verse poems too.

Next: breaking the rules

In the next article, I’ll go over some common ways to break the metrical pattern, so you can avoid making verse that sounds repetitive or mechanical.

Next Steps

Option 1: Do what I did!

Write a sentence that might go in a poem you’re thinking of, or have already started
Choose a meter for it (HINT: iambic is easiest)
Follow my steps above to find what you’ve got, then add syllables, remove syllables, or change words, as needed.

Option 2: Take an existing poem that sounds flat, and see what happens if you make it metrical

Choose a poem (make it short one, for the sake of faster results)
Scan it to see where it has some metrical patterns already
Choose one meter, and expand it throughout the whole poem
See what difference the meter makes to the impact of the poem!