The Dome by Ron Woodruff (BlueDemon77)
DRY grassland | BROWN, withered | REEDS flowing | SEA-like boughs | BREAK upon | WOODen beach
MEM-or-ies | SPEC-ter like | CROWD the mind | BRINGing past's | TOken mists | Phantom smells
WELLsian | VENture to | VIEW the once | KNOWN shapes of | GRACEful neck | STRETCHing reach
HAND grown cold | CHEST pallor | DRAINED to know | PAIN of loss | HUMan hells
Last Few Words: I tried to parse mentally and then tried checking dictionaries to discern if any of the unstressed syllables got by me. I didn't find anything but I'm still looking for a parsing software to make sure. I went for hexameter. I feel I was as successful as I could be in evoking a mood. Anything that gets me writing this long and thinking this hard about it is an absolute Boon for me. Let me know how I did. Thanks, Ron
Style/Type: Structured: Western
Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft
Comments
I haven't got on to this yet
I haven't got on to this yet but yours looks good - it isn't easy is it? I like your use of language. I'll leave the professional comments to those in the know!
Well done - Looking good.
Love Mand xxxx
Thanks Mand!
I'm iffy in a few places I think, but I researched and tried to find the flow. Parsing is difficult for me on paper; I have to feel the music of the language to know it's right. I'm eager to see how accurately I have done Dactylic Hexameter. It's my first attempt. Trimeter was my previous record (a million years ago back in college). One thing I concentrated on here was to try to do a good poem (imagery, subject matter, plays on words) as well as meeting the constraints of the form. I hope it makes a difference. : )
Ron
AARGH!!!
Everybody appears able to do this except Me.........But I'm gonna do it yet, I'm too stubborn to quit lol..............stan
Hi Stan....
Don't get discouraged. I have no idea of whether my work will be praised or disemboweled. I followed my instinct and the running rhythm TA ta ta throughout, but I may be completely wrong. It is however, not a piece I will be ashamed of whatsoever.
Craft is hard.
Ron
Whaaa ha ah I know what you
Whaaa ha ah I know what you mean - A dactylic hexameter quatrain - That's like speaking another language.
You'll do it Stan! I believe in you!
Mand xxxx
Hi Ron
I am not sure I am right and don't know how Wesley would read this. I wish there is a way to download audio on the site.
For me I find it very hard not to accent words such as grassland, beach, mind, mists and many others.
I'd really like to see how Wesley would parse this.
Wish you the best of luck with this and the anapest
Disembowelled.
The Dome by Ron Woodruff (BlueDemon77)
Dry grass- / land brown, / wi-thered / reeds flo- / wing / sea-like / boughs break / up-on / wooden beach (I'm sorry friend, not a Dactyl among them. The problem EVERYONE has is they take a natural way of speaking and force it into the meter. Before I scan, I read each word as though it were spoken to me in casual conversation... then I place the meter it has demanded upon it. Not the other way around.
MEM-or-ies | SPEC-ter like | CROWD the mind | BRINGing past's | TOken mists | Phantom smells (Now what happened here? Dactyl all the way.)
WELLsian | VENture to | VIEW the once | KNOWN shapes of | GRACEful neck | STRETCHing reach (Again!)
HAND grown cold | CHEST pallor | DRAINED to know | PAIN of loss | HUMan hells
(Huzzah! You do understand. I am satisfied).
Thanks Wesley, I appreciate this workshop a lot
I'm glad I found the correct meter eventually here, but I would be less than satisfied if I weren't to fix the errors in the first line. I, like you, will settle for nothing less than perfect meter. Also, I'm not trying to be precocious by the choice to do hexameter: I wanted the challenge of doing it the way it was often done. I'll submit my correction to this as soon as possible.
Also, since I am having difficulty stopping my mind from imposing a meter that isn't there, do you have any tips or secrets you've learned from your experience with the meter; something, for instance, like the way it seems for the most part that the emphasized words are either noun or verb and the modifiers are more often than not unstressed syllables? The above meter fiasco line would seem to bear that out but it's one sentence and could easily just be coincidental.
Thanks,
Ron
No,
don't out think yourself. You understand the meter. Your assumptions about articles and the like generally working best as unaccented syllables is sound.
I'm about to post my final poem for the workshop. It is written in Dactylic Hexameter. Beginning it was just like always when I attempt this (or Anapest) form.... pulling teeth. However, by the time I was completing the poem the "thing" happened that I was hoping for in this workshop. Playing with the meter throughout this adventure meant that I finished the poem with ease. By the time I had reached the third quatrain I was no longer thinking about it, but rather simply writing poetry in a particular rhythm.
It is what I wished on everyone. Exposure to the meter is the best teacher.
Don't leave this in the workshop.
Take it with you to your poetry always. Make it one of the regular meters you write in and it will write itself.