*Exercise 1 was a markup exercise and did not involve the writing of new lines of poetry, so I will not be including it. The same for other exercises from the book which do not involve writing new poetry.
This exercise was intended to be twenty lines of unrhymed, unrelated iambic pentameter. The goal, essentially, is to practice the feel of iambic pentameter to start internalizing the rhythm of the iamb, unstressed-stressed-unstressed-stressed, in sets of five, so five stressed syllables and five unstressed syllables per line. The emphasis is on the alternating stresses, not simply have the right number of syllables. You can have iambic pentameter where the stresses don’t perfectly alternate in this way, but it’s no longer “pure” iambic pentameter, and some of those variations are addressed in the next exercise.
Aside from accidentally turning this into a somewhat connected, stream-of-consciousness set of lines (I will not go so far as to call it a poem), and implementing a bit of a rhyme scheme, the real issue with what my practice here is that I struggled with this notion of stresses. When Fry marks up an existing line of poetry in The Ode Less Travelled, I can follow how he gets the stresses he does, and I would say about 80% of the time I agree with where he puts the stresses. About 80% of the time when I read a line of poetry without markings, I get a decent feel for the stresses being where they ought to be. However, there are definitely exceptions, occasions when I think the stresses should be somewhere different or can’t quite hear them. I can get the syllables right when I write my own lines, but sometimes I don’t get the stresses right, either because I don’t hear them in the right way, or because I forget the focus of the meter is on the stresses, not the syllables.
Fortunately, it seems the practice is productive, since my more recent practice gets closer to the proper stresses, and I’m starting to internalize the difference in feel as I read lines that are in proper iambic pentameter and lines that get the stresses wrong. Hopefully, my eventual practice with weak endings, pyrrhics, and trochees doesn’t undermine that progress.
Metal walls surround me as I ponder
the colors of my kitchen walls and floor,
and how they’ll work with a granite counter,
or the stained wooden cabinets and doors.
As well, I worry about my focus
on job, on school, on projects, and on life.
Attention flutters like starving locusts,
Tasks and talking which could incite some strife.
Perspective’s such an easy thing to preach;
A harder thing by far to keep in mind.
It’s not really how things by time are bleached;
If it were, old faces would not be lined.
Goals and aspirations seem to matter,
But life is not a walk down any road.
Opportunities like coins do scatter;
It’s not enough to do just what we’re told.
Yet what will come, that is what fills my head;
I spin my wheels, but no motion follows.
What’s in my thoughts is not precisely dread.
No more: I’ll wonder not what is allowed.
IGC Publishing 